Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

Oh, why didn’t I think of this before.

He saw clearly that she was the being he should have waited to marry, no one else.

They did not acknowledge that in their great bewilderment about each other they were talking at cross-purposes while hearing and understanding the words of the others at the table, who, prompted by a similar bewilderment if not embarrassment, had been interrupting their duet and one another too. The two of them heard this duet they were creating — how could they not — but they didn’t understand the others, because they were no longer curious about them. This time he must not be too hasty, Schuer warned himself. Not every day does one meet someone who will be a queen tomorrow.

Nothing changed in the pleasantly cool dining room shaded by gigantic maple trees, or outside in the splendid rose garden, to warrant a mutual emotional excitement of such proportions.

Someone should have stopped talking, if only out of obligatory courtesy.

As if a thick, sonorous jet of water had bubbled up from the well of mutual admiration and adoration.

He had not waited for her, how could he have; he hadn’t known her, had had no idea she existed. Ridiculous, he said to himself. But now she would be useful, together they would establish the new institute, which he definitely needed, and this woman, a Hungarian queen, would be his patroness, which is quite impressive any way one looks at it, even though he knows these are empty words, a ludicrous self-consolation. The more likely object of his enthusiasm was the young woman’s beauty and elegance. He felt her as irresistible, had never met anyone like her.

Everyone noticed it, even the cautious maids busy with the soup. Amid much giggling and pretended secretiveness in the kitchen, they passed on the news to the cook and the scullery maid preparing the sauerbraten. This is a delicate operation in any circumstance; one must be quick so the meat doesn’t cool while being sliced.

The two of them had no sense of the impropriety they had put on public display. They both believed that in the circumstances they were well disciplined, and they admired themselves for their self-control.

Yet it was more like being on the brink of an earthquake.

Because they wanted more, wanted everything, they could not deny themselves to each other. How could they look into each other’s eyes without plunging into the whole scandalous story of their years spent without each other, and how could they not relate even more and more while readily absorbing the totality of images offered in the raw sight of the other’s solid, lithe physicality. The lady of the house, the three well-behaved children, the severely dressed Karla Baroness von Thum zu Wolkenstein and the nurse, Miss Bartleby, a rather pale, heavily freckled, unattractive Englishwoman with frizzled red hair, who was in charge of the children even at mealtimes — everyone around the table saw with their own eyes and heard with their own ears what the two of them were up to.

A brilliant and indifferent early afternoon in late August with the unmistakable hints of approaching autumn’s flavors and barbs.

This is what is happening to them. In the eyes of both there shone an alarming, wonderful feeling of being both surprised and privileged.

Countess Auenberg felt only one thing, that after three days of absence, she had reached home in Schuer’s sparkling eyes.

Although she couldn’t have said where she had come from or where they might now go together. Will this stranger sitting opposite her supplant her adored betrothed. She was so lost in Schuer’s glances, glittering with cold lights and cruelty — and she saw, how could she not, that he was dangerous, a man to be feared — that his incredible nose failed to disturb her, on the contrary. Yet it kept staring at her threateningly, in just the way she had complained about to Karla.

But it did not occur to her that her infidelity might be scandalous or that she was wavering in her love for her betrothed; she was suddenly busy with many objective details. Other considerations could not have entered her mind, on the contrary.

Because he was here, sitting opposite her.

Even if she were to see them together, she would mix up the two men’s faces and mainly their figures.

That made her happy — the sensitive, invulnerable mixing of the two, its enthralling realization. She spoke to him in rapid, whirling words. As if she were speaking to an idol. She spoke to him with her strong, courtly Viennese accent, herself incredulous about what she was experiencing and what she was now telling this idol so loudly, distracting her own attention from the impermissible attraction and its realization. This is not a human being; this is an idol. Not once did she turn to Baroness Thum, who also insisted on speaking only to Schuer, disregarding the lady of the house too, who, with loud arrhythmic comments, remained the loneliest person in the company. Well, the day before yesterday when — no, Schuer cannot possibly imagine — led by the charming Emmy Göhring, she laughed as she pronounced the name, she was absolutely charming, she laughed again, they paid a visit to Arno Breker’s atelier, here on Käuzchensteig if she wasn’t mistaken, wonderful, it’s probably not far from here, you probably know the place, isn’t it marvelous, you must go see it, he is a marvelously great artist, well, she became aware of an astonishing bust in one of the atelier’s abandoned nooks, on a pedestal such as one sees in ateliers, but she didn’t mention that, overwhelmed by the obscene and brutal sight of all those tight bundles of muscles, in the entire studio she had found fascinating and reassuring only this smooth naked male shoulder. At first glance she thought, she could not believe her eyes, that the artist had probably modeled the bust so lovingly on her fiancé. She could not describe it any other way but that it had been made with love, though she knew nothing of the creation or existence of this sculpture. Nor did she say, how could she, that she had not yet seen her fiancé’s naked shoulder, how could she. She worships her fiancé in his impeccably tailored suits, though she knows, she giggled to herself, that she should worship only Jesus Christ.

Still, she wasn’t curious about him naked, nor about his shoulder either; in fact she wasn’t curious about any part of him. There will be a time for that. Which she feared — what she would have to do then.

Schuer could not have known what the Hungarian countess was laughing about to herself as she talked to him with such abandon and why, at the same time, he shuddered at her sight, or why this shuddering made her more desirable. Even though he wanted nothing from her. I don’t want anything. She became in his eyes a little like a lovely angel of revenge. Only he could not understand why he thought this; on what or whom might this angelic being take revenge. On his terrible marriage, his entire infernal life until now.

Or if the artist had not modeled the bust on her fiancé—she had to get closer to it, something about it was suspicious, she, by the way, worships art and worships artists too, she continued with the forbidden word and in her immoderately loud and piercing, shrill little voice — then the artist must have modeled it on himself.

That is what she wanted to see, but the ladies kept following her everywhere.

She personally didn’t care if sometimes these modern artists with their modern works were shocking. She failed to notice the chilling effect these words provoked around the table. The moment she uttered them, all three women and even Schuer fell silent. Miss Bartleby, who until now had been trying in a subdued voice to restrain the children — and who, to the great amusement of the family, was considered a passionate devotee of the spirit of national socialism — could hardly contain herself. Unless asked, she was forbidden to take part in conversations around the table. Modern temples should be erected to house their shocking works. This remark caused a cacophony even louder than the previous one; everybody was trying to drown out the countess’s impossible sentences. And she did not say aloud how the artist with his entire physical presence had reminded her of Mihály, even though she could see that Breker had a terribly weak character, that he was a terrible sycophant. At this moment, it seemed to her unbearably impossible that her listeners knew nothing of Mihály. Perhaps she should talk about Mihály. But then it turned out, she continued easily and in the same breath, that the statue depicted neither the sculptor nor Mihály but the wonderful architect Albert Speer, whom she had not had the good fortune to meet, but she was sure they must know well that he was the Führer’s favorite architect; she said it like that, her voice full of tenderness as she pronounced the word Führer . With which she quickly rectified some of her earlier rudeness, as her listeners interpreted it. Even though the tenderness was directed at the model of the bust rather than at Hitler, whom she quietly abhorred. Following Count Svoy’s advice, in this instance it would have been incorrect to say Hitler. She had to accept that this was the way Germans expressed their natural affection for and unconditional trust in the man she found repulsive in every sense of the word. And demonstrating to the Germans that she was independent was not the only important thing to do, in this she agreed completely with Count Svoy, since over the centuries the Auenbergs had become great Hungarians; she also wanted to exploit for the benefit of Hungarians the fact that given her bloodline and her name she belonged to the Germans.