Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

It was very difficult to hide our cautious glances from her.

She listened as one who needed to know what was happening around her and mainly what transpired between the two of us.

Her thick glasses made it hard to follow her eyes. I’d say to myself, right now she’s not looking, and then she would be. On other occasions too. I could never, ever pretend that she was not a constant eyewitness. She very quickly discovered why I frequented the shop and what it was I couldn’t tear myself away from. This in itself couldn’t have been so conspicuous, and others too came to the shop just to see this woman or her beauty. There were always two or three of them hanging around the coffee machine, chatting, laughing, and not only men but often women of her age too. The older woman watched and observed; she watched everyone. Sometimes I had the impression that she knew everything before I did. More precisely, that she knew better than I how serious this was, while I presumptuously kept on deluding myself that it was merely a little adventure.

Because I didn’t think I felt anything for her. Or I might have thought that that’s how others did it, just take the risk and do it. Begin by just looking, without feeling anything, cautiously look at her, that’s something nobody can forbid. But this woman with her thick glasses right away needed to know what would develop from my interest. Maybe it was more than mere curiosity on her part. She was keeping an eye out for what should be forbidden. She was the boss in the shop, but that couldn’t have meant much in this context. Maybe the difference in their ages was what counted, or the woman’s old age, or her ugliness.

Perhaps she wanted to protect the beautiful young woman from random crazy annoyances.

This seemed unlikely, however, given their cool relationship, more friendly than hostile yet dealing with each other as if they had to avoid tension.

This tension was in the air. Clarissa, my sweet, she’d say to the young woman, or she’d call her my little Klári. And the other would reply, Terike, darling.

Perhaps their tension was just as passionate as the secret attention the young woman and I had been paying to each other. The boss might have feared that the other woman would slip out of her hands, a fear indicating a kind of jealousy, after all. There was a chance that their tension might explode one day, in which case I thought I should keep away from them.

When I turned my back to the counter and looked at them in the mirror, I was acting out of instinct. I must not be the cause of an explosion. Of course, the mirror also revealed to the boss the directions of our glances, but it protected us. It protected me from my self-accusation of being too forward and from the shame of being so crazy about her. Naturally, this act of mine was more forward than if I had turned to her face-to-face, more insane.

While searching for her countenance in the mirror, I saw her back, her shoulders, her naked neck, her hair caught in a loose bun. This was more than I had wished for. Because in the reopened store mirrors covered every wall, which was considered very luxurious since one could see everything from both sides and, from certain angles, the same thing multiplied many times.

Our lives were barely moving on; therefore, those many mirrors confused others too.

You barely stepped into the place and you were already facing yourself among the sweet aromas. And if you wanted to turn away from yourself, you saw at the edge of another mirror how, on the polished surface and in multiple copies, you were turning away from yourself, or how the waitresses, also multiplied, were waiting for your order. Even the ceiling was framed with a mirrored strip.

Of course, some people took to the mirrors immediately and were delighted to keep looking at themselves, or to preen and pose, though doing it as if keeping it secret from themselves. The walls behind the narrow shelves packed with merchandise were also mirrored, and there was another mirror above the sink. This woman named Klára, whom sometimes the boss a little mockingly called Clarissa, always splashed water on this mirror above the sink and then carefully wiped it off. Maybe to see me better. Because sometimes she pretended she had to rinse out the glasses and would turn away from me; I would also turn around, but we could still look at each other — all we had to do was raise our heads a little.

The boss noticed every little irregularity.

She was always complaining about the draft. It may have been too hot in the store, but the new entrance door did let in streams of unwanted air.

She’d be shivering near the door, behind the cash register, with the tip of her pencil following the long column of numbers, and if she raised her eyes a little behind her glasses, she could see in the mirror opposite what the two of us were doing with our glances. One could be exposed in all those mirrors, yet one could also say that’s not me, it’s only some reflection. It’s not the same as looking directly into someone’s eyes. We had some respite from her only when her husband showed up or, around noon, their pathologically overnourished son, a pupil in the nearby music school who allegedly played the violin as wondrously as Jascha Heifetz.

Even in those moments I cautiously looked back at Clarissa in a mirror, and not only because it excited me to know whether we were indeed safe.

January went by, and then February, and still I knew nothing of this Clarissa. Nor did I believe that such a beautiful young woman could be interested in me. After all, she did nothing but look. But this was a big thing because I could not discover anything about myself that would justify her looking. And I had no idea what to do with her first name or nickname either; I did not want to imprint it on my consciousness. I was a little ashamed of this, but it’s how I protected myself. I didn’t want to think that maybe in the future, thanks to some fortunate circumstance, I might wind up so close to her that I could call her by her name or that I too might address her, pompously, as Clarissa. This was completely shameful idiocy, but I had to maintain my distance.

Let this remain a minor novel that no one has ever written and no one ever will write.

I had no idea what beauty was or what one should think about it.

The eyes see something, and when they cannot not see this something it cannot be addressed with a common first name. I must not be interested in anything that has to do with her ordinary life. I did not understand how such a beautiful woman had wound up here, though I couldn’t have said where she should be. The questions cropped up because I was interested in everything. Or, why was she behaving so commonly with everyone. Or, if she was behaving so commonly why didn’t I believe that she was indeed common.

When the boss’s husband was in the shop, I watched her because I had no explanation for the enmity between her and the boss; I wondered what it really referred to or stemmed from. Or why did this Clarissa smile so politely at everyone, and if she smiled so politely why didn’t she go ahead and sleep with everyone. I thought my cogitating was ridiculous, since I wanted nothing from her. I told myself almost each time I left the shop that, no, I will no longer put up with this humiliation; but nobody had humiliated me. I’m not coming back. I won’t come back even if she’s waiting for me, even if she’s really missed me. But no matter how I formulated these firm decisions for myself I could never keep to them, not to one of them, ever.

They made the weekdays horrible because nothing was happening, and Sundays became unbearable, interminable.

Still, Sundays were better than weekdays because I had no idea where she might be, I didn’t know where she lived, and the store was closed.