Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

Still, Kovách thought these two were good boys, though they didn’t really understand anything.

They chatted on, discussing abstract questions, most of which he himself didn’t understand.

The practical question he kept asking himself was whether they would be left alive; whether the managers of the firm hadn’t been trying to figure out a way to get to them, and how long that would take.

The long shadow of obligatory and inviolable silence, which they had been able to avoid only at exceptional moments, still tarried in their midst.

Ágost was struggling with his recurrent attacks of melancholy, for which neither he nor his friends had any balm. The danger was not imaginary but real. It had become his determined, cherished, and probably unalterable intention to kill himself; this was not a secret because once before they had collectively yanked him back to life.

It had happened about two years ago and since then their conversations had come to resemble a hopeless hurdle race. They should have somehow risen above the memory of that brutal experience, but because they could not, each of them heard, at different times, a false ring in Ágost’s sentences. Something had opened up and, precisely because it had brought them closer, could not be closed again. At the same time, all three of them knew that in case of an investigation it would be impossible not to acknowledge the matter and also, since so much time had elapsed, it would also be impossible to do so. At this point, embarrassing for all of them, André Rott usually grew weak and, to keep tears of helpless fury from erupting or, worse, to keep from pouncing on the other man with frustrated and insane hysterics, he felt compelled to defend himself frantically.

And at just such a juncture, Hansi usually ran out of his charged jests about parts of the lower body.

But André admitted his friend’s anguish of unknown origin as he stood in front of him, and he did it in a way that made it painful to himself.

He preferred to make amends. Even though in the depths of his soul he reproached and accused his friend, he also hated him. He had to hate him for weakening him with his attacks of melancholy. The other two had been waiting for the investigation that always preceded harsher measures, but André knew that the investigation of Lippay was already under way. And that at a certain stage they would haul Lippay over the coals. He envied Lippay, was even jealous of him; why hadn’t they started the investigations with him; he’d either choose friendship and lie, or stick to his convictions and profession and therefore betray his friend; and he would, too. But that would also mean betraying himself. He had a third choice: to inform on his friend, to accuse him gravely and baselessly. He could not even lower his eyes. Perhaps he was too craven; perhaps his ethical-religious upbringing was still more powerful than his principles. He did not dare commit such a betrayal, though he knew from experience that the greater the betrayal, the greater its success, which would greatly increase his pleasure.

But he could not decide what would give him greater pleasure, because he loved him.

Come on, you’re talking nonsense, he said very quietly, disconcertedly, as, driven by the instinct to flee, he took a step backward and with a swift movement of his foot kicked his cabin door shut before their noses.

At the very same instant Hansi’s head rose, as if hesitating whether to abandon his comfortable position on Ágost’s smooth and hairless thigh. Unlike André, he always knew what to do with Lippay. He well understood that one could suffer from something that could not be named accurately and even physicians called depression for lack of a better label. André did not understand this, became angry because of it, considered it all nothing but feminine fancy. Not only did he brush it aside, he was unaware of his own true condition and, as a result, in the well-developed man’s body there remained the little boy. Kovách couldn’t have described or explained it, but he saw its depth; the bottomless pit was there, gaping inside him as well, though for quite some time he wouldn’t acknowledge that what he saw was nothingness itself.

Void.

One senses that at this place one should see or feel something.

He must tear himself away from his pleasurable selfishness. These were not things of great consequence, only a patch of raw warmth of skin, or another body’s fine vaporous fragrance.

He sat up.

Kovách exuded rough goodness, and somehow it was also his nature greedily to collect all bodily pleasures, to hoard them senselessly, as if one could store enough warmth of female and male bodies or scents of male and female pubic hair and stockpile them for leaner times.

Really, what nonsense, he mumbled, just to say something, using the darkly warm overtones of his voice to calm the other man, and with his meaty hand he ruffled the chestnut-brown tuft of hair that had fallen on Ágost’s forehead, and in his next move grabbed him by the hair and started doing all sorts of things to him. He enjoyed this jostling, squeezing, and ruffling perhaps more than Ágost did. He shook him gently; for a moment, with an arm around his neck, he drew him to himself and shoved him under the armpit.

As he sat up, it could be seen what a robust well-built man he was, though Ágost wasn’t small either. He shoved Ágost away but kept muttering and grunting, come on, come on, my dear, my little pigeon, why go on like this.

Prince Andrei, our own Andryosha, is indeed a wild blockhead, but you’re talking impossible drivel.

There was so much mutual affection between these two men, looking for a legal outlet, that no matter how they kept measuring it out, slowly and leisurely, alternately withholding it and letting it out in small doses, they each feared it might burst and drown the other one. Ágost did not reciprocate, never gave anything in return, but at least he did not resist; he endured the onslaught of the other man’s affections and the rudeness that stemmed from them. André, however, was beset by shame the moment his cabin door closed; he was ashamed of his urge to escape. And he had to be on guard against his ambition for control; he could not risk his friends’ turning against him again.

Without them he could easily remain alone and become the loneliest being on earth. A kicked-in door, no more, was enough for him to feel the weight of such a possibility, a careless move of his foot.

André did not bear solitude easily, though of the three he was the least aware of this or, rather, his awareness of it was always in direct proportion to the increase in his daily consumption of whiskey, which was both expensive and hard to obtain. He had to go to sleep somehow. At this rate, though, he would become an alcoholic before his next assignment.

He tried to keep down the daily dose.

I really am a wild blockhead, he thought, and allowed himself only as much time for reflection as it took to slap his wet towel down on the bench in his cabin and slip into his bathrobe.

He felt a little cold.

Despite the unexpected turn to the dark side, the scene in the corridor had had its humorous touches. For one thing, the new cabin attendant’s mouth had been wide open with wonder for a long time. He had understood nothing. A silent witness, he sat only a few steps away from the three men and honestly did not know what to make of their nonsense. Back in the Gellért he would have known, of course, he would have taken the thick red hose and let them have it with an ice-cold jet of water, gentlemen, please move along, sorry but he must now hose down this bench. And he would let go a spurt at their feet or asses.

Here he couldn’t do it.

He jumped up from his table and, without knowing why or where to, ran out of his booth. Even if he had known that these men not only could get away with pawing one another in public and talking as they did, but in Budapest’s best circles were considered enviable, dreaded lady-killers, he still could not have understood what was waiting for him in adult life.