Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

He had to watch it, though, so that they wouldn’t beat him up or stab him and mainly so he’d get his money.

Mustard or ketchup.

Mustard.

With one hand on the steering wheel, he had squeezed together the roll and the hot white sausage with the other and driven on, taking quick bites, aware that the mustard was dripping. Patting the seat next him, he realized that the napkin along with the paper tray must have slipped under the seat. I am empty, busying myself with other people’s shitty little affairs, I have lawful authorization to do stuff forbidden to others, but that doesn’t really get me anywhere. He was dissatisfied with himself for having nothing to fill his emptiness with, and just as dissatisfied with these recurring attacks of dissatisfaction. As if thinking that with such an awful profession as his, which makes him sticky all over even when he does his job properly, he probably wasn’t worthy of the woman, and not just her but anyone. And how should he do things properly. She’s an uncomplicated, fragrant, fragile being whom for years I didn’t even notice. He should honestly tell her, before disappointing her, that he’s not worthy of her and stop the whole thing. Bodily joy isn’t everything. But he could not reassure himself with this foolishness. Why shouldn’t it be everything. If he had a good fuck, he felt at home in the universe. Anyway, who in the world wants to separate fucking from spiritual joy or anything else. He wiped his greasy mustard-stained fingers on the seat and smeared the traces of grease and mustard at the corners of his mouth. As if he should instantly become someone because of a woman like that, or as if the lack of dignity in his life — the problematic relationship between his daily activities and his human compulsions or abilities — were becoming oppressive. He did not know exactly what was missing, but he was missing it very much. Now he’s stuffed full and, having assaulted his system, belching profusely, and certainly he’ll soon be hiccupping. If he didn’t have to sneak around, avoiding daylight, in the thick of humanity, he too might have noticed earlier that he had no one in this world, just like this wretched Döhring.

He was wary of hiccupping, he had vowed many times not to stuff himself with those lousy rolls and sausages and mainly not to top everything off with all sorts of cola.

When he had to hiccup, he had to hiccup, no matter how many well-known anti-hiccupping methods he tried.

Although Kienast was one of those cops who, endowed with great strength of mind and fortitude, did not lose their composure at the sight of even the most horrendous crimes, he was alarmed by even the slightest physical irregularity or the most banal pain of his own. Either his daily activities had dulled his natural good faith, which was why he could not engage himself with another human being, or he had chosen this profession in the first place so that he could experience the affirmation of his natural bad faith every day and thus keep from finding anyone to share his life with.

No one with whom he could be as naughty as he liked.

He went to the doctor with impossible complaints, sometimes to be reassured that the symptoms were harmless, sometimes to hear the fatal news he always expected. A toothache, pinprick, nosebleed, bee sting, blister, or splinter was enough for him to see his approaching end, which he was ready to forget the moment the inconvenience passed; after all, he was busy with nothing else but the deaths of others. Now, against his good judgment, he popped open the Coca-Cola can and drank in almost uninterrupted gulps. He quickly tried to let the carbon dioxide out of his body, opened his mouth wide, stuck out his tongue, sort of burping himself. A little later he raised his bottom, firing away cautiously, not pressing too hard lest he soil his underpants. Which temporarily made a considerable stink in the car. But he rather enjoyed this, sniffing eagerly, not to lose the familiar smell before it dispersed.

Occasionally, no matter how dissatisfied he was with himself, he protected what belonged to his body, pampered it, and found it enjoyable.

The old car, pulled over by the woods, was gasping for air, its overheated red body steaming and knocking in the reddening twilight.

The sky was blue over the low pine forest, light blue, the air mild for the season, somewhat misty, and the weather report did not call for snow during the night.

According to the map the farm was five hundred meters from here but a locked barrier blocked the trail-like dirt driveway leading to it. He had to jump high to hurdle it. He noted that the owners maintained the road but must not be using it much for vehicles. He saw no fresh wheel tracks among the old ones. He observed and carefully registered everything that might be important professionally, but in the meantime he was also daydreaming about his sweetheart, and he especially enjoyed his thoughts running on parallel tracks. Of course, it was enough for his happiness that he was walking here in the forest dressed in Christmas silence, breathing and moving his limbs, stiff from the long drive. As one coming home at last, body and soul rising to an unknown level of reality, excited yet relaxed. In his amorous daydreams, this was the definite impression he had of himself. As if he had found his own life’s unknown basic rhythm in someone else. The ground was soft in the woods, springy, sandy; he noticed no fresh footprints. As to the smells, he could choose between two kinds of pleasant sourness, and he became even happier because he was thinking of such trivial matters.

In the vaporous air he experienced differently the resin trickling down the rubescent trunks and the juniper crawling everywhere in great profusion, its berries ripened to a downy blue, sprinkling the rust-colored carpet of pine needles.

Later he waited patiently and a little insecurely at the edge of the woods. Everything that had led him to this point had something to do with smells, but smells were hardly palpable. He had a tendency to overdo little things; at least his intuition often told him something about a case that differed from what his factual knowledge and experience claimed. Döhring had to be alone; he hoped he was. The two locations from which Döhring had telephoned had been successfully identified, and before Kienast had set out he had listened to the recordings again. The call from Düsseldorf had been made in hysterical haste and the second call, made from the telephone of a solitary gas station somewhere near here, gave evidence of obvious panic. A person not in control of his conscience is unlikely to call the police right away, though Kienast realized that Döhring had meant the call for him, personally, more than for the police in general. And he did not seriously think Döhring was contemplating or preparing to commit suicide, though he was not a harmless boy, indeed was a serious threat to others.

Solitude has a tendency to magnify things that hardly have any perceptible significance for others.

Professionally there was no justification for him to set out from Berlin because of those insignificant phone calls. He could have said to himself, knowing what he already knew, that Döhring, given his mental tendencies, was not going to run away and would not even hang himself. And what if he did. Or if he chalked up another victim. That would make the case neither more valuable nor more complicated. Let him go on his insane way; let him go to hell. It’s just a shitty little case anyway. It would have been more sensible and more comfortable that way, if only because his mother was expecting him for Christmas Eve dinner. Although he had not become cynical in the midst of so much sorrow and dread, he never deceived himself or others that an individual life had any special value. He had a personal reason for not wanting to dismiss his unexpected idea. At least he wouldn’t be spending the next night with the woman: that was the most important thing. Give the suddenly turbulent emotion of love a little breathing space, retrieve from her a little bit of his freedom before any fateful turn of events and only then decide. Because he felt more strongly than anything else that it had already come to pass; at best he could give his conscience a belated blessing for what had already taken place in his senses and the higher regions of reality; he was still defending himself. His freedom was at stake, and he was not ready to part with it. I’ll fuck up Mother’s holy night, that’s true, I’m getting into irresponsible professional adventures because of a woman, that’s also true, but by the time I get to him, this unfortunate boy will have softened up and then I’ll kill two birds with one stone.