Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

Not only did she escape, she also drank the chickens’ water, the mean thing.

She’d better talk or answer me before I knock her dead.

With what remained of her senses she understood that the world order was different for other people; they wash up and go to church. She didn’t understand why they stuffed soap in her mouth when she did not know how she should have answered, or what her sin meant to her and why she was so filthy and smelly, and why she had scratched her fleabites again until they were bloody.

Mrs. Bizsók did not do things like this to her but she slapped her face and spanked her bottom mercilessly.

Though she won’t forgive her for beating her with a vine pole.

Don’t yah fret, nobody’s gonna look for yah if I beat yah to death.

She did not lash out at the others whom she wanted to understand, to win over, love or bribe to compensate for the heat of the chicken coop, the constantly fidgeting hens, and the scratched fleabites. She wanted them to accept her, take her in; she’d show them that she too could be useful or that at least she wasn’t useless. This was the reason she paid so much money to Médike. Fifty-seven forints for an hour that was only fifty minutes.

They should not do this to her.

She threw up; in her alarm, she vomited on her little dress when they were taking her to church, but how could they take her wearing something she’d thrown up on.

In the coop, it was also hard for her to learn how to avoid the rooster.

She had the runs because of her fear; they tethered her to a tree because she soiled everything in the summer kitchen.

Or to stick a knife in them, that long-bladed knife her foster mother pulled out from behind the saltbox to slit the throats of the geese and let them thrash between her legs until they bled to death, down to the last drop.

She was quick to flare against those she could not strangle with her hands.

She desperately envied them for their always different lives, none of which would ever be hers.

Not to turn around or look back.

At first he only quickened his steps, trying not to limp so much, but the dog’s tapping feet followed him even faster.

He did not want to take the starving cur under his wing now that he was so defenseless himself.

Only not to turn around.

Then, as if hit by lightning, her brain was shot through with an electric discharge.

Whereupon her hearing seemed to open onto her voice, and the voice, small and miserable because of all the secret crying and infinite joy of having possessed that beautiful man, now breaks free, is liberated, and this time she is the one chaining someone to herself. Who is not right for her. Although she had been with a man like that before, this is not the first time she has done it with them, Jews. If he is a Jew — he says he isn’t. And she felt the joy because of this incredible exhaustion too, and her elemental fear of him, being so exhausted because of her. All right, let him be half a Jew, what do I care, it’s all the same to me. Anyone can wear you out in three days, that’s for sure. Why should I be scared of things that are good for me. Because of him, she won’t be able to go to work today, yes, because of him. And she trembled because of her constant anxiety about having the money to pay Médike. I should be ashamed of what he did to me, ashamed that with me anybody can do anything; he can make my knees shake and my soul tremble at the same time. My head will explode, because I’m such a miserable creature, God put me down at the wrong place, Providence slipped me into the wrong body and there isn’t a person in the world who can help me.

Everybody gets my goat and I have to be afraid of women too.

Yet she had never before experienced such profound sexual contentment with a man.

It was more than ever before; simultaneously, she moved with him in various deep layers and on high plateaus, simultaneously.

Well, goddamn it, it’s not all the same to me.

It was new and shocking, just thinking about it was enough to make her brain cells come, but she was just as enthusiastic about that old saying she had heard in Tiszavésztő, that humans are mortal and licentious. She must have picked it up during a Bible lesson, or maybe it was from a familiar psalm, but which one.

Then it must be something by Bach. She vainly searched her mind for the fucking psalm. So she could quietly console herself with it in the endless city night.

Which made her realize for the first time in her life — she in fact saw — what a wide ditch yawned between physical and mental gratification.

If this was so, then all these years she’d been getting fucked in vain.

Only for things to be a little better.

I’ve been getting myself screwed for nothing; with their puny cocks, these wretches could give neither of those gratifications. If they had the cock for it, they lacked the necessary rhythm. What’s to be done if, in her case, one ability does not exist without the other. They can reach neither her body nor her soul. They could never get it up enough to screw her properly or, who knows what and why, something was always off. They stayed too far away or pushed themselves too close and left her no room to feel, but feel what. Because of her mortality and licentiousness, then, she had thrown away her soul’s opportunities. She’s been wandering soullessly in this earthly existence, but this too is but a psalm.

Because this one too will be only a dumb little technician in her life; they try hard, they pant, they hope to make every effort, which is why they shove, push, chew, and lick so desperately and so fast.

The moment they stop, their things droop; men become miserable because of me.

With his beautiful body, he works very nicely for me though he’s completely soulless toward me, as I am to him. I don’t love him, that’s the truth, I just needed to chalk up one of these well-educated men. She saw her fate before her; the terrible ditch opened up like this, like a wound. To this day, she knew exactly where the ditch ran between the reapers. Only the big boys could jump across it, in the spring, when the ice began to melt and the ditch filled with water. She couldn’t jump across it, but she thought nothing of getting into a fight with them. You weren’t careful with your clothes, were you, you snot-nose, you little shit, you useless thing, you, who will buy you clothes now, you barren creature. From the very beginning she had to give up things because she not only had been born a girl but was a foundling. Children can jump that far only if they get their milk every morning and without the sweet cream taken off the top beforehand, and if they also get potato noodles. She understood that the Bizsók boys had to have the cream so that their noodles would grow better, but who decided that she shouldn’t be a boy but a foundling, this she did not understand. Mrs. Bizsók made the decision. She understood that girls did not have to grow as much as boys because girls didn’t have noodles between their legs. Mrs. Bizsók beat her soundly when she got her dress wet in the ditch. She’d done something wrong, spoiled something again. But Mrs. Bizsók always had some cream, so why didn’t she have one between her legs, and why wasn’t she more understanding toward her. You knew I forbade you to jump across, but you went ahead and tried just the same. I always ruin things because I don’t understand what I have to give up. A foundling should behave herself, lie low. You can’t have anything to demand of us, not even before the law, little girl. And a female child should be especially obedient. You should be glad I’m teaching you, you useless thing, you. Who will slap your face, you little shit, or spank your butt if not your foster mother. And she always talks back to me, this state orphan here.