Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

Sometimes she cried because of the kitchen stools, but she would not take them inside herself.

Now she lowered herself to one of the stools, spellbound.

On the Gottliebs’ veranda, there was nothing but the two stools.

If you don’t bring it back here, don’t expect me to do it.

Never, you understand, never.

Maybe the wedding ring would fall off his precious hand if he did.

You are a base, mean man who does not wear his wedding ring so he can flirt with anybody.

The last person to tell her a story was her adored father. She did not sit on the entire stool, only on its edge, because she was afraid that this wretch, this shameless, this insolent, this mean man would deceive her with this new approach. He would deceive her by reading aloud to her. He is capable of anything. He would read something from his pious book that isn’t even in it. And I don’t want to hear it. She had a special contempt for the wretch because of his books. You don’t come up to the ankle of my adored father, you hear, you wretch, with your lack of education and your ignorance. Thinks he can fool anybody with his famous books. That people will look at him as a finer person, a scholar, they’d say, because his nose is always in books. Ridiculous. A hardworking peasant doesn’t eat as much as you stuff in your big stomach. And when it comes to sleeping, he really knows how to do that. And to snore, so I can’t sleep. Like a log, you sleep, while I only toss and turn on the sheet all night long. Your brain is as blunt as a log. Sharpen it all you want, with your books. You won’t deceive me, believe me. You only give yourself airs with your books and your great knowledge, while on the sly and quietly you keep passing them, one after the other, out here on the veranda.

If only he did it aloud at least.

And you make such a stink that I have to stop at the door. That’s your big knowledge, how to pass wind, that you know. So that my whole life, in my own house, I should smell it. Your stench, you shameless, treacherous, mean wretch, you are not a man. Your stink has eaten itself into the walls. I can’t even clean the window glass because of it. All the windows stink. Nobody else could live with you in the same house but me, and even I’m suffering like a dog.

I am suffering because of you, don’t you understand, suffering.

Why must I live in so much suffering with a complete stranger, that’s what I want you to explain to me.

It happened that on an early spring day Rabbi Ammon received another message, Gottlieb read aloud, as if he had not heard any of the woman’s words, inviting him to distant Duseldorp, which was the name of Düsseldorf back then. Maybe she had never heard of this. Jan Willem, the prince of Jülich, had moved his court there after several decades of warfare, and, based on what he had read, Gottlieb’s imagination created a special space in which to accommodate the action of the story. Once again, the prince wanted to hear the rabbi’s advice, Gottlieb read in his book so he wouldn’t hear the false sounds his wife was making. The messenger also revealed the subject on which the mighty prince had expected to hear Rabbi Ammon’s advice. Because then the guest would have a chance, during the journey to the palace, to contemplate the matter, turn it over in his mind. The messenger was also a nobleman, a large young man, his chin just becoming downy; he insisted on setting out immediately because the Rhine and the Maas had overflowed, not to mention the Niers, and there was a chance that they might merge and flood the highway. They rode in pouring rain, and because of the floods, a journey that should have taken only two days lasted more than five. On the low-lying meadows, above which the heavy-bellied rain clouds moved slowly, they continually had to search for passages of high ground in the water. They lost their way several times, had to put up in unfamiliar inns to feed their horses and rest them. Water, nothing but water as far as the eye could see. The horses’ hooves splashed in water. On the afternoon of the fifth day, they reached the Duseldorp castle, whose walls, in a merciless driving wind, were being lashed by the waters of the flooding river. But the prince had already adjourned the conference, attended by distinguished lords from Jülich, Berg, Pfeilen, Mark, Ravensburg, and, from the rabbi’s hometown, the count of Cleve himself. When Rabbi Ammon was led in, still drenched, the nobles were already seated at the table set for dinner and even the prince of Jülich would not have wanted to remember what he had hoped to hear from the rabbi.

It would not have been proper to revive the debate among the restless lords.

They let the Jew dry off, along with the dogs that burst in with him.

Do you hear, Margit, I hope you’re listening, Gottlieb interjected but did not even look up at his wife, who, with a confused little smile on her lips, was paying fairly devoted attention to him.

She had even lowered the bowl with the dumpling dough to her lap.

But she was on the alert; because of the always-stinking man she could not relax the tension in her body.

Occasionally, the noblemen would throw a bone or piece of meat to the dogs, who grew excited by the smell of food, but they forgot about the rabbi. The prince, who sat close to the rabbi but facing away from him so he could warm his aching back at the fireplace, turned to him only once.

If you ever blabber about my question to you, Jew, I’ll have your tongue cut out, and then I’ll have your head chopped off.

But nobody ever uttered, or ever would utter, the certain question or request that the rabbi might reveal to someone. No allusions to it have been found either in Rabbi Ephraim’s notes taken in Bonn, which, of course, is more than understandable.

However, they could not deceive the rabbi.

Because of the prince’s words, the drinks, the music, the dogs’ barking, and mainly because of the postprandial gratification coursing through their entire beings, the good mood kept rising among the noble lords.

The rabbi neither asked for nor received more than some fresh water.

He was still hoping somehow to get through this ill-omened visit.

Until the count of Cleve stood up and spoke for a long time directly into the prince’s ear. He spoke for about a quarter of an hour as if, in the midst of great giggles and guffaws, he were dripping poison in the royal ear. And Jan Willem, who was nicknamed the Wealthy because of his immense treasures, at first laughed at the deluge of words with which the whispering large-nosed count of Cleve inundated him; not until the count had stopped and, smirking under his large nose, contentedly strolled back to his seat did he summon the rabbi before him.

In the silence that fell in the great hall, the lashes of the flooding river could be heard.

Now, however, to everybody’s great surprise the prince addressed the rabbi by his name, as if the Jew too had a regular name like everybody else. He no longer needed his advice, the prince told the rabbi, and he could keep all his advice to himself, because he, the prince, had taken care of everything, he and the other lords had set the world aright. But just then Margit made a move on her stool and let out a painful moan.

I already put your mushroom soup on the stove.

Let your mushrooms be. Who’s interested in your mushroom soup now.

How could I let it be. The good mushroom juice will boil away, and I still have to thicken it with flour, and I haven’t chopped the parsley either, the woman whimpered, yet she seemed to be nailed to the stool.

Unless, with some luck, the fire’s gone out, oh, maybe I didn’t put in enough twigs.

We’re still very far from the end of the story, listen, Gottlieb said, and he looked up for a moment to ascertain whether he could continue.