Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

That is how he explained to himself retroactively that it was not from meanness but at the dictates of their blood that they’d had an aversion for the Gottlieb child. He clung to the petty officer’s every word. Should he be tormented, as a devout Catholic, were they not obeying their racial instincts when they let the older boys take care of the Gottlieb boy.

Ever since then, observing racial features in any situation excited him.

Even though he had to keep his eyes on the wet road.

He was always able to behave very amiably with Jews, he did not make them feel what he truly thought about their race, and he was especially fond of his own gallantry and generosity.

But his momentary daydreaming, focused on moderate self-admiration, was not without danger.

The hastily applied lipstick on the lady’s mouth, the large amount of rouge and powder, could not conceal the devastations of pain, ice-cold indifference, and constant anxiety but, rather, mocked her.

The driver’s eyes meandered over the woman’s disintegrated features.

In accordance with her upbringing, the passenger considered herself a perfect being, a unique specimen, different in everything and from everyone. She had deflected all doubts about herself, because her upbringing had been perfect, flawless, and that is why she knew how to behave so amazingly well in any situation. Moreover, as the favorite grandchild of Grandpapa Demén, she’d remained a pampered child forever. It was as though the driver, prompted by the map of this strange face, was reciting the lessons of his own life, burdened with much self-aggrandizement.

I never learn anything from anything, he’d sometimes say to himself, and he was very proud of this.

Although there were different emphases in the way these two had been brought up, their tones were similar. They made the same mistakes and notoriously repeated their own errors time after time, since they were convinced that they’d risen above their mistakes and that their high position today was appropriate.

When in the past he had lost his way and began to suspect that he had confused his personal characteristics with his faults, he explained to himself that it was pleasant to stray. He couldn’t tell what he was covering up with which of his rogueries, or what he might have substituted for one of his shams and when. He couldn’t keep track of the consequences either; they burgeoned until he couldn’t help seeing effect as cause.

He accepted his own little frauds and deceptions because they were witness to his cunning and nimbleness. It was not only others he misled; he blundered continually and, one might say, followed flawed premises in his thinking.

He reveled in his own imperfection and attributed no special significance to the flaws in his thought.

To start with, he seemed to know when something was not as it appeared, but he’d give it a name in the interests of using it to succeed in a tactical maneuver. It was like what had happened in his childhood in Mohács in the big pantry of their palace on Városház Street, where he spooned preserved fruit out of the glass jars in such a way that the servants wouldn’t notice the drop in the level of the contents. Yet a small amount was indeed missing from the jar, and the next day the level would fall again, and the next day too, until the preserved fruit nearly disappeared — though probably no one in the household but he was secretly eating it. He liked peaches more but, by way of precaution, ate plums too, because there were more plums than peaches. He guarded his coveted goodness by deceiving himself. He managed to conquer his true desire. Sometimes he’d break a cellophane cover on one jar or disturb the natural skin formed on the surface of the fruit yet leave it untouched while eating stealthily from another jar. He had to manipulate things so that his mother would suspect a gluttonous maid. Or so that one maid would be set against another. He’d steer their suspicions in a given direction by deliberately dropping false hints. On the third day, the broken cellophane or filmy skin could be the pretext for stealing from another jar too. Then at least he could save the dangerously diminished contents of the first jar from his own hateful gluttony. But by then plum compote was missing from two open jars, even though he liked cherry or sour-cherry compote better. Sometimes he’d make whole jars disappear, so that the deficit in one jar wouldn’t be noticed; after he managed to devour the fruit to the last spoonful, shaking with excitement all the while, he buried the evidence in a deep hole in the garden.

It was enjoyable to play with the possibilities, risky; he knew his gluttony was a mortal sin, but he didn’t want to resist temptation completely, he’d give in to it a little, and with excitement and tension thus aroused, he caused much joy to himself. He knew he was a backslider. He did not notice how he combined his secret excitements with fear and trembling, how he intertwined them. He was moving among screens and scenery; illusion and make-believe gained an independent reality.

He had major sins, which he did not confess.

This was the source of his secret joy. And why shouldn’t he allow himself a daring exchange of roles. He’d believed all his life that it was enough to conform to certain behavioral norms to avoid punishment. Well, all right, he can’t avoid his temptations and the quiet punishments that follow, but he can at least avoid public humiliation. Virtually every situation can be mastered; one has only to remain smooth and nimble, gain some time, because everything in this world is transitory, is it not; everything is temporary.

Touch everything only on the surface, just there, do it but do it lightly; do not look into things deeply.

He was way off the mark with this, of course, because he did see deeply into things even if he didn’t want to. He preferred to deny what he saw. It was like denying his silent soul, his better self. He was unable to lose his miserable clear-sightedness.

Duty had brought him to this state, into the thick of it. It was impossible that barely past his fiftieth year he would find nothing but a pile of misery in his soul.

Weltschmerz laid him low; his cheerful disposition kicked helplessly against it.

He was daydreaming about himself, as was his wont, while scrutinizing a strange face.

Yet there had been a few unblemished, glittering moments, hours, days; he consoled himself with this — though he could not think of one right now. Maybe the enormous, timeworn, peeling wall of the Trieste Naval Academy, so thickly overgrown with ivy, and the salty fragrance of the sea breeze suffused with sunshine up on San Vito. He well remembered that sensation, though bitterness blotted out the memory of what had occurred there. He knew what he was remembering, but it no longer had a shape or image, and no participants either. He could also say how many times it had happened to him. Actually, whole hours had been like that, les très riches heures under romantic laurel trees. He seemed to feel around him the texture of their aura heated by the sun, their fragrance; surely there were at least some moments like that. And who knew what one should do to achieve those moments; what should be adjusted to what, and similarly, what should be given a wide berth if these rich hours were indeed acts of grace. There was only one spot in the park, over the roofs, from which one could see down to the bay. And what would he be looking for in a place where grace was meted out. To watch how a white ship swims through the opening. They were not allowed to climb trees; he was standing on tiptoe to see the sunny surface of the water.

And it seemed he had to take a good hard look at the map of devastation and decay in his rearview mirror so that he wouldn’t have to give up his contempt-filled hope. Or at least so he wouldn’t let his contempt for the world be stronger than hope.