Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

One could also be aware that the subject, direction, and temperature of a person’s interest, despite every visual agreement, even despite the hierarchy, might change very rapidly and sometimes for no good reason.

What happened then was probably something other than what the men had expected even of themselves.

After another bit of time had passed in this seemingly motionless silence, one could sense who were the ones who had already managed to establish contact, how they were flooded by their mutual attraction, how they began to lose their inhibitions and find their way around obstacles. One could also spot the ones who remained hopelessly alone, or guess who’d be scrounging off the sights of developing reciprocity between others. Because there were men who wanted nothing more than to watch and follow others only with their glances. From the beginning these men behaved as if they had no interest at all in the busy activity around them. With their eyes and ears they followed and absorbed the smallest movement and coldly rejected any attempt to approach them. They refrained almost pathologically from direct bodily contact. They must have been satisfied with very little. Peeping was their profession and they had no shame about it. Persistently, for hours at a time, they’d stand in the same spot and, no matter what happened, their faces remained indifferent to everyone and everything.

Of course they never showed their own to anyone.

They took the rich nourishment of their sense organs with a certain reservation, which had a touch of gourmandise.

It was impossible to know when and with what they had their fill, but suddenly they’d button up their flies and, behind countenances transformed into masks with neutral gazes, they’d make their way from the depths of the urinal up the stairs to take home their daily booty.

Occasionally, though, they were denied even this small gain. Not everyone liked having others witness their pleasure. Some were angered or embarrassed by the presence of others, though some were indifferent to voyeurs or even liked the peepers’ quiet indifference, gaining an unexpected boost from the mute witnesses’ enjoyment.

Many things could be clarified in the motionless silence in which the tap kept dripping evenly.

It must have been leaking somewhere, because there were glistening spots of water on the flagstones.

The question of what one’s intentions were regarding the other was left open.

Among these men, intentions had well-defined genres, and they strictly observed the borders between genres. It was impossible to tell by another’s exterior what that person wanted to do, how reserved he was or how far in shamelessness he would be willing to go, where he would want to do it, whether he had a place of his own or would insist on staying here and doing it in front of the others, or what they might do with each other emotionally, whether this connection would last for only a few minutes or possibly for a lifetime, and what the others would make of all this, but, based on a certain amount of practice, everyone could have his own intuition.

There were many questions, but not one of them referred to an entire personality — only to its various characteristics and the ever-shifting basic situation. To how these characteristics could be made to speak without having to exchange a single word with the other man.

To make contact with the other man directly, without an intermediary, and somehow with all the others as well.

Even the most experienced ones kept turning around, like birds, because they feared being exposed and, in their fickleness, had to keep an eye now on this one, now on another one.

Without much effort, I too adjusted my behavior to these rules and open questions, and therefore caught myself doing everything the same way; in the name of pure sensory perception I was just as fickle as the others. Soon there was no situation I didn’t scrutinize and evaluate according solely to my senses, evading morality and reason.

The difference between the two kinds of knowledge became measurable during the night.

I learned continually from and with my sense organs, adding, as it were, to everything I’d learned earlier according to the scales and standards of reason so that I could put each item, sorted by moral viewpoint, in its proper place in my consciousness. But since everything was open, changing continuously, and continuing awkwardly to stay open, I could reach no final knowledge; the most I could do was notice the repetitions, or sense in the rhythm of recurrences vague signs of an elusive natural law. I did not realize it was impossible to find the underlying cause of anything by learning. At best I comprehended it as yet another situation; slowly accepted the reality of occurrences that appeared in parallel within and around me; resigned myself to the possibility that whatever happened within and around me would become a part of my life, after all; and as a result my knees even stopped their humiliating shaking.

But I did not believe we had reached the end of anything.

Several men in the long line showed an immediate interest in me, stretching a bit to see past some of the others, leaning forward, out of the line, but I had to pretend not to notice these summoning signals because I did not belong to these intrusive strangers. They could clearly see that I belonged to this black-haired navvy or stonecutter, to this I don’t-know-who, whose shoulders and chest nearly burst from his checkered shirt, and with whom I had practically nothing in common. I belonged to his mustached assistant also, and to nobody else. With my reticence and obstinacy I signaled to the others that they should expect nothing from me.

But I did not even have to look up to see the cock of the man on the other side of me.

It was exactly my obstinacy, reticence, and hesitation that made him turn in my direction and show me his, immediately.

He was rearing up with it.

He wanted to use his cock to jolt me out of my fickleness. I couldn’t have known what sort of man came with this cock, and he counted on my inability to resist the curiosity that lurks in every single man without exception. Carefully, I did take a good look at it. I decided he wouldn’t have a chance even if I hadn’t been waiting for the giant. Whose black hair falls so flamboyantly on his forehead, and who with his metallically flashing eyes probably follows my every move in the darkness, checking up on my very existence. I had to think quickly of something else to ward off any possible effect of the stranger’s cock on my curiosity. There were no more vacant places, and in the tense silence something had irrevocably ended. Nobody could fit in between the two of us; true, I did not see him and wouldn’t dare look at him by leaning either forward or backward, to see something of him between the strange bodies.

He towered above them all.

I should see his illuminating smile.

At the mere thought, at the mere fancy of the possibility of such proximity, my cock filled my hand and began to grow stiff.

Maybe I should urinate first.

I felt his domination on the nape of my neck, in the roots of my hair. His power gained strength in my hand, my body became the inevitable emblem of his power, and I entered into his service exactly the same way his mustached assistant had. As if my entire life until then had been nothing but a preparation for this nightmare, which caught me while wide awake, with its secret pleasures promising compensation for all my past and future suffering. In the phalanx we stood foot to foot, elbow to elbow, almost touching, shoulders on both sides rubbing against me occasionally, which naturally increased the promise of this unnamable community.

I had no idea how much time passed; it may have been growing light outside.