Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

Only moments ago I was thinking of my money, wasn’t I.

He felt as if suddenly he had lost his way in the universe, and while he searched for it the universe made a big turn on its own.

No, it can’t be that Bellardi is a mind reader. The thought made him dizzy. Because he did have some money put aside, the money he made on jobs in Rotterdam with which he wanted to start his life in America. He could not touch that. He considered it a significant sum, but it was not so large as to allow for donations to charities from it.

True, he had gotten a goodly advance for his future projects with the Szemzős, and he had not transferred that money to the bank in Amsterdam; it was deposited in the General Savings Bank of Hungary.

On hearing Bellardi’s words, this worried him greatly. He felt that every possible trouble was crashing down on him.

Only a few hours earlier, an article in the Pester Lloyd he’d picked up by chance had informed him that Baron Koháry, Bellardi’s powerful father-in-law, sat on the board of directors of this bank. This information made everything as clear in his mind now as if he had solved a complicated crime. Aha, he said to himself, how obvious. As if the steam engine’s pumps and pistons were not working three decks below him but sucking and thrusting the blood in his veins, and the paddle wheels were rotating noisily not in the water but in his brain; in his agitation, his temples began to pulsate.

He reproached himself for his irresponsibility.

They’ll grind me up.

These people will take me and grind me up. Here, it seems to me, everybody is somebody’s relative and everything is connected to everything else.

And in that case this conversation is far from being a chance one; the coincidence becomes visible.

I should not spend so much time here; they will swallow me up.

But from this point on Bellardi did not fully listen to him, or rather, he did not notice how he had miscalculated the effect of his words.

Whenever he could talk to someone about this delicate subject, and those occasions were rare, he could not properly control his enthusiasm.

The mere thought that after centuries of discord and division, Hungarians might again join hands, and that he was telling this, very cautiously, to another son of Mohács — this exciting thought all but untethered him from the palpable world. Made him happy. After all, the other man knew as well as he did why every Hungarian in Mohács had become lost; he really did not have to explain this to him. As children, they had both wanted to uncover the mass graves, and thanks to the swallows and the powerful river current, they did find one.

He was filled with the happy feeling of liberty that he could build his case on something they both knew.

His activities in the secret organization gave him the only practical opportunity to open the door of his bodily cage and step outside himself. And it did not occur to him that Madzar might reject out of hand such an exciting human community. The liberating feeling that had brought him so close to others strengthened him in the profound conviction that being Hungarian was not a condition gained by being born as one, but rather a belief and worldview one had to earn with actions and reinforce with communal activity. The moment he touched on this subject, he was stepping onto the vast battlefield that had teemed with true Hungarians at the fatal dawn of the modern era. Because the Battle of Mohács was lost not by those who fought the Turks but by those who stayed at home in their warm dens. This clear feeling turned historical time into a mere second. There was no difference between the Middle Ages and modern times. He was watching the face of his childhood friend, with whom he wanted to share his happiness, and he did not notice that he was losing the other man’s physical presence.

His inner vision was held captive by the vision of this powerful community’s secret network. Its members trusted him and he trusted them. This trust controlled his entire sense of human responsibility. It was as if he were watching with their eyes to see where, in the net he had spread, he should tie up his friend, alive, what he might gain by this, and for what purpose and in what way the underground movement could make use of him.

All this had an alienating effect on Madzar, and not only because of the seven percent. The threatened secrecy of his bank-account number was only a practical symbol of his thinking. He could neither comprehend nor feel the impersonal enthusiasm that radiated from Bellardi’s being, so the other man’s fervor was painful to him. Not only did it not fill him with a sense of liberation, it affected him as a painful physical sensation; he experienced it as a rape committed by his beloved, as if several people at once had cornered him or shoved his body into a lair smelling of decay. In his shame, he bowed his head. His powerful chin nearly touched his breastbone and from there, head lowered, he looked across at Bellardi’s face shining with the power of the secret society, in a partly defensive, partly offensive attitude. In the fluttering candlelight his thick hair became like a specially wrought rubescent copper helmet. It made his skull invulnerable, it was an armor no one could penetrate.

Bellardi will not manage to get his money from him either.

And what about that seven percent.

These people know how much money he has.

Money he will not give to anyone.

He was dizzy, felt bad at the sheer thought of donating money.

Where on earth did Bellardi come up with the idea that he would give a single penny to anybody, for anything.

Not one, to nobody.

Meanwhile Bellardi was going on, saying that in the interest of a definitive solution of the Jewish question, Hungarians could not lay themselves open to the Germans, in other words could not endanger Hungarian interests because of the Jews. Waging war cannot be avoided, but the task is to cut off simultaneously the heads of both dragons, all fourteen of them. Only romantic patriots tend to forget that a weakened Hungary is not in the Germans’ interest today. German and Hungarian interests coincide at many important points. We cannot fight alone against Bolshevism. But, in the interest of the Hungarian race, we must oppose those endeavors that the German secret service, using Swabians and ethnic Germans in Hungary, has been promoting and financing for many years. The price the Germans are asking for the annexed territories* is so high we cannot possibly pay it. This is a fight for breathing space, for survival, for sheer existence, and he would very much want Madzar to understand that. The Germans are bent on acquiring more and more positions; they are taking over the police, the entire system of public administration, and the highest echelons of the armed forces.

That is why he keeps saying that civilians have no notion of what goes on deep below the surface. Like moles. Jewish and German elements have undermined the Hungarian state and gnawed it to pieces, and in a weak moment they would lay their hands on it.

This is a struggle, he cried out in frustration, for even these last words the beloved man’s face remained motionless.

Not a hopeless struggle, not at all, and don’t think, he exclaimed, that it’s happening only at higher levels or in higher circles. This needs truly deep Hungarian feelings, but not the sentimental kind. Public administration must be cleansed of German elements, commerce and industry of the Jews. In the interest of progress for the Hungarian race, we must be alert at every moment and acquire every position about to be vacated. In the service of Hungarian goals, we should engage both those who are already among us and those who are not yet with us.

And even those who cannot possibly be among us.