Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

Much pain and happiness intersected during this exceptional moment.

When Kristóf again broke into a run on the bridge, he was fleeing to safeguard the sweet and childish images of his own death from the images of Ilona’s rice chicken and innocent freckles.

Which would like to keep him here for his life and for his future.

He was the only one making a noise on the dully resonant sidewalk of the bridge with his running steps, and yet he acknowledged, with some delay, the sound of trotting coming close behind him. And he envied Ilona’s pale little boy, in advance, for his terrible fate. He was fully prepared to hurdle over the railing. Quick little taps like those made by a dog’s feet reached his consciousness first. The nails tapped more rapidly than he himself was running. His heart skipped a beat; the black dog was going to catch up with him, his black dog.

It had gotten free, broken out, or the night watchman must have heard its echoing, persistent barking. And now the dog was coming after him on the bridge so he would have to continue to live his life for its sake, for a dog.

No, this was too much.

He had to figure out something; he could not run any faster.

As if he could not decide where he was in time and space, what had happened to him earlier or later.

Good Lord, she sighed, and I reproached this sweet dear man, telling him he was working inside me like a stupid little technician.

Without a soul.

Cheeky person that I am.

It was Margit Huber again, speaking out of me.

She was surprised in any case by her delayed realization that this Médike had managed to get inside her and reach every part of her with her words so insidiously meted out.

What the hell was I talking about, that he was a technician, what a dumb thing to say.

Next thing I know she’ll decide what I should tell my lover; that’s all I need.

I can’t let that happen.

As if she had suddenly realized the intoxicating beauty and horror of the osmosis, the exchange of personality, the symbiosis that occurs between people.

This woman had moved inside her with her entire being, not only her stupid singing lessons; she had wormed her way into Gyöngyvér’s every sentence and every thought. In the end she’ll be telling me what I should say to whom in every situation. As if Médike, with her relentless smile, had expropriated Gyöngyvér for herself. Let the devil be happy with her, not me, let the devil shine and glitter, what I need is a man, not her artistic glittering. Or maybe Gyöngyvér had expropriated Médike’s being along with her smile, I’ve robbed her of her smile, though she still didn’t understand how a permanent smile like that worked, the one she had stolen. Such an illuminating, multifaceted smile — which displayed myriad colors and levels of emotional intensity, which flickered, wavered, and fluttered on Margit Hubert’s lips as she taught, and with which she compelled no one to do anything — was not calculated into Gyöngyvér Mózes’s dark and difficult life, only, at most, into her tuition. Not enough that I’m paying for my lessons, I’m supposed to be happy too. Let your damn mother be happy, that Swabian. Gyöngyvér was amazed, where does this Médike get the strength for her constant smiles. And as she imitated Médike, Gyöngyvér began to comprehend that the airily sustained smile indeed contained something cool, treacherous, and obsessively persistent that would prove indispensable to singing and that she could not do without.

And she hated Margit Huber for this.

These people allow themselves to do even this.

Sometimes, while talking to herself, she addressed Margit Huber’s smile as if it were not a single characteristic of a single person but the cause of her having to wage war simultaneously against the collective experience of several persons.

If something slipped out all right, if she succeeded with one of her phrases and Margit Huber praised her, beaming, yes, that’s it, Gyöngyvér, that’s how you should do it, this is what we’ve been waiting for, then of course she instantly felt her heart beat faster and she adored her teacher.

She was grateful to her for her earlier wickedness.

Médike was redeemed and Gyöngyvér adored her.

She wanted to get rid of this painful, newly acquired habit of hers, the relentless full-mouthed smiling when speaking or singing. The moment she eked out a good result from her many fiascos, she wanted to thrust Médike from her and quickly forget everything she had learned from her. What has this Médike accomplished in life with all her great knowledge, nothing. If she’d been able to make something of herself, she wouldn’t be teaching Gyöngyvér for fifty-seven forints an hour, she’d be singing. Others shouldn’t see who it was who had taught her to make her voice glow like that. This is a shameful betrayal. And though it would be painful to betray Médike immediately because, despite all her hatred, Gyöngyvér actually thought she loved her, I love her, the temptation for a quick all-out betrayal was greater.

And from whom can a natural talent really learn anything; from nobody.

She couldn’t have real pangs of conscience about the betrayal.

In Médike, she discovered a teacher’s unconditional humility toward her profession and her pupil. She’s a dumb slut. Which in Gyöngyvér’s language meant that in the soul of this elusive and merciless female was a spot where she’d left herself exposed. This entire teaching strategy was an impersonal passion that she too had experienced with the children in the kindergarten and throughout her whole singing history, and no less profoundly. She knew perfectly well that without children she too was vulnerable. Her own body gave her the insight into the other person’s passion for teaching; and she saw how vulnerable it had made her too.

If it was possible, she wanted to exploit her even more.

She can’t do without her.

The sheer thought that she would wring the last drop of knowledge from the old hag filled her with gratitude; she’d wring every bit of knowledge out of her. Then she’d toss her aside like a dirty dishrag.

Passions cannot be tamed without a cool smile; she must make every sacrifice for this knowledge. The woman must be squeezed like a lemon. So that Gyöngyvér could acquire a little protection, this little common secret of theirs, a bit of this cunning little advantage.

Even then, she won’t have as many fine expensive things as these people do who are always inheriting things from other people or family members.

It was as if she were learning not to sing but to smile superciliously and cheerfully in a hostilely indifferent universe.

Why should I be the one who never inherits anything from anybody. Well, I shall take things for myself, I’ll rob them and I’ll smash everything.

But out loud she couldn’t even say how grateful she would be to Médike; she could say nothing out loud. Because there was no sentiment in the world that this old bitch didn’t reject. And let Gyöngyvér drown in her own sentimentality.

Let’s not become personal, Gyöngyvér, please. We’re busy with something else now. We do not put our personal feelings on display, we look upon them as the object of our labors.

When will you be able to pay the overdue tuition, if I may ask.

And Gyöngyvér should be drowning in her love and gratitude, since she was not allowed to be free of these feelings. Just once, though, she’d like to tell the merciless bitch that she feels her gratitude in her loins. It hurts my stomach, in my cunt I feel my gratitude, you old idiot, you hag, in my twat, you understand.

How would this Médike know how one should sing onstage if she has never actually taken a cunt into her mouth.