Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

She barely sticks out of the ground and she’s already working her jaw.

We barely get anything to raise you on, you hear me.

A father only has to beat his son, can’t your tiny little brain remember even this much. You’d like your foster father slapping your ass, wouldn’t you.

I’d let him have it for that, I would.

She’d like that, yes, she would.

It’s always her impatience and her demands that ruin her life. She’ll fuck things up with this lovely, ravishing man too, just as she fucked it up with the old Jew, which is why she hasn’t inherited anything, but what the hell am I talking about, I can’t believe the things my mind can dredge up. At least his feet don’t stink. You’re safe with these people, you can even lick their asses. He not only shits but properly washes it for himself. And he also knows what is where in the other person’s body, he knows what he’s supposed to lick patiently, for a long time, oh, so delicious, what to keep softly sucking or what to stab with just the right force.

And if she loses him, it would be just as it was with Bizsók. Or with Médike, from whom she could really learn, finally, where to look for what in her own system.

Her dumb adoration and thirst for revenge scare them away.

She must be on her guard.

This time — because of the hungry hatred she felt for them, her will to take everything and learn everything from them, feel contempt for them, be better than they and better than everybody — the F sharp found its right place.

More correctly, several necessary things found their proper places all at once, and because of that she could at least put the note in its right place. If not her entire life, retroactively and in anticipation. She was busy contemplating her hatred — clearer than daylight — and remembering Médike’s prediction that if and when she ever put the note in its right place she, Gyöngyvér herself, would hear it.

She would feel it as though she had acquired an entirely different system of hearing.

The Holy Spirit or some such thing must have seized her.

You’ll be standing next to yourself, listening to your singing.

To hear what you’ll be hearing then, you won’t need your ears, my dear.

Or perhaps sweet Médike lent her own hearing to her.

A feeling of triumph will be swelling in your body.

In her joy, she felt like pissing on Mrs. Szemző’s old piano stool.

It was only her dumb urge to pee that put the note in its place. Of course, in this miserable maid’s room, where she could hole up thanks to the generosity of these grand ladies, she’d caught another cold. Sweet Médike would be glad to predict everything for her. Now she can suffer again for weeks with her bladder infection and ovaritis; she’ll be bleeding and then she’ll have to send away even this rotten pretty boy too.

Experiencing the convergence of so many different things enthralled and moved her so much that she propped her arms on the keyboard and then lowered on them her migraine-tortured pretty little head. She continued with her infinite self-pity, lamenting that she had been dealt such a cruel singing teacher who was nevertheless the best voice coach in the city. That she pays fifty-seven forints per hour. Every month she has to give half her salary to this woman; she can’t buy herself a damn thing, every one of her best pieces she has had to charm off somebody. How could she be so hapless, such a shiftless, hopeless case who can’t exploit her own talents, such a useless mortal. Doomed to suck cocks as babies do tits, but without finding a man who at night would give her what’s rightfully hers and love her tenderly.

There is no such man and never will be, but at least she knows where to put this shitty little F sharp.

And not even these people can take this away from her anymore.

In the meantime she’s making ungodly noises with her helpless limbs on the superannuated concert piano.

What makes you think that such a pampered pretty boy would give you yours, of all men, such a Lothario. Don’t hold your breath, the young gentleman looks only for his own pleasure in you.

Why must we women be such dumb whores.

Why should I get him a blanket. Why should I steal a nice warm blanket from Mrs. Szemző’s closet for him.

Let these pretty boys look to the Almighty of their decrepit old mothers, why don’t they go lick and suck Him.

Oh, my good Lord, I shouldn’t be thinking of Him like this.

I’ll slap your mouth, little girl.

Only don’t turn around; and while he prayed like this, which made him shudder, he began to run. But on the bridge there was no place to run to and running made his injured shin throb terribly.

The moment he stopped to chase away the dog panting at his ankle, to beat him away cruelly, mercilessly, however he could, no stray dog like that should follow him, and to do this he had to turn around, he felt the dog’s feet on his shoulders and a warm wet tongue on his face.

From then on Kristóf wore on his face the stamp, as it were, of the dog’s wide, warm tongue. Although not everyone could see that he constantly rebelled against his own goodness with all his might and wanted to hear nothing about any kind of mercy or compassion.

He staggered, yelled, and shoved the dog off.

In an instant disgust and nausea covered his entire body with spots and pimples, and he swallowed helplessly.

Enchanting, you’ve done it magnificently, my dear Gyöngyvér. Sie haben es geschafft, geschafft. I worry only about your impatience and hysterics. But this, das hätte ich nicht geglaubt, nicht gedacht. Don’t become overconfident.

And then I fuck it all up again by thinking all these lousy, obscene things about this gorgeous and darling man.

Who doesn’t shit on her.

You’ve done it wonderfully, but let’s look at it a bit closer. Did it happen by chance.

Nobody is going to tell me what to do. Why shouldn’t I be overconfident.

First, I’ll give you a few F sharps, listen, Gyöngyvér, but I want the same thing in the right tempo and with the text.

Áperté , we’ll see whether you really found it this time.

Shit on you, Médike.

I think you can do it without all that nodding. Don’t keep nodding so much with the text, just sing, sing, damn it.

Don’t open your mouth so wide. Gaping like that won’t help you one bit.

Stimme , how many times do I have to tell you, Stimme .

I don’t want to see you making grimaces.

Let’s take it again from the top.

I really couldn’t care less what you’re saying, I shit on all of you.

I shit on the listless cocks of all those jokers.

I want to hear your voice, my dear, not see your mimicry. Your little-girlish hatefulness doesn’t interest me at all. You can’t conjure voice out of mimicry, and hysterics can’t help you.

Please don’t open your mouth so wide, it’s ugly and unnecessary.

At the memory of this note, Gyöngyvér Mózes pricked up her ears, raised her head, wiped her tears, and listened into the mute night.

Was she hearing the noise of the elevator rising in the glass tube of the stairwell, which echoed the slightest little noise. She heard thuds, the pounding of running feet, booted and coming closer, shouts and then rattling, as when a window is smashed with a rifle butt.

She looked around for a hiding place.

That night of the second day of Christmas when a group of Arrow Cross thugs broke into this building and rousted everybody just as they found them out to the snow-covered street, Mrs. Szemző and her two sons had been long gone from their apartment. Alajos Madzar had placed very few objects in any given space, and with Mrs. Szemző he had a very easy time when it came to minimizing the need for objects. He put very simple, etched-glass-covered sconces with matte chromium-plated armatures on the rustically splattered walls. And in that space Gyöngyvér Mózes heard many notes she could not possibly have heard.