Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

At the same time, he didn’t want to rush anything. Which meant that he had completed only three important pieces by late autumn, virtually minutes before his departure.

After that he had time only to put the objects in their designated locations and call for the photographer.

It was better that way, because he and Mrs. Szemző had no time for a sentimental farewell.

Which only increased their mutual admiration.

They’d never see each other again, how fortunate, they thought, looking into each other’s eyes, and thus they managed to glide through their relationship unscathed, almost.

But in that early April heat, Madzar began his work on the chairs and armchairs. Soon the weather turned cool again, it rained a lot, and occasionally he had to light a fire in the potbelly stove. For him this was the greatest excitement and pleasure, the chairs. He hardly ever listened to news on the radio or picked up a local newspaper, for he didn’t want disturbing news to interfere with his work. Sometimes, information about what was happening around him reached him days after an event. He thought of the Germans’ strategic ideas as a material form or structure. To stupefy the unsuspecting world with revisionist demands, as if peaceful solutions still had a chance. War was imminent. And he did not need Bellardi to convince him of the dangers in German expansionism.* In his aesthetic struggle against decorative decadence, he kept a modicum of indifference about the threatening events. And he went on being annoyed by the nonsense he had heard from Bellardi. He could not get out of his head the childish drivel a spoiled aristocrat like him could come up with. Having seen Bellardi’s childishness, Madzar appreciated all the more the simple yet unusually speculative mechanism of Mrs. Szemző’s thinking. What disgusted him most was Bellardi’s dramatically conceived patriotic sense of responsibility, which no matter from what angle he looked was nothing but empty self-complacency and self-indulgence, just like Tonio Kröger’s many sentiments. He learned two days after the fact that Prague was next to fall, Vienna having been first, though the Czechs were defending themselves, their army’s motorized units were concentrating on their borders with Hungary and Germany. Or perhaps this too was nothing but provocation. While he worked, the thought that he should start packing was always with him, and he could see himself catching the last ship out of Genoa.

For a few days he followed the news persistently and even bought the miserable local papers.

He tried not to think about Mrs. Szemző while he worked, because he wanted to forget he was making these objects for her. Interestingly enough, the chairs were going to be heavier than they looked. He had to be careful not to make this work into a confession of love. He would have found that ridiculous. He was making the furniture out of military sleepers that were supposed to have been used in the war effort. He tried to be amused by this devilish twist of fate but couldn’t be; the coincidence that had brought the wood to him seemed too ominous. Secretly he hoped that Bellardi would stand by his promise and show up unexpectedly for the answer to his question.

It was a matter of just millimeters; there was practically nothing more to simplify in the chairs. Compared to Rietveld, he could at best change some of the proportions, giving greater emphasis to the texture of the material, but the material itself produced that. The emphasis was even stronger than Rietveld’s, and only Madzar knew it was nothing but pure luck.

He was particularly proud of this success of his, which seemed so improbable.

But he did torture himself with waiting for the unexpected.

Or was tortured by the rediscovery that Bellardi existed, that he still loved him, that he loved him despite all his ridiculousness.

But think how well you’ve been getting along without him.

It was not only the obligation he felt toward Mrs. Szemző that held him back from packing and leaving. This was a dangerous place. Dangerous things came to mind concerning Bellardi or, rather, because of Bellardi he mulled over sweet, desirable old issues that in no circumstance did he want to recall. At least while he was thinking about Bellardi he didn’t have to think about Mrs. Szemző; he could not help waiting for him. Or he wanted to forget the things he couldn’t help thinking about without connecting them to Bellardi. When he went to Buda to check up on the work on Orbán Mountain and to look in on the cabinetmaker on Szív Street who was working on the interior furnishings, he took the train to be sure not to meet him. He contacted Mrs. Szemző exclusively by telephone, emphasizing that he had to return to his workshop because after all he was laboring diligently on furniture for her clinic. But he did not dare tell himself that the work was more important than she was, and in addition Mrs. Szemző spoke to him very reservedly.

Which caused him immeasurable pain.

It was always because of Bellardi that he hastened to return to Mohács, and he had neither reason for nor the right to such pain.

He worried that Bellardi might be looking for him in Mohács and that they might miss each other, perhaps for life. He wanted to avoid the woman, and used the furniture as his excuse, but he also didn’t want to miss Bellardi.

Sometimes, when he was listening to the news, he caught himself not paying attention. How can he hear what they’re saying on the damned radio when his mother is so passionately chopping parsley.

Stop for a moment, Mother.

Can’t you see I’m trying to listen to the radio.

After a while, he could not but notice that his irritation was unreasonable. Every incidental noise bothered him. One can’t say that noise bothered him in his work but, rather, in that intimate process, that inner monologue of his open to both past and future that had become integral to his work. And the sharp shrieking of the riverside swallows brought Mrs. Szemző so close that, no matter how hard he tried to distract himself with thoughts of Bellardi, he was always thinking about her to a small degree. As if in his imagination Mrs. Szemző had to be the one to strike Bellardi dead and, if this was impossible because of the swallows, then the other way around.

Slowly, summer came into full bloom, and soon he realized that the birds were indeed swallows and that the days were becoming hotter.

Because of a third person, not to think of the person he was thinking about. How lovely it would be to go for a walk with Mrs. Szemző along the river, among the shrieking swallows. And he decided — in order to bring about some quiet within himself after being buffeted by these two — to bow to Bellardi’s request and not oppose him. And he will not yield to Mrs. Szemző’s attraction, that won’t do, it’s quiet just working for her. After all, the reason he imagines there might be something between him and Mrs. Szemző is so as to forget that poor woman in Rotterdam who stayed with her husband, or rather, to forget the husband, about whom he knew everything, which proved to be too much. He did not want more knowledge now, especially not of another man. And, being human, he did forget the husband, though the woman would not leave his limbs, his hair, the taste buds of his tongue and palate. He had no time to get mixed up in new adventures just to forget her.

He should stop stealing time from himself.

There will be plenty of Jewish women in America.

But to Bellardi he would say yes quickly, this he did decide, he would surprise him with a quick and decisive yes.

He could no longer stay here, if only because of Bellardi’s stupid plans with that secret society.

I’ve thought it over, I’ve changed my mind, he’d tell him.