Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

Lowering his voice to a whisper, he continued.

Listen, while we are peacefully talking about these things, the Mayer boy is trying to recruit my Swabian stokers into the Volksbund.* An enormous struggle for their souls, he whispered desperately. It is our job to talk the Swabian element out of this.

How could you possibly remain indifferent.

At this point Madzar interrupted Bellardi’s impassioned speech, his voice gentle.

But my dear Laci, you know that I myself am a good part Swabian.

Bellardi’s instant silence suggested deep surprise, his breath nearly stopped.

Oh, come on, you don’t know what you’re saying. I’ve always considered you a good Hungarian.

That’s only one side of the coin, what you’ve considered me to be.

Maybe you didn’t understand me correctly.

But what I consider myself to be is a whole other thing.

There is no better Hungarian than Professor Lehr. Even Dezső Szabó isn’t a better Hungarian than he is. And Ferenc Herczeg is a good Hungarian too.

Madzar laughed, not because he was in a good mood but because he was upset by what he had heard, so he laughed as if he thought that what Bellardi had told him was entertaining.

Before you tell me too much, before you tell me more than you want to, he said, still laughing, I’d like to warn you that Hungarian is not even my mother tongue. You couldn’t possibly have forgotten that you and the other boys found my accent in Hungarian a reason for constantly making fun of me.

Actually, even today he was reluctant to admit that being laughed at had hurt him.

My mother’s name is still Barbara Stricker.

His voice faltered, but he did not add that the boys had laughed at him especially because of his mother’s name.

And after so many years, he almost broke down over the old humiliations.

They were sitting opposite each other, painful seconds ticking away in their shared pain, the evenly puffing luxury liner continuing to slice the night in two.

Never again, he thought fervently, never.

As if they had been pulled apart for good and continued to keep their seats only out of tact and politeness. Madzar motionless, angry, his head down, his face raised to the captain’s, while his heavy fist, strong to the point of shapelessness and in an ominous state of readiness, lay on the cream-colored tablecloth. Bellardi floating in his state of surprise, oblivious to his cigar.

Hard as he exercised his mind, suddenly he could not return to his subject.

I don’t remember anything like that, he said very quietly and uncertainly, I don’t remember ever making fun of any of your traits or abilities. All my life I’ve admired you, my friend.

My one sweet pal, what are you talking about. He moaned as he said it.

It sounds rather improbable that you don’t remember.

Bellardi would have to return from his ideals and step back into reality.

He did not want to remember what he was being reminded of because he did not want to see himself in all his sinister narrow-mindedness.

He remembered the slingshot too, of course he did.

They were looking at each other’s tear-filled eyes, at each other’s struggle, but they could no longer read each other, could no longer see behind each other’s face.

In helpless anger Bellardi crushed out his cigar and kept squeezing and grinding it until it fell apart, leaving only dry, stinking debris.

Because even at this very moment he loved his old friend, adored him.

What makes you think I don’t know whom I’m talking to, he exclaimed finally in a suppressed, strangely threatening voice. In what other ways would you like me to woo you. You don’t think we checked your background thoroughly. How else might I convince you of my honest intentions.

He paused to control his emotions.

Do you think that such an extensive organization can be built and maintained without keeping a record of the people we think of as potential members and of how we size them up. It can’t be that I so misjudged this encounter, he thought to himself at the same time.

You’re deliberately misunderstanding me, and I also know why, pal, he said loudly. Don’t forget that whatever you know, I also know very well.

Nevertheless, all right, I admit, I’m not a great moral giant, and there was a time when I nastily betrayed you. All I have to say for myself is that I didn’t do it out of convenience. Maybe my conscience told me to do it.

He was shaking with emotion as he shuttled desperately between haughty rejection and sensible admission.

But you also know very well that I loved you more than anybody else and to this day I love you like a brother.

I didn’t love you any less, said the other one heavily.

Yes, I am a race protector, Bellardi bellowed, his voice now at top volume.

Because he could not help noticing that the other man referred to his love only in the past.

But that does not necessarily make me a racist.

Which I am not, he added.

He realized that with his statements quoting Professor Lehr’s words, so often repeated as self-reassuring commonplaces in the society organized for the protection of Hungarians, he had truly surprised his old friend.

It is not a prerequisite of membership, he continued somewhat more objectively, that both one’s parents be pure Hungarians. It is enough that the person’s father and paternal grandfather are Hungarian. Even if you tried not to, you could not help fulfilling this requirement.

He laughed briefly with these last words.

And another reason you should understand all this, he continued quietly, more sarcastic than angry, is that this is what you think too. Weren’t you the one who told me how the Jewish element was striving to control architecture all over the world, he asked.

Hearing so much explanation and self-justification astounded Madzar. As if he had suddenly seen the mechanism of the other’s soul and finally realized that in that gapless mechanism no room had been left for a sense of reality.

He became frightened of Bellardi and had to be on guard to maintain his self-control.

I’ve told you clearly what I am not. And a national socialist I definitely wouldn’t want to be because, unlike you, I do know what that means.

You mean that in your eyes I am a national socialist.

I make no judgments about you.

Ridiculous. Truly ridiculous.

For God’s sake, would you like to tell me then what’s the difference between German and Hungarian race protection. I don’t want to tear the world apart in the spirit of race protection.

In that case, Bellardi replied, our views are one hundred percent identical.

That’s the reason I’m going away, Madzar whispered passionately.

I too would prefer to be a humanist, Bellardi continued, if you permit me to share with you this guilty, mixed company. At least that’s what I still am because of my upbringing, and I will remain one too. I never gave you cause to call me a national socialist.

I did not call you anything.

But that’s what we’re talking about, about why Hungarians cannot let the Germans occupy Hungary by exploiting Hungarian racial interests. We must resist them, and who says resistance is a crime. In a life-threatening situation such as the current one, there is no other solution. Even the more reasonable Jews admit this and cooperate with us. You should really hear Lehr speak. His very beautiful wife is Jewish.

My dear Lojzi, I am not interested in your bloodline, and you know that very well.

If I took matters that seriously, I should reprimand you for working for a Jew, since that means you are strengthening them.

Or I could have said I wasn’t interested in the Hungarians’ cause because according to my bloodline and my name I am Italian.