Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

He made his move to do it, for the first time in his life, in any way possible, and with anyone.

And if it is not I talking to myself in this way, to stop the other one inside from going on this risky adventure, and if I am not the other one either, who has already taken his first step, then what should this stranger be afraid of.

There’s good reason to fear pleasure, because pleasure puts one at the mercy of the other person’s pleasure, leaving both personalities defenseless by entrusting them to each other; however, if there is no I, no self, then there is no need for any persuasion, no need for any restraint.

Pleasure is probably one of God’s nicknames.

And personality is nothing more than a bundle of traits whose rich offering is to be used freely according to one’s needs and fancies. And in that case, it could not possibly have anything to do with that senseless struggle with which the stupid petite bourgeoisie, squeezed between prohibitions and obligations, try to ensure their existence, thereby expelling a certain amount of permanence, stability, and security from their bodies’ archaic reality.

I don’t want and do not need such false security.

As if he were saying that he did not need the rough, uncouth proletarian girls or the prim, lisping young ladies teetering on high heels around whom he had made his obligatory reputation as a skirt chaser. And he needed even less the experience-seeking school and college girls, though they permitted everything and in their great curiosity did many things themselves.

I don’t need them either.

I had no idea what was waiting for me at the bottom of this peculiar dark muteness.

With their interrupted frozen movements, the men stood close to one another.

In a solid line they stood, like somber Roman warriors.

Only their shoulders were visible, the lighter spots of their backs, maybe the arcs of their necks a little bit.

Ordine stat.

For the most part, the deep darkness of the pissoir’s tarred wall swallowed their shapes.

He belonged with them.

They all turn in his direction, heads tugged as if by strings, because they want to see him, who it is who’s come, is he really one of them, perhaps it’s someone whose leaving they’ll have to wait out silently and motionless. But they did not turn away from the tarred wall either, because they were not ready to give up their hard-earned privileged places. First the newcomer had to give evidence of where he belonged. He had to take his place among them. The darkness conveyed something of their movements and intentions but very little of their bodies and faces.

At most, the reflected light from above illuminated the edge of their profiles or skulls.

It wasn’t that there were no barriers between these somber, ready-for-anything men, that they had no inhibitions. On the contrary, at the sight of the newcomer they literally froze into their own inhibitions.

Yet they seemed to have been waiting for him as they would for no one but the Messiah.

Their hungry attention and wild imagination converged on the body of the newcomer. They waited for somebody to free them from their inhibitions so that in their mutual muteness they might make a first move. If at a time like this someone had urinated loudly into the common silence, with his clumsy dribbling he’d have had little hope to claim he belonged among these men. They all pretended they had just finished their business and were only shaking the last drops off their pricks so as not to wet their underpants.

Directly opposite the entrance there was a free space in the otherwise solid lineup.

He could step into it if he had the courage.

That spot had the most light, which is perhaps why it remained empty. The two ends of the lineup vanished in the deep darkness stinking of urine and tar.

That’s where he headed, straight into the darkness where, in the very depth of the night, water was dripping on enamel. He chose the more dangerous place, where he could disappear with the personal shame he felt before men but with his impersonal desires could appear before God.

He hoped that the warm darkness would protect him and in his pleasure he would not have to throw himself on the mercy of others, of anyone.

And then he noticed the giant’s mustached assistant in the lineup, with his big head and tousled hair among the other heads turning toward him. Unlike the others, the assistant turned somewhat with his body too, simultaneously presenting, as it were, the emblem of his cock.

The assistant had no doubt he belonged among these men.

He considered his cock as the last argument, in case I still hadn’t made up my mind. After all, one must decide how to shape one’s life. To see the emblem was like seeing an old friend.

And seeing it, icy, fiery dread coursed through him like homesickness; if things were going this well, then the tar-smelling giant with his hammerlike head and the high bare nape of his neck must also be in here somewhere.

The man with whom, he still hoped, he might spend the rest of his life.

He’d fallen in love with this man and was ready to do anything for this love, to step across the boundaries of his own person if need be, or even across the shadow of the gods.

It does not take long for one’s eyes to get used to darkness. He now noticed for the first time that the giant was indeed there, his legs spread casually apart in his insanely relaxed mood, his loosened worker’s pants fallen over his ankles, right next to the vacant spot in the lineup that would be so easy to step into.

The vacant place is his.

He had never been granted such good fortune. As if after long and arduous research he had just discovered an unknown element that, look at the miracle, people, fit perfectly into Mendeleyev’s periodic table. The marvelous giant’s suddenly flashing smile with his wetly glittering teeth illuminated the stinking darkness.

It was a summons, come on, a raw, animal promise of his goodness, a down payment, but at the same time he was exuding an ominous cold, the icy breeze of madness, because the summons meant that you could not avoid your fate in this snare.

Just by looking at this man, I knew I’d walked into a trap. That this was indeed predestined. One place in this dismal universe had been left vacant, entrusted to this marvelous giant, that he should guard it, keep it for me, and not only is it unavoidable, but his goodness and solicitude positively compel me to occupy it.

He listened, wanted to remain cautious, but no one inside him protested this compulsion. He knew he’d give in; still he looked about coolly to see if there were any signs of a conspiracy. A liquid does not protest either, when it slowly fills the cracks and depressions in a vessel, but it fills them slowly. He was afraid that these two were setting a trap for him or would simply make him a laughingstock, or even beat him up when he took their bait.

While his hesitation stemmed rather from the obligatory anxiety of a man in love.

Would this perfect human specimen, blessed with that marvelous smile, really accept my imperfection for an entire life, or am I but one of his many nocturnal adventures whom he’ll forget tomorrow.

Whatever the situation, his smile proved to be a fiat of destiny in the feverish darkness.

In the meantime his mustached assistant also kept watching me from among the heads turned in my direction.

Doubt was pointless if the giant’s proximity was worth any humiliation. At the sight of his checkered shirt, I could already feel the hot whiff of his wild body, his enormous strong limbs, or perhaps I was overwhelmed by the odor of the tarred wall.

Any humiliation, even my entire future, for a single touch from him.

Let it be that way, any way it has to be. I’d do it in front of everybody too. That’s what everyone was trying to see, where I was headed, whether I’d pick someone else, what I was going to do.