Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

Driven by shame and restlessness, Gottlieb finally closed his office.

That was actually very nice of Bellardi, helping to push the stinking bones in the wheelbarrow; after all, his mother was a princess. It was very nice of him. And it was very nice of the Lord Jesus that he blessed both of them with the most deep-felt childhood love.

He was literally fleeing from the words of his prayer, was it holy or sanctified be Thy name, the angels sing Your praise each day, he was in a hurry and picked a detour along which he might meet the least number of acquaintances as he rushed along, uncovered, at the very nadir of his shame.

He wanted to avoid everything and everybody.

He hastened along the flood-blackened brick wall of the silk factory, and he kept on saying the words, shouting over the monotone booming and clatter of the machines, the metallic clangs of the combs, reciting the words to himself. With the fragments of the Hebrew prayer he displaced every Hungarian word so that his thinking would not be Hungarian, so that he would have no imagination, no Hungarian imagination either. Let us praise the exalted sanctity of this day. Terrifying and forbidding, Lord, what Thou hast given us today. May your realm and golden throne, resting on mercy, tower above all abomination.

There could be no living tie between the ancient text and Gottlieb’s practical thinking, since he no longer believed that people’s stupid wishes could touch Creation. He no longer believed; did not believe in his own faith that there was a god on whose terrible deeds anybody would build an empire, or that there was any other kind of god either. He imagined, keeping it a secret from himself, that the world was an empty vessel, completely empty, anything could be poured into it in any way, no matter what, since everything flowed out, spilled out, dripped away and scattered in the dust, dwindled and vanished. These were the kinds of thing he envisioned and thought about, though he continued to celebrate all the major and minor holidays, strictly observed the ritual rules and regulations. He concealed his own convictions from himself as if in his old age, supplanting his parents and taking over their role, he related to himself as if he were still a child. He must remain the same. Whatever happens, the world cannot change, and if his eyes saw far-reaching changes, he would not allow his mind to follow his eyes, lest his personal experiences improperly violate the depth of his faith or that of his skepticism.

Thus was Gottlieb riddled by the excruciatingly painful absence of God, about whose rapid withdrawal he would not talk to anyone, not for the world.

Gottlieb was not a stupid man.

To no one.

He should not be seen while crossing Halpiac Square, where at this hour the fish market was being cleaned and scrubbed by municipal sanitation workers, followed everywhere by cats, dogs, screeching seagulls, and beggars hoping to retrieve some scraps. He waited a little while and then managed, without having to greet anyone, to make his way across among the upended washbasins and tables glittering with water and leftover fish scales; hurrying under the spherical crowns of the elms, he fled from the familiarly functioning world along Szent János Street and the narrow, snaky Kígyó Street, and after he had crossed the wide and tranquil Szentháromság Road, lined on both sides with the severe-looking houses of the more prestigious Catholic families, their blinds rolled down and shutters closed, looking for all the world like two rows of citadels, he at last reached, at the corner of Zsidó Street, the old Israelite graveyard packed with uniformly pink tombstones.

Here he definitely had something to worry about without his hat.

The goyim could not know the meaning of the Almighty’s wrath and judgment; but there was no Jew who didn’t. The terrible promise filled him with the sense of a painful safety. He stopped in the shade by the tumbledown wooden fence to protect his bare head from the burning sun, and he regarded the street with the eyes of a stranger abandoned by God, his breathing heavy.

Between two breaths, he was still praying.

The bustle and shouting was great, somebody in front of him was pushing a handcart piled high with assorted junk. In the cacophony, it seemed improbable that he could reach his house unnoticed. Two unfamiliar rag-and-bone men were shouting at the top of their voices, their free hands spinning rattlers to attract attention. They both wore yarmulkes. We buy everything, they shouted into the noise they were making with their rattlers, everything you can find in your kitchen, your pantry, anywhere in your house. A few meters away, on the bank of the roadside ditch covered with wild spinach, a Christian kitchen maid was cleaning a chicken and singing loudly. In the dust, children were having a hoop-rolling competition; a farm wagon loaded with last year’s grapevines was just arriving, its wheels creaking and squeaking. Dishwater was hurled out of a window. From deep entranceways and echoing yards, the sounds of arguing voices, hammering, and grating were heard, which died suddenly at the unexpected slamming of a door. Then, along with the kitchen noises, the wound was opened again, and while a man’s voice begged and beseeched, two desperate and frantic female voices were shouting at each other.

A few weeks earlier, by mail, the Gottliebs had received the voucher from their son Jakab, according to which they were to board ship in Rotterdam for their overseas journey.

They already had their railway tickets to Rotterdam, and their son wrote to tell them to spend the night in a small old hotel near the dock, which frightened Gottlieb more than the long journey across the sea. What if there were no vacant rooms in that hotel. What would I do with your mother then. In response, Jakab wrote that there were many hotels, like mushrooms, near the piers. They didn’t have to worry about that. Robbers and drunkards are found in hotels at every port, Gottlieb knew that already; he already saw the corpse of his wife, frozen in its own blood, among the slashed eiderdowns in a ransacked little room. No amount of prayer could keep him from looking into the future, in which he too would be killed. One night he looked out the window because he thought someone was prowling, he heard voices. He could not get his head above the flesh of the murdered ones. The blood stuck to the feathers, no one bothered to bury their blood, and later no one could find out what jewelry had been stolen from them. And he could not write to Jakab about this either — that we are taking such and such pieces of jewelry with us — he could not put it in writing because he did not trust the letter, which might wind up in anybody’s hands. He did not reveal what pieces they were taking to Marika either; it had to remain a secret, otherwise a war of jealousy would break out between brother and sister, which never stopped smoldering anyway. That is how their terrible lives ended, for which he expressed his thanks in advance, bowing before the eternal throne.

The glory of Merciful God never ends; His rule is our beacon.

Actually, he couldn’t imagine that his own son would rob him, the son for whom he had made allowances, out of necessity, and to whom he had given more, after all.

He listened to ascertain where his wife was, who in a short while would be murdered mercilessly for her jewelry.

He most feared that their bodies would be mutilated and their blood left unburied. Their fingers would be cut off along with the rings. And as he suddenly opened the door, he saw the miscreants approaching in the silent night with their sacks open. By then he wouldn’t be able to get up, out of his cut-up flesh, to do the most necessary things for the soul. In the meantime, as if nothing had happened, all his hats were there, in a row, on the coat-and-hat rack in the dim hallway. The shiny wide-brimmed black hat he wore on high holy days, his richly embroidered kippa, the everyday black hat he wore in the city, and the oddly frayed, lusterless, greasy hat too, which he wore to work and which, after exchanging it for the yarmulke he wore at night, he should have put on this morning.