Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

Ever since I was born, she said aloud, I’ve been carrying this other one inside me. She’s the only one I love, nobody else. There are such things, you know, you can wonder all you want.

Forgive me, but you’re talking drivel, you’ve gone out of your mind.

One can feel this, believe me, I am never alone. It’s been proven scientifically that in the womb one ovum can absorb, digest the other one.

Oh right, that means I’m here not with one woman but with two, obvious, isn’t it, the only thing is I can’t see the other one with the naked eye.

Never, I am always two women; with me, you can never be with one woman, for that you must look for somebody else.

She alternated between using the thread-thin voice of a mischievous, affected little girl bent on embellishing her flowery text, and her natural register, the warm mournful alto; it was as her latter self that she giggled.

This reminds me, you’ll have to meet my two good friends, the man continued, sniffling with a pleasure that surprised him. You’ll love them, at least I’d like you to love them because they’re really good boys.

As if he were consoling the woman by saying, don’t be so afraid of yourself, I am not alone either; the three of us are one. Even though this time he felt that he’d never had and could never have anyone, and that made him feel sorry for himself. His self-pity became his sole consolation.

They both understood themselves; to some extent, they even saw themselves from the outside, but they did not understand each other.

They stared at each other; it would have been good to understand truly and profoundly the subject of their admiration and aversion.

Gyöngyvér instantly tried to lick and with her tongue spoon into her mouth the tears rolling down the man’s face.

To lower her tongue to their source.

At the same time, she saw how distorted, frightening, and coarse the man’s beautiful head had become.

But why are you crying now, really, please tell me.

I don’t know.

Then she began to cry too, she felt so sorry for the man.

At the same time she thought to herself, why did I lie to him, why do I have to lie to him, why must I be such a rotten whore.

I don’t know either, she wailed aloud, maybe because of you, maybe I am lying and I’m really crying for myself, because of me, but I can’t express anything either, nothing, believe me.

Her trembling made it hard for her tongue to find the tears rolling down the man’s distorted face.

Her tongue fluttered, slurped around on his velvety skin pierced with new stubble; she kept on licking, searching for tears.

They were sitting on the wrinkled bedcover, tucked in many layers under their limbs. They yanked at each other but could not budge. Ágost was sitting on his pulled-up legs so as to support the woman with his tight thigh muscles, while his arms were around her shoulders; she had her arms around his neck.

Their torsos did not touch, the woman was trembling and shaking and her breasts with their gigantic nipples shook. Tears and mainly the inner expansion that came with the flow of tears seemed to have loosened up the man a little.

He loosened up enough to try with his tight-skinned full lips to catch the tongue hovering in front of his nose or at least the woman’s trembling lips.

Their bodies slipped over each other; they sought support with their tongues in the hot hollows of each other’s mouth.

The heat, the smoothness, the delicately nuanced aroma of the strange hollow opened another entrance before them.

As the woman kept on trembling and did nothing but tremble, all of her being, everything, trembling with her, evenly and unstoppably.

The man understood the trembling to mean that he could never satisfy this woman; perhaps it was impossible. Parallel to this realization, there appeared to him André Rott’s thin body with its hard long slabs of muscle and sinew, with the dark fountains of hair on his belly and chest. Because Ágost was convinced that with André no woman could ever wind up in such an embarrassing situation. André was the only man Ágost considered better than himself, and therefore wanted to make love to him or at least to find a woman as good as he. No matter how carefully and tenderly he tried to absorb the woman’s frightful trembling with his lips on hers, they could not gain new entrance. Or maybe for once he’ d like to be a woman so he could try out a man like his friend.

They collided painfully; the edges of their teeth clicked comically.

Which would mean that they were trying in vain. They’ll never get to the end of anything.

Maybe if I licked it for her.

André would have done it a long time ago, for sure.

Not in this order either; he would have started with that.

That’s how I’ll do it, I’ll work on her clit. I’d have gotten further if I hadn’t always tried to stick my rotten prick in. André is better because he doesn’t need women at all. He doesn’t need anybody, and every woman is hooked by his indifference.

He doesn’t need to pay attention to himself, André needs no self-discipline, he has no reason to gratify himself.

He held the woman while considering whether he needed the whole circus that would come about with a new relationship, with the proximity of a complete stranger like this.

But no, he could not let the trembling in, just as his musculature would not allow him out anymore. As if he were experiencing the other person’s pains only with his soul.

What does anymore mean.

Never, he thought suddenly.

Women, however voracious or hungry they may be, can sometimes be satisfied. I am one of these satisfying machines, but nobody has ever satisfied me. No reason not to confess that the only time I get a little bit of it is when I make these stupid women scream. That’s the truth. I am sitting in my own jail and I can count, at most, on the fingers of one hand. He found this thought very amusing, but it made him feel even sorrier for himself. As if he realized that not the other person but he was the greatest obstacle to his own existence. He was deeply moved by the thought that he was at the mercy of his own body and, as if this had given him a new idea, perhaps he should share this woman with André.

I’d get my satisfaction while he would take care of her.

Gyöngyvér thrust him away with her tongue, as if she understood every one of his insidious thoughts; she shoved him out while at the same time clinging hard to him.

Something important, I want to tell you something important, she whispered between the man’s lips, articulating clearly in synchrony with her trembles, while their lips and tongues touched again, went on the defense, tried to calm the other, and slurped about.

At times like this, one depends on one’s pores and nerve endings to help understand the other person. And the voice of the other person reaches one more slowly than usual.

It was occurring to him that he was only playing a role, only pretending to be impersonal while André really was impersonal. Soaping each other in the shower, he felt through his fingers no emotions emanating from that hard, stringy male body.

The uric acid poisoned me, Gyöngyvér whispered, I’m sure that’s why I’m shaking, you understand, because the uric acid simply poisoned me.

Where do you get such asinine, idiotic ideas.

I should pee too, you know, take a leak, she added and laughed. Don’t get scared, I’m letting it out now.

Her laughter was ugly, though she retained a warm timbre in her voice.

No, don’t, you’ve gone mad, the man shouted, alarmed.

He shouted as if he were unable to decide whether to give voice to admiration or to dread.

But, but, the woman replied in her deepest register, why shouldn’t I, and the voice she used now needed no support at all.