Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

It was so obvious he hadn’t been brought up properly; she tried to make him realize that, to keep emotions at the right temperature.

How could she not laugh at him, his ribs were sticking out and he looked stark naked with his continuous screaming, whether he was crying or raving.

If you fuck it up, who in hell will fix this fucking piece of junk for me.

No one.

It didn’t occur to them to get out of the car. They were doing all right just as they were. A lit-up streetcar clunked across the intersection. It was as though they had forgotten where they had planned to go or why Klára had stopped to change her clothes and borrow the mink coat from Andria Lüttwitz.

The wind was howling, cold rain was splashing, and in front of them the brightly lit yellow streetcar carried a few shivering passengers and a dozing conductor across the cold darkness.

She did not beat around the bush, cut right to the chase, to what hurt most, his greatest dread.

Now, at last, finally, she was pregnant.

The word hit Kristóf like a bludgeon.

Not that a single breath of Simon’s hadn’t been enough to make her pregnant, but now she was pregnant again.

Although with his other self Kristóf remained anxious for a while longer, he kept listening to the woman while mulling over his own memories.

She won’t be able to keep it.

He was even ready to go on with his story for a while, the one he had started, the one that had proved to be endless.

Sometimes it goes away in the sixth week. Sometimes she makes it to the third month but even then she can’t keep it. It’s just unbearable. She’s had at least four spontaneous abortions already.

Kristóf responded in a very deep voice, as if rumbling from far away.

What does she mean by at least four, doesn’t she know exactly what she’s talking about. And if she does, she should say how many.

Four times.

Then why does she say at least.

Kristóf should stop picking on her.

He is not picking on her.

If she were to become pregnant by someone else, she could probably keep the baby, but not Simon’s.

He didn’t understand what she was talking about; he didn’t want to understand. This statement brought the woman close to him, like a sister, with her amazingly unabashed indecency, but he did not want this, did not tolerate it, and did not desire it. She mesmerized him with her proximity, leaving nothing hidden between them. It would disgust him to make her pregnant, even if the situation was as she said. He’d do anything but that. And he did not want to know these things about her. What do I care, what business is this of mine, this is something between the two of you. He shuddered at the thought, wanted to back out, had a premonition, no, a realization that the woman had actually picked him out for this. He should protest because this would turn into a misunderstanding between them; but he kept silent. Waiting for further developments. Because his greediness was greater. To impregnate the woman, quickly and successfully, though he could not imagine anything more absurd. The most he wanted was to go to bed with her because she attracted him a bit, but now he’d happily give that up too. To hold her by the ass and yank her into himself, but nothing else, a little writhing together, and then to twitter happily with her in a huge sunny bed on a nice summer morning. But frankly, he gave up very quickly on this fancy, because, his excessive desires and colorful imagination notwithstanding, he had accumulated very painful and bitter experiences of himself. He always reached his climax very quickly, and a trait like that has no sunny mornings. His sensitivity became his nemesis; he could not control his sensitivity. He’d be done before they’d even start. In the end he didn’t exactly know what they had meant to start. Perhaps the sheer fact of penetration shocked him, the other body’s resistance, perhaps the rhythm of their common search for the proper position, the wildness of the search, the warmth of the place, its smoothness — or, sometimes, the absence of all these. He did not understand what it was. What was expected of him. If it hadn’t happened with Ilona that morning, and not in some other way, he’d never have learned what it was. Until then he had no idea what he could expect of himself. He was most ashamed — that after such a night he could put Ilona into such a situation, could create the illusion that they might have something to do with each other, and then do it.

And after that, what further vileness might he expect of himself.

Hearing Klára’s story, he quickly forgot the last word of his own infantile inner monologue, and in his mind he picked up the thread here, with Ilona.

There was no place to return to in the deplorably mendacious story of his life; this was the only pure spot, where the darkness was thickest, and he had no more reasonable questions.

It would have been futile to resist, he could not have deflected the other person’s story, and so for the first time in his life he was ready for anything.

It felt like being drawn into a whirlpool, Kristóf should believe her, and forgive her, but she simply must tell somebody about it, she can’t keep it inside any longer. If only she had a girlfriend, but she didn’t, not a single girlfriend. After a spontaneous abortion, the world was empty, as if true-blue British Darwinists had invented it. She loathes the whole business of girlfriends. Determinism takes over everything, and there’s nothing more disgusting or destructive.

Come on, get off it, what does determinism have to do with this, Kristóf snapped in the dark. Rattling off your priggish texts as though they could be of any help to you.

How should I help myself, then.

How should I know.

And for weeks after an abortion like that they can’t even think about having intercourse, at least that.

She had the nerve to use that expression, having intercourse , and again this rotten at least . It really annoyed him. Why such scorn for the world. Kristóf had to catch his breath because of this woman or because of his reverence for Creation.

Why is she using such words, what’s the good of such a fixed idea, she should tell him that.

No matter how much they’d want to, what fixed idea, the woman asked back innocently.

Doesn’t matter, why does she use such rude words.

What sort of words should she use, for the sake of that son-of-a-bitch fucked-up God, if Kristóf won’t hear her out. If he isn’t interested, just say so.

He’s interested, of course he is.

Then what do you want.

He’ll be quiet.

She’d lost count of how many times they’d scraped her out. Have they ever scraped you out, she yelled, and that made her mean, really mean.

It was beyond understanding how she could grant herself so much meanness.

One of her periods lasts into the next, and if Kristóf really wants to know, she can tell him that once she had an extrauterine pregnancy, and that’s why she said, earlier, at least four times. And if one day he has an extrauterine pregnancy, then he’ll understand what she’s talking about. And then she screamed at him, do you understand. One period lasts into the next. Impossible to know whether she’s bleeding because of the scraping or it’s her regular period.

Who knows what’s irregular, anyway.

If she doesn’t seep for two days, they’re very happy.

She barely manages to scrape Simon back from his dumb drinking sprees, she said it like that, scrape him back. Not to mention his stupid womanizing; to spoon him back. He leaves me there, in my blood, and goes off to his women, he still feels like it, and I’m supposed to be the understanding one. Their life became one big running amok; why am I saying became, that’s what it had been from the start. She can barely stand on her feet because of the scrapings, but that’s the only way they can reduce the bleeding. Kristóf may laugh. The hormone treatment stopped her menstruation, not a drop of blood came out of her body, but hair grew between her breasts, and a mustache and beard, she was tearing at them, rubbing resin on them, thinking she’d go out of her mind. And they can’t get to the bottom of it, they have no new ideas, sooner or later her womb will become cancerous, that’s how she said it, my womb will become cancerous, so it has to be scraped.