Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

She could not have imagined that with her enthusiasm she had failed to reach, let alone mitigate, the other person’s weltschmerz.

At this moment, André Rott’s cabin stood empty. Unquestionably the most envied cabin even among the most privileged bathing guests, it was the very last in the row of cabins, next to the bathing master’s booth and the stairs going up to the sun terrace. In front of it was the famous bench on which one could lounge, sunbathe from spring to fall, receive guests and chat with them, not to mention the public phone at hand on which, in contrast with all other public telephones in Budapest, one could receive calls. A short while ago, Rott had had only enough time to throw off all his clothes and, with a certain physical repugnance, put on his wet bathing trunk before dashing off.

Events, running on various tracks, now followed at fever-pitch speed.

When a few moments earlier, as the ambulance people had put the young man slightly injured during his epileptic fit on a stretcher and taken him away, the prime minister’s private secretary appeared in the corridor, having come from the steam bath; he was still red and perspiring. A rapidly balding, not very tall man with a slight limp, who, according to his official title, was head of the prime minister’s secretariat with the rank of cabinet minister, had arrived through the secret side door, which invisible hands closed behind him.

He went about the world as unimpeded as if he could walk through walls.

As he passed, he motioned to André Rott, who was just putting on his socks, to follow him, go for a swim with him, and with his thumb pointed upward, signaling that celestial persons had ordered something very important.

And Rott knew very well who the celestial ones were in this instance.

The young man’s protestations were in vain, he begged them not to take him to the hospital, he had had this problem many times before, in the Gellért nobody paid attention to it, and in a little while everything would be all right.

Of course everything would be all right.

He should not worry.

Just a little dizziness, that’s all he feels.

His head nearly split with pain; that was the truth, a sharp throbbing pain that sometimes remained stuck in his brain for days, making him vomit a lot of the time, but he kept quiet about this because the doctors could not help him anyway.

See, he can stand up already.

Whenever this happened to him, all he wanted to do was walk out on the world or hide at the bottom of abandoned mouse holes and shut out every bit of light. But Rózsika, the ticket taker, with her blood-red beads, her thick neck layered with rings of fat, pushed him back down, did not let him sit up; she had the same kind of blood-red beads on her massive wrists and in her small ears.

They rattled softly with her every movement.

You, now listen to me, my child, you may have a concussion. Don’t ever forget that, my sweet Jani.

And that means you must not move.

Everybody knows that.

I’m just telling you so you won’t forget it. You’re lucky you didn’t split your head on the faucet. I can hardly believe it; you missed it by a hairsbreadth when you fell, my God.

She followed them, she walked with them across the inner courtyard with the plane trees, and when they stopped for a moment she would stroke the young man’s limp hands, arms, and shoulders, his marble-pale forehead. The stretcher bearers stopped and changed direction several times under the storm-beaten wet trees, discussing loudly to which building the physician on duty had asked them to take the patient. All the while Rózsika whispered in a voice sweet as honey that he should not be afraid because she would not leave him, she would go everywhere with him, she will take care of everything but absolutely everything.

In the ice-cold wind she gathered the thick hand-knitted sweater about her, and the strangest thing was that in the following years she kept her promise. To the general indignation of her friends, colleagues, and relatives, she did not leave the young man, and they learned that the young man clung to her no less ardently once he left his little fiancée for Rózsika.

For a few steps the cross-eyed chief attendant also followed the stretcher in his white short-sleeved shirt and his white trousers tight as a drum on his paunch and buttocks. His wooden-soled slippers clapped along as they walked. He was turned back by the security people streaming in from the steam bath to take up their observation posts around the pool, in the corridors, and at other important points of the building as required by the presence of a high-ranking visitor.

Of course Wolkenstein, known here by his Hungarian name, János Kovách, could not see any of this because a moment earlier he had finally had the chance to take his chilled limbs and disappear behind the sailcloth curtains, where hot, unadulterated medicinal water gushed freely from the shower heads in great spurts, smelling like rotten eggs, just as it burst forth from the thermal spring. He shampooed his gray head, rubbing it pleasurably, and then did the same to his substantial limbs, which over time had grown a little heavy; he worked up a foam, his strong hands gliding as he massaged himself while over the gurgling water he sang at the top of his voice.

Ágost, however, did hear from the other end of the corridor the relentless ringing of the telephone call looking for him. He was quickly getting dressed in his cabin. He thought the Lukács cabins were disgusting, smelling of various bodily exhalations and of the insecticide scattered everywhere against cockroaches. He had no intention of waiting for the others; he wanted to decamp alone. He had had enough of them and of this morning. He’d had it up to here with their insipid political arguments. He did not understand why these men, so full of hostile sentiments, could be his friends. He felt anxious, though he knew he could not afford to. Their opinions did not differ, really, yet they could not be reconciled. He could not imagine what he would do with his unhappy life, which was probably unsuited for happiness. They should spare one another all this awkward strutting about. Waste of time. He was bored with everybody always having to have a different opinion, why does the world need different views. He had no sensible answer. And the wind was knocking about outside. They never got anywhere with their opinions. The wind raised the mist and blew it about; gusts of air continually lifted, perturbed, slid across, and bared the surface of the water.

There was now no one in the men’s pool except two closely watched persons.

Ágost was firmly convinced that man was not a political animal, that was too flattering a definition, but a chattering animal. And where politics are not made but only endured, as was the case in this cunt-size country, where only servants and gentry prattle, there’s no point in opening one’s mouth to debate political issues.

How could they have suspended their argument if this conviction of his so infuriated both his two friends, albeit for different reasons.

While the storm raged unabated above the pool André Rott tried to remain one stroke behind Karakas, who spoke to his subordinates only when he reached the end of the pool. On the opposite wall, the big hand of the electric clock impassively kept clicking away on its axis.

Another hour went by; it now showed 11:20.

Any number of people might accompany Karakas on his early- or late-morning wanderings between the steam bath and the pool. He could instruct his underlings as he pleased — to let him have a towel, not that wet one, the other, the dry one, to give him his swimming cap or take away his bathrobe or, after a few years of suspended activity, to renew the construction of the Budapest subway or to start an equally large project. With insiders like André he would discuss strictly confidential matters that in the life of every state belong in the category of destructive secrets. He would also see petitioners, at least those whom his always invisible security men allowed to meet him. And there was always — or there would have been — a procession of famous novelists, well-known radio reporters, eminent scientists, successful actors, and high-ranking officials who sometimes waited for long weeks to see him, here in the Lukács, for the hope-filled moment, for the great opportunity. They hoped to reach the influential man with their irregular requests outside his office, and they always held in reserve a small favor they could do for him in return. They would want a passport; a higher place, reserved for the more privileged, on the list of those permitted to purchase a car or be allocated an apartment; a starring role in a movie or a play; a reprint of their rightfully forgotten novels or a new publication of their selected poems; an appointment as an ambassador or clemency for someone in jail for life. Or they just wanted to gush and brownnose, to buzz around the influential man and fawn. Which is such a wonderful feeling that one could practically faint with joy. The lucky ones would shudder for hours afterward when they thought about what they had said and what the man had said to them, recalling their chance to talk with such a powerful personage. They would boast breathlessly to anyone they could collar, eager to strengthen their position with this exceptional bit of news.