Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

Sorry, but I am thinking of the Harriman Report. Competition is possible only between sides of comparable abilities, we can accept this as a realistic axiom, and that is why there will be a war. Obviously, you refuse to acknowledge what Hansi has been trying to tell you so patiently. We are not in Moscow, we are not in London, it is completely irrelevant in this cunt-size country’s cunt-size capital— dans ce trou à rats , in this rathole — what your dear comrades are scheming about. At most we have to suffer them silently. Boredom is what’s killing us. We must admit we have drifted out to the edge of the world. But even from here you can see with your naked eye that war is unavoidable. For you, it’s better to think on this scale, better for everybody, everybody knows it, everybody dreads to admit it, everybody’s looking for appropriate reasons, pretexts, bunkers, and escape hatches for it.

Please don’t go on with these unbecoming statements, I beg you, my dove, said the prematurely gray Kovách, interrupting, wanting to pacify. András fears him more than he fears war.

What you call competition is really only preparedness, desperate preparation, the third man continued more loudly, to override the other’s voice. He wouldn’t let interruptions stop him. You can’t possibly draw any far-reaching conclusions from that terribly boring, totally uninteresting paper. And in case you have, please then tell me what is the difference between my beloved father and you.

None. None, he shouted, excited by his own thought. Neither of you can let go of your social utopia.

I’d really like to know what you’re talking about.

What he is trying to grab from the right, you grab from the left.

Are you done, André Rott asked. The strength and edge of his voice were not part of their friendship.

No, I’m not done yet, came Lippay’s quick, dry answer.

But his unusually sharp tones alarmed all three of them and something upset their customary cheeriness; they became hesitant.

Rott and Kovách often argued; they felt almost duty bound to go at each other; it would have been hard to imagine a reconciliation in their ways of thinking. Professor Lehr’s son, on the other hand, very rarely voiced an opinion about abstract political subjects. He’d rather listen and wait; sometimes, as an impartial moderator, he summarized aloud what had been said, thereby reducing the increased friction between the debating sides. Now he surprised them with his bitter combativeness. They sensed big trouble again if he resented their well-intentioned prank and could not forgive them for it. By criticizing the strictly confidential paper, Rott had probably gone too far in railing against the powerful, generally hated professor. He provoked something in the third man that he himself did not want to hear. The dying professor’s name was listed among the authors of the confidential document. Of course, he had gone as far as he did in his critique and taken the risks he had because on many previous occasions they had all slated the professor. Ágost Lippay lived under the same roof with him, but he left out the German part of his double family name in order to reduce the chances of being identified with Professor Lehr, whom oddly enough, despite his having Hungarianized his name in his youth, everyone referred to by his German name.

Don’t be angry with him, little Ágo said, breaking the uneasy silence. Kovách, whose real name no one knew except his present company, said, this is what’s on Prince Andrei’s mind, this is his leftist leaning. His prick hangs to the left. Even his balls dangle well to the left, you can see for yourself.

It’s not realistic to hold forth on great-power competition, Lippay continued in the same dry tone, as if he hadn’t heard Hans von Wolkenstein’s appeasing banter. The more realistic question is whether there’ll be any difference between the front and the home front and, if there won’t be, how supplies and reinforcements might be assured. If in the new kind of warfare everything is part of the battlefield, a no less vital question would be what sort of bunkers should be built for the civilian population, and where, how large and to be used for how long, for god’s sake. No government can build bunkers big enough. I don’t give it more than three weeks before they’ll announce the acceleration of work on the subway system.

Is that so, responded Rott in his cabin, calmly and quietly. His reputation was inviolable; the other man knew less than he did and did not grasp his intentions; moreover, Lippay’s words indicated that in his desperation he’d probably given up. But at least he had done nothing irreparably stupid. As if to wipe his ears, Rott lifted the towel to cover his body because his bashfulness returned. You’re afraid of a nuclear war, eh kid, he added pensively; now he was thinking of something entirely different.

For many long moments, they had been looking only into each other’s eyes and nowhere else; compared to this, nothing else had any meaning, neither what they were saying nor what they kept to themselves. They could not let go of each other. André Rott’s pitch-black wet hair fell on his forehead, he knitted his thick eyebrows almost distrustfully, and his dark eyes, adorned with lively long and curvy eyelashes with which he managed to convince and enthrall so many people, did not let go of Lippay’s always shining yet piercing countenance, radiating either wounded pride or rebuke, a look that usually frightened off the very people he hoped to win over to his cause.

I have nothing to be afraid of, he answered quietly. I don’t even want to wait for the big experience. But even if I were afraid, that wouldn’t be such a big crime. You wouldn’t have to censure me for it. Anyway, it’s dangerous, I’d call it a professional mistake, to keep harboring a fear we don’t dare admit even to ourselves.

Now they all grew gloomy and heavy, despite their efforts to be cheery.

That’s what I think, András.

Not a rare occurrence in men’s conversation. Once the obligatory ease is gone, when they have nothing to flaunt in front of one another, a mutual embarrassment arises, and if no one knows how to deal with it, conversation about more serious topics simply runs aground. Ágost justifiably felt that André was rebuking him, and he did the same in return. Peu à peu he understood what the other one was saying. He should not be surprised if he no longer wanted to protect him. No surprise if other people also feared his fickleness; the moment was not far off when in some official place they might ask whether this behavior hadn’t started to stink or even burn.

Had he not swum to the other shore.

During the last few weeks, Ágost had indeed played with the unavoidable thought that he should swim across, and that is why he felt André’s glance piercing his heart.

But exposed to the rebuking glance of his friend and subordinate, André Rott should have felt that his views not only supported but actually prepared the annihilation threatening humankind.

Or that he was the one who had initiated the investigation of Ágost, of which Ágost was certainly aware.

What he really wanted to let his friend know was that the investigative process had already been put into motion; it was time to lie low.

They should have made a decision about something they had debated artfully every day for years but could never resolve. The pangs of conscience provoked by rebuking glances were linked not to what they said or did not say, but to something they wouldn’t have dared communicate even with secret signals: it had to do with the essence of their profession, with the question of whether there was, would be, or might be any palpable meaning and explanation for everything they had done with their lives until now. If they had been mistaken, after all, and there was nothing in the future to justify the necessary and accidental crimes of the past, then à quoi bon vivre , was it worth their while to stay alive, or, alternatively, what should they do with what was left of their lives. After all, being a socialist or a Communist in Geneva or London, and happy that the dictatorship of the proletariat had finally been established in distant lands, was very different from returning, with the same frame of mind and awareness, to a Budapest where the world had been shut off for good like a dripping faucet.