Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

I don’t give a shit about my German mother’s fucking roses.

He could not get a proper hold on his penis because then the urine wouldn’t have started to flow, but he didn’t want to piss on his feet either. Holding it properly would have kept up the erection and blocked the urine. Because of Mrs. Szemző, he’d completely forgotten that for weeks he had been waiting thirstily for Bellardi more than for anybody else. And now he was here. Or perhaps he should fuck this little Izabella what’s-her-name instead of Mrs. Szemző; the one with her scar had been left here for him anyway, and he could tell by her smell that she had nobody. A lonely animal, like me.

Why do I always wind up with women whom others have discarded.

And now he could not remember why in hell he had been waiting for this Bellardi, what could he have wanted from him, from such a man; and because of the rotten women he also couldn’t remember the miserable sentence he had so carefully prepared to surprise Bellardi with, and himself too.

What could I have wanted to tell him, what could I have wanted from him, and about what.

Bellardi shook him on the shoulder, nodded to him that he should come, it was time for them to go, and narrowed the slits of his usually smiling eyes even more.

Madzar greatly missed Bellardi’s permanent smile and disdain for the world; their absence made Bellardi a stranger to him.

He saw that something irreparable had happened to him.

His wordless reply was clear; they should go to the Danube.

Where else.

While the sun is still up.

Then I’ll bring my bathing suit, said Madzar.

Leave it behind, said Bellardi, why make a fuss.

From which he knew where Bellardi wanted to go, the place where pants weren’t necessary, and if only for that reason he did not object.

I’ll tell my mother.

Go ahead, tell her, grumbled Bellardi. I’ll wait for you outside. Why don’t you fuss some more, my friend, go on, worry a little more.

But Madzar turned around from the veranda steps, where the previous night he had several times managed to piss all over his mother’s beloved roses. Within the pungent odor of his own, he unexpectedly began to smell the familiar odor of his father’s urine. Bellardi always and in everything had been more foresighted than he, and Madzar as a child had grown used to following him almost always, and in almost everything, despite the fact that he, Madzar, was the more thoughtful of the two. He usually followed Bellardi without due reflection. There was no need to tell his mother; after all, they were going only a stone’s throw away. If he told her, there’d be no end to the rejoicing, to the feeding, to offering more than necessary, to the familiar display of affected manners.

And meantime the sun would set.

When he and Bellardi decided to do something or took something into their heads, they usually forgot everything else. For which Madzar had suffered many serious slaps on his face. He never knew what would happen; with Bellardi things kept changing, growing, multiplying, losing their boundaries, becoming almost incomprehensible. He took his place next to him in the fancy car, unkempt, unwashed, with a two-day growth of beard, wearing the work clothes he had not changed since the day before, and even before he slammed the car door shut Bellardi stepped on the gas.

It was a Maybach Cabriolet with red-and-black leather seats, red gearbox, its dashboard also covered with the same red leather.

As if on purpose, Bellardi first made his perfect automobile cough and jolt, as if he couldn’t get it past its basic starting mode, but seconds later, smoothly and with great speed they flew along Duna Row, lined with round-crowned elm trees, which followed the course of the river on the reinforced-concrete embankment.

They could smell the water.

He slowed down near the church of the Roman Catholic Episcopacy, where a majestically swaying high-piled hay cart, drawn by oxen, approached. Farther away, nervously bleating goats were being herded along the road. Women on foot carried baskets on their backs, and from Fürdő Street, boys and girls were rolling out on their bicycles, probably the local jeunesse dorée.

I realized I was wrong, Madzar said slowly, now remembering his cleverly prepared sentence. He wanted to be done with his deceitful confession, to avoid dealing with Bellardi’s foolish conspiracy and his whole secret life.

But he was not accustomed to insincerity and betrayal.

It’s a good thing you gave me time to think it over, he said, glancing cautiously at Bellardi.

What did you realize, what’s wrong, Bellardi asked, his tone hostile; he kept looking impassively at the increasing traffic before them. As if he had not felt the other man’s eyes on his face, or as if with his mind’s eye he were following a hovering figure whom only he could see.

I changed my mind, Madzar replied, shocked.

What mind, what did you change, that’s what I’m asking, Bellardi said, becoming irritated.

You told me that at the appropriate moment you would come for my answer.

Bellardi said nothing for a long while; the silence was icy. As if he were busy with the thickening traffic and could say nothing until they got out of it. When they had left the boat station behind and then the silk factory with its long brick wall, the riverside road again became empty and he could once again speed up.

When, twenty-three years later, he thought about this long, deep silence of his, they happened to be driving past the jail on Margit Boulevard.

What I told you then, he finally said, unexpectedly, after Madzar had given up on getting a response, was that I would like to spend the rest of my life with you.

You must have thought I was joking.

Madzar turned his head slowly toward Bellardi, looking at him in alarm, even though alarm is always rapid.

What could he say to this.

Leave off with your embarrassing jokes.

Everything else is delusion, Bellardi replied with his most playful world-disdaining smile. Believe me, this was my only sincere sentence, perhaps it will be the first and last one of my entire life.

You don’t have to call special attention to it, Madzar replied hoarsely, this makes it even more embarrassing.

I meant everything else was evasion, prevarication, and who can remember all the things I rambled on about and when.

But you can understand, can’t you, that I also thought about your patriotic fantasies.

And now I ask you to forget them, please.

Should I understand, then, that in the meantime you and your friends have dropped your plans concerning me.

Now it was Bellardi’s turn to look at his friend.

My reluctance must have made a discouraging impression, I understand, Madzar continued, to his friend’s curious disdainful look.

This must have been the test. I have to acknowledge I passed the screening.

A rare moment, given that Bellardi detected offended vanity in Madzar’s melodious voice. Which he liked. That with his offense he’d managed to penetrate Madzar so deeply.

If you reject me, my little friend, I also reject you.

We’ll see who is the stronger.

Only now did Madzar notice how alarmingly his one and only friend had diminished in his shirt and pants while he had waited for him in vain all summer.

How the bitter grooves of his face had deepened.

How chapped his lips were.

But now I must tell you something entirely different, Bellardi said dryly.

No, not that, exclaimed Madzar to himself, guessing instantly what kind of story Bellardi wanted to tell him with his shockingly chapped lips that almost looked like one large sore.

Actually, his friend continued relentlessly, I wanted to tell you about it in April.

The very moment, he thought to himself, when I saw you on the deck of my ship. How good to see him; he had been my only friend, I’ll tell him about it, he’s my man.