Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

His profession demanded from him two things that could be carried out neither simultaneously nor in parallel.

To avoid exaggeration or to keep his embarrassment at bay, he carefully observed the view that someone taking refuge here would see from each window. And the blowing on the fire behind him strengthened his impression that from the first moment of their encounter this unfortunate young man had been broadcasting distress signals in his direction. Being asked for help, having hope placed in him, was a very touching experience and not exceptional for the detective, but this young man was already beyond the point where he could be helped.

One kills not only out of need, interest, or selfish enjoyment but also out of suffering.

Suffering that might be eased but cannot be relieved.

A lonely bird was hooting outside, perhaps an owl. This too was rather odd at this tense moment, as if deriding the tension. And while he examined each small painting on the walls, one by one — undistinguished landscapes or still lifes done by untrained local painters or perhaps family members — he thought that no matter how colorful and rich the world might appear in its various transformations, ultimately it was a pile or collection of homogeneous materials, and that was why objects seen for the first time seem familiar or full of significance. The owl brings no misfortune to anyone, but the person anticipating danger notices its hooting. The young man’s back curved nicely. Under his thin sweater his spine was nicely outlined, vertebra by vertebra. He was staring at the flames licking the kindling, which he carefully nudged with the poker, and kept radiantly quiet with his back.

The miserable people we should consider exceptional are those who do not kill out of suffering or at least acknowledge in retrospect what they have done.

The room was furnished simply and sparingly. Between the two larger windows stood a chest of drawers, above it a rustic mirror which for a fraction of a moment while he passed before it distorted Kienast’s face, but he nonetheless found himself attractive because he was looking at the two last nights he had spent so joyously. He saw that it was really he. Facing the fireplace in the middle of the room stood a threadbare sofa with flower-patterned upholstery on which the young man most likely had slept the previous nights under the shabby blanket; perhaps he stayed there yesterday too. Next to the sofa was a deep easy chair, upholstered with the same flower-patterned material, from which a hitherto unnoticed cat jumped out and silently disappeared under the sofa as he approached. Kienast stood behind the abandoned chair. He resisted the murderously tense silence with all his physical self-awareness, overheated by love, and alternately looked out the little window, under which stood a single rough-hewn peasant chair, and kept an eye on the nape of the young man’s neck as he squatted before the fire.

Döhring sensed this precisely on his bare cervical vertebrae — his nakedness, his spinal marrow, and the forever-lost dignity in his groin.

Kienast made himself comfortable in the flower-patterned armchair abandoned by the cat, almost voluptuously stretching his limbs, like a person who, because he believes in the total homogeneity of the material and spiritual world, also believes he can feel at home in a strange place.

Kienast impudently reciprocated the young man’s disdain for mutuality, his defiance wrapped in apathy.

Does anyone smoke here, he asked after a few moments, when the flames were humming and hissing in the fireplace, which helped both men become used to the presence of the other.

Döhring said no but Kienast could light up anyway. He’d find an ashtray by the fireplace, and he pointed at it with the poker. He wanted the detective to be closer, let him come close to him and the fire; he loved the fire. Cigarette smoke didn’t bother him. He liked to light fires, play with fire, stare into fires. He found it hard to tear himself away from this one. Maybe his twin sister would grumble, but he liked that too, it actually made him feel good. It’s easy to get her mad and then it shows more clearly what sort of person each of them is.

He giggled a little at this, though the giggle turned into a rough and grating laugh, not a pleasant one.

He didn’t know Döhring had a twin sister, Kienast remarked, sounds like you don’t like her very much.

So what if he hates her.

They probably look alike.

Why wouldn’t they.

Unfortunately he’d left his cigarettes in the car, Kienast replied, and could Döhring help him out.

He asked for a cigarette mainly because he wanted to know what brand of cigarettes he’d find in the house. When he’d traveled seven hundred kilometers he wanted a fast return, if a small one. In the coat pocket of the dead man they’d found enough scraps of tobacco to determine the cigarette or brand of cigarettes he smoked, et cetera. During his illegal visit to the victim’s apartment in Fasanen Street the day before, Kienast had pocketed a suspiciously crumpled cigarette pack while the concierge helpfully looked the other way.

Experience told him that in such a much-crumpled pack he might find either grass or hash.

Presumably Döhring is lying in this and in other matters, but everything’s going along on its steady way. By now the lab technician has probably identified the tobacco.

Unfortunately there’s not a cigarette in the house, the unsuspecting Döhring answered. Unfortunately he can’t help. Even though he knows what this lack means to a smoker. Moreover, he added, for once he wouldn’t mind having a smoke himself. Because it’s a real shock for him that Dr. Kienast took his telephone calls seriously and really came all the way here.

He is not a heavy smoker either, Kienast remarked, very satisfied with Döhring’s response, but he’d driven seven hundred kilometers in one go and had even made a little detour into Düsseldorf.

It would be good to keep up the tone of this slow-to-start chat, and so he quickly continued, if he smoked four a day that would be too many for him.

Maybe one, unless I’m in company, Döhring responded willingly, though he did not answer like this because it was the truth.

Döhring indeed lied continuously, now to himself, now to others, which in itself caused no great problem for people. But he could not always neatly separate the two levels of his lies; he was too young for this, and his schizoid attacks further hindered him. Of course he kept no company of any sort and did not go anywhere, yet that’s how other people usually learned how to say things, and he thought he could say anything that others had said. And why would he share something about his private life, on any level, with a stranger, especially with such a miserable common man.

In that case, if I may trouble you, please let me have a nice glass of cold water, if you’d be kind enough, said the policeman after a silence and in a surprisingly quiet voice, as if he was testing him. Where are the limits to his self-contempt. He already had the impression in the Tiergarten that this young man had no one in the world, never had had and never would either, not a woman and not a man, or if he ever did he wouldn’t feel them on his skin.

Then the awful voice turned into a buzzing in his ears, perhaps his ears began to ring, which slowly roused his snoozing hypochondria.

Almost frightened, he repeated that he would not mind a nice glass of cold water.

But despite his deliberate intention he failed to surprise the young man with his request.

I can offer you some apple wine.

Apple wine, Kienast repeated hesitantly, as if this unusual suggestion, or perhaps the circumstance that this time he had found his match in deception and simulation, had somewhat startled him and made him think things over.