Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

He could not have said when all this became pleasurable, because neither before nor after this period did he know a parallel world in which things were or could have been some other way; yet he enjoyed it. The eternal obscurity never dissipated, and throughout his life his mind searched for certainties, whether or not he understood well or truly knew some things; and though he had been unable to obtain these certainties — he had not enough education for solid knowledge — he did enjoy the endless act of searching.

While he perused the Hungarian footnote on the Musaf prayer, which he had no problem locating and according to which the prayer’s origins were to be found in the written legacy of Rabbi Ephraim of Bonn, Germany, he did not acknowledge that his wife winced, slammed the dough angrily back into the bowl, insolent, how shameless, just keeps reciting to himself aloud, and I am frying liver for such an impudent character and then, with her mouth slightly open, stared at him.

As if asking whether such insolence was even possible.

For a little while Gottlieb also fell silent within himself, and he stared back at her.

Such an ungrateful, insolent man, brazen, and I didn’t just buy him a whole liver, bought him the nicest liver in the entire butcher shop, but I’m also making soup out of fresh, completely fresh mushrooms, she said after a long silence. But I did see that he left his hat at home, don’t worry, I did notice it, you wretch, you addle-brained old man, she shouted and then laughed. Her laughter echoed weirdly in the empty rooms. He left with his head uncovered, she laughed, this never happened before, but now he let that happen too. I said to myself, when I saw it happen, something like this could never happen in a normal Jewish family. What tsuris. He eats properly, just as he should, unselfishly I take good care of him. At least once a week I make him beef broth, still, he’s a complete idiot.

Then suddenly her laughter abandoned her.

At least I’ll cook the mushrooms for him, for this idiot, I’ll do that.

Expecting some kind of response, however brief or small, a word of abuse or thanks or just a yell, for all the sacrifices she had been making for her husband, she stopped talking. She fell silent as if to pray. I beseech you, I am begging you for anything. She would have been content with the slightest of signals, which throughout a lifetime she had been unable to force out of this man, insensitive to the marrow of his bones.

A little bit of compassion. Just a tiny bit, out of love.

She knew him well. He needed no introduction.

He had no secret she did not know.

I am making dumplings for you, with plenty of eggs, she added, and still you show such ingratitude toward me. Did I make them with a parsley roux, I certainly did, what more should I do for you. I’m telling you, I’ll moisten them with some beef broth. Don’t be afraid, one day I’ll tell everyone all your little secrets.

After a while, the emotional silence became dangerously loud and tense in Gottlieb’s ears, though it would not have been advisable to evoke, by silence, Margit’s thirst for revenge.

With his glance, therefore, he quickly returned to the first sentence of the footnote, though he was still unfamiliar with the end of the story.

In the city of Cleve, in that vast lowland where the Maas, the Niers, and the Rhein flow toward one another, there lived a rabbi named Ammon, he read the footnote out loud, and he smiled as if he had found a liberating, happy ending in his book. Listen to what I’ve found, Margit. I don’t think you’ve ever heard of this Rabbi Ammon. I know I haven’t.

And I’m telling you, you listen to what I am telling you. If once, just once, for a single moment you listened to what I say, what I say, I, responded the woman almost threateningly, surprised in her endless marital daydreams, not only liver, I’m telling you, how could I tell you more clearly, you mean, wicked, accursed man, that I’ve also bought sponge mushrooms for you.

Mushrooms, she said, pronouncing the word with her entire mouth, because not only did she like to take on her lips the image of liver swollen with blood, but it also felt good to pronounce the word mushrooms with big, long vowels.

I bought the morels from Jews, don’t worry. I don’t buy a single mushroom from the goyim. I should buy what they already touched and felt all over with their filthy paws. Wicked ones, they spoil everything. I don’t buy those mushrooms.

Gottlieb took one look at this complete stranger, this unkempt, desperately ill woman who was incurious about anything she did not already know. With profound conviction, she guarded her ignorance, yet occasionally she seemed to know surprising things. It may have been possible that she did in fact know the story of Rabbi Ammon. Her adored father of blessed memory, an ugly, rather mean and violent man, was cantor and schoolmaster in the service of the Munkács Jewish community, and thus, in her parental home, where the stable and the classroom both opened from the salon, Margit had picked up many things.

Gottlieb was literally beaming at her with his convincing smile, because just this once he really wanted to share the story with somebody.

And with that smile he slowly convinced the insane woman longing for understanding, or perhaps he deceived and bewitched her.

It says here about him, he looked back at his book quickly, that his wealth, enormous erudition, rare integrity, and piety made this rabbi first among his contemporaries. But his fame also reached the court of the prince of Jülich in Duseldorp, and if he or the princess happened to be in the mood, the rabbi was a welcome guest of theirs whenever they invited him.

Sit down, come, sit there, facing me, Margit, sit down with those miserable dumplings, let me read to you the whole story, he said, and with his book pointed impatiently to the other kitchen stool.

At about this time Madzar’s mother arrived home from the island, flushed and hot from work and riding her bicycle.

Madzar, standing on the veranda, wrapped in silence and invisibility, was observing how she pushed the bicycle to the shed, how she leaned it carefully against the wall, and how she slipped off the basket she carried on her back.

A solitary bird was chirping shrilly from the edge of the eaves.

The bird flexed its legs twice after each chirp, but did not fly away.

His mother had nothing in her back basket but her white petticoat, which she had taken off because of the heat, her black sweater, and a little freshly cut alfalfa for the rabbits. Her scythe was carefully hooked onto the upper rim of the basket. And the redstart nesting in the eaves had been sending its alarm signal because from among the roses or grapevines a cat was peeking out. Standing behind the veranda window, Madzar read a great many things in his mother’s dry features. Many things that earlier could not have reached his consciousness. He saw too much of the reality that consisted of simpleminded details, with which the foundation of his life had been laid. On her face, he saw again his own most intimate memories, which, precisely because of their commonness, one never scrutinizes closely.

How many things she must have learned while she waited for the ferry and during the short trip from the island to the town shore.

The excitement easily dissolved the dry features.

While on the ferry with the other women and on her way to her house, she gleaned much information that she had already learned from other sources in slightly different versions; and some details now became clear about which she could never have had an inkling.

Margit was irritated, cursed her husband, if he could take it outside, why can’t he take it back in, don’t you have hands. Why should I do everything.