Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

Some people wait for just such moment. People differ in their physical as in their mental strength and their consideration for others. A person may have the necessary strength and can bravely stand up to any pressure applied to his back, but all he wants is to hold off the other person, keep him from getting what he wants for himself.

And everyone can find a reason for wanting this tiny advantage. He’s been standing here for two hours. It’s cold. He should be able to go to the toilet at last. His child hasn’t had anything to eat for two days. And if he can’t get into the store, if they run out of the last batch of baked bread just before he gets there, he’ll have to wait at least another hour. He can’t put up with that. It’s possible that indeed he truly can’t; after all, his blood pressure is high, he has cancer or heart trouble.

And what if they run out of flour.

Or the store gets a direct hit.

Or he is trampled by these crazy mean people.

Anybody can see that sense is no longer the master here.

With tooth and nail, he is groping for justice, yet all he really wants is that no one should be unfair to him.

And everybody is screaming and yelling.

He can’t help it, he is screaming too.

The ones who don’t even open their mouths are also screaming. The one who always knew that people were like this, but only now feels it necessary to liberate this knowledge. The one who’s surprised that people are like this and now screams his discovery to the whole wide world. This one didn’t know that his neighbor, with whom he’d been talking just a minute ago, was a wild beast. That one screams because he’s been jammed up against the store window. This one because he has been pushed out of the line. That one’s been stepped on; this one was kicked. There are children and elderly people. There are those who want to come out and those who are being shoved in; there are professional hysterics, and there are those who are truly suffocating. And there are many who can’t believe this is happening to them. Their souls scream, and even the ones who do not do this with their mouths have a peculiar fever wracking their bodies because they can’t resist the others’ yelling and screaming.

A very thin membrane is ruptured.

Most likely, I screamed too; everyone was screaming. At times like this, nothing remains but the grace of fate, luck, and chance. You are no longer responsible, nobody is, for yourself or for the other people, and even if you make it through the mess unscathed, you wouldn’t know who should get the credit. It’s also odd how quickly such a turmoil can subside in a crowd.

I don’t know what happened.

At any rate, the store’s window glass did not break. With bread loaves raised above their heads, the first few customers forced their way out. The crowd pressed against the entrance could not make way for them, yet they managed to push and shove themselves out.

One could see only straining shoulders, backs piled on backs in front of them; in situations like this people have no faces, memory has nothing to preserve.

I saw everything.

I was standing ten meters from them and still don’t know what happened. Backs, shoulders, the white patches of faces.

My hearing remembers.

Shrieking hovered over the congested human mass, but, standing at the very end of the line that went around the entire block yet no more than ten meters from where the bread was being handed out, where at any moment something terrible could happen, we did nothing but scream. As if screaming could remind us of the vestiges of rationality, of a rationality that was still possible.

That they should not be doing this.

Not like this.

And there was anger in this screaming pitted against the shrieking. The anger of self-interest and plain selfishness. If at the head of the line the inevitable happens, then I, here at the very end, won’t get my bread either.

The line in the street went crazy. As far as the eye could see. No one was leaning against walls anymore, people jumped up from their chairs and stools. They had no idea what might be happening, they were turning around, making noises, hoping to move forward. Maybe it happened in the cacophony, in the air, between angry screams and insane shrieks where the opposing currents of helplessness and willfulness clashed.

When the first customers with their bread finally pushed clear of the crowd and stood dazed and happy, or quickly hurried away before someone tore the warm loaves from their hands, the nerve-racking cacophony reached a peak. It couldn’t go on like this. It could not get any louder. Everyone could see that people were coming out of the store, and everyone strove to be among the ones to fill their places. And now they really didn’t let anybody out. Lava must feel like this when it has to crack the crust of the earth and the crust wants to stay at the edge of the crack but still caves in.

Later, an eyewitness could say only that the inner pressure had become stronger, though the outer one hadn’t weakened.

The loaves of bread exhaled hot fragrances.

And if someone inside had been so favored by fate as to get a loaf of bread at last, that person wanted to break out, while the fate of one who wanted to break in trembled in uncertainty. The latter acted so as to get bread. The one hoping to emerge safely with his hot bread acted to save his life. Although nothing had been sorted out properly, the shrieking and screaming somewhat diminished. The line began to move. Which did not reduce the cacophony, now a clamor of agitated indignation. No one was shouting but everyone was swearing wildly, imploring, explaining.

We shuffled slowly forward. In the soles of our feet we felt there was still hope.

And then I saw the woman. Sometimes only her turban, sometimes the vague profile of her burned face. Slowly the sun came out and we started to move quite rapidly. The light felt warm, and the smell of the nearby river was in the air. Nobody talked about what had just happened or what might have happened. Because, after all, nothing had really happened, and if we kept walking at this rate, very soon we’d have our bread. Within a few minutes we reached the corner of Sándor Fürst Street. The happy ones were coming out one after the other. As you moved forward, you paid attention to every little shuffle. Your situation changed drastically. You were no longer at the end of the line but well in the middle of it. You were alert, making sure that no one gained an unmerited advantage, and you were careful not to give the impression that you might jockey for one. The line is moving, everybody’s fine nerve endings are atremble, and everybody keeps their stings at the ready. Everybody is out to gain an advantage, even if only a centimeter or so, and everybody is trying to keep everyone else from gaining the same.

As if each person had put reins of morality on others while the reins holding him were in the others’ hands.

People restrain their own selfishness in one another. If I can’t get ahead of them, into a more advantageous position, at least I shouldn’t fall behind them. When the line moves, there’s no time for argument, and once it stops no one can change his position for a better one. Only now, while still moving. That centimeter and a half must be gained now. And it must be gained not as if I were driven by the dark intentions of selfishness, but as if other people’s slowness or clumsiness made my position more favorable than theirs.

When we reached the corner, the line came to a halt. It was still dark and cold in the narrow street. Only from the roofs did some sunshine drip down to us. And that little warmth and light hit only that small side street that connects Sándor Fürst Street with Pozsonyi Road.

When the line stops, it is a magical moment. Everyone has to acknowledge, alert as they might have been and hard as they might have tried, that they are not next to the people they started out with and not quite in the same relative position to them. Everybody’s efforts were directed to not letting anything change, yet everything did. The familiar coats and familiar faces are the enemy, because many of them are now in front of you. In the next few seconds, you have to establish new alliances with strangers. A bitter moment. This is when quarrels erupt and often become physical. Or suddenly a deadly silence prevails; there is no more hopeful feet-shuffling. In the silence chairs and stools make small noises; sighs are heard. Someone says something, somebody responds. Once again one has to set up residence forever on this one and only spot.