Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

Follow the ladies’ example, and if they are not sitting, you stand too.

The same scene again, said the baroness dryly. You will excuse me if I leave you briefly — Countess, Baroness.

Now Schuer stood too, but he did not lose his equanimity.

Oh, I’m so sorry, cried the countess with feeling, I am really very sorry.

Even though obviously no one needed to hear her sentiments.

Suddenly she seemed to sense the silence in the house.

With practiced movements Miss Bartleby and one of the maids picked up the helpless body and, while the other maid hurried ahead, carried it out — with no special caution.

Please, don’t let this upset you, said the man as gracefully as he could, let’s finish our meal, and with his spread arms he asked them to take their seats again. He gave no explanation for the strange event. Not a word.

Not a single sign of worry.

Which both ladies found strange.

Baroness Thum sat down quickly and politely, almost defeated. She smiled a little absentmindedly to herself, and raised her fork and knife. Countess Imola stood for an additional moment, as if bewitched, her gaze following the three women carrying the little boy through the enfilade of rooms, the little girls’ shoulders, in their rickrack-decorated puffy-sleeved little blouses, shaking with suppressed weeping. Echoes of her childhood, alive with loneliness, came crashing down on her. A childhood filled with sameness, uniformity; the way the two little girls’ shoulders in their identical little blouses trembled identically; it was as if Imola had also reached the end of uniformity’s magic.

Which was not a feeling, not a decision, not a thought; it was something that simply happened.

She did not dare look at Schuer again, or say anything. Would not have dared ask him what had happened to his son, which for him seemed usual and routine. She couldn’t have said where their conversation had left off. She was deeply ashamed of having dared to compare this terrible father to Mihály Horthy for even a moment.

How could I have done that.

How lucky it was for her and her sisters that, when their mother had left them, fate saw to it that they had their kindly father, however defeated, with whom they could weep together.

Shortly the maids returned.

The countess found their zeal repulsive — and revealing too — the way the dining room with its very bourgeois furnishings exuded gloom, the way the maids carried away the superfluous settings, indicating their vast experience in removing traces of scandalous scenes. Quickly and tactfully. This practiced, easy behavior especially irritated her.

What have I done, she was screaming to herself, what have I done. She had no idea what she could have wanted earlier from this strange man, and in what science she had wanted to stick her nose.

She had enough social experience to know that accidents like these are usually followed by other accidents, and three days later everyone will have forgotten this one. She might have become unfaithful because of a man who is ready to cheat on his wife, no, not just that, who tortures his children, whom he cannot restrain.

As if she were trying to calm down by claiming that a man like that was worth nothing and she didn’t even want him.

No one broke the silence.

Rather, the adults dutifully continued their meal, eating everything that remained on their plates in a very proper way. They smiled politely and preventively, clattering improperly with their knives and forks on the fine porcelain. They also had to listen to the noise of the others’ chewing and swallowing. Even as a little girl Countess Imola had found this maddening, she couldn’t understand how her kindly, tender father could chew so loudly. This was the only reason for them to speak, so they should not have to hear one another from such an intimate proximity.

One cannot chew and swallow so politely that one’s jaw, teeth, and tongue won’t make champing and smacking sounds.

Maddening.

Yet in light of the receding minor family tension, it would have been considered just as inconsiderate to leave food on one’s plate. And cutlery cannot be used on porcelain without making a noise; no such fine porcelain exists.

And there are no perfect manners either.

They finished their meal quickly enough, though, and the maids took away their plates. Countess Auenberg could hear herself making her report to her woman friends of this visit. Charming people, but I have never sat on such an uncomfortable chair.

At the Schuers, the serving tray was not carried around a second time. Everyone ate as much as he or she had taken or asked to be served the first time around. In the painful silence they did not have to wait long for the dessert, which slightly surprised, in fact irritated, the countess, accustomed to the French habit of pacing the courses. Done this way, the meal was not a repast but merely a hurried intake of nourishment. Luckily, dessert consisted of small portions of an excellent soufflé glacé au café , each portion ornamented with a single roasted coffee bean. Without being noticed, Countess Auenberg pushed aside the tiny coffee bean with its oily shine in the shell-shaped saucer; Karla Baroness von Thum zu Wolkenstein and Otmar Baron von der Schuer, however, dutifully took theirs into their mouths and loudly crunched them between their teeth.

Schuer was first to speak once they had ended the long-lasting crunching in the frozen silence of the house, and once all three of them, ceremoniously and relieved, had touched their large damask napkins to their lips.

With her permission he would accompany the countess to the living room , he said in English, probably by accident. He and the baroness had originally planned to withdraw for a brief conference and he didn’t want to alter their plan, but he was certain he could count on the countess’s understanding and patience.

The countess, wearied by some strange distraction that might also be called coolness, neither answered nor looked at him.

He sincerely hoped, Schuer continued, growing hesitant in the absence of a polite response or look from her, that the company of his wife would more than compensate the countess for their brief withdrawal.

But the countess seemed unapproachable.

Eventually they’d have coffee together, Schuer added, almost as if against his will. This remark managed to startle the countess and remind her of her obligations; she complied immediately.

They left the dining room amid profuse polite murmurings.

Von der Schuer lingered to issue some instructions to one of the maids, and then for some time, happily, Countess Auenberg remained alone in the smaller salon.

The moment the door of the study closed behind them, Schuer and Baroness Karla ceased using each other’s first name.

This was not a conscious decision, the switch happened instinctively. From familiarity they stepped back into the scientific hierarchy, which had nothing to do with their common birth prerogatives.

I see that the Herr Professor intends to establish an institute in Budapest.

I intend to appoint the Frau Professor to head it. And that means, beyond all the joy involved, that the institute should be organized there.

They were standing awkwardly, halfway between the door and the desk.

At first Schuer wanted to take his place behind his desk, with its four decorative lion’s feet. Then he decided otherwise, choosing a friendlier solution, and he pointed at the comfortable armchairs in front of the glass-covered bookcases.

Strangely, neither of them reached the point of sitting down.

Nor could they step free of the gravitational pull of each other’s proximity.

At this point, it was also clear to Schuer that, given the baroness’s embarrassing surprise, he should not stop now; he must strike while the iron was hot; the baroness’s face visibly paled and then darkened with a rush of blood.