Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

André and Simon came back, furious, explaining the situation to each other, and in a little while the plainclothesmen left.

A few of them probably stayed.

These two continued to unload their words on each other in the midst of the drunken crowd as if this were the most natural thing in the world. They were evidently not satisfied with having saved the evening. They wanted to drink some more right away because they had to sober up from the excitement they had just experienced.

To which the others could hardly contribute since from the start they had been excluded from the company of these two.

The silence dissolved very slowly.

At best people could let them drink from their own bottles, the two heroes.

But some people just waited for a chance to leave as soon as they could.

This time they managed to squeak by.

In a little while one could hear more careful openings and closings of doors; nobody was slamming them. People left separately, anything but going together, each person alone, singly, cautiously, properly.

Those who stayed gathered strength to bear up decently, that’s what they told themselves, decently, though decency had nothing to do with it.

First they turned on the tape recorder; the poet stayed at the piano, his hands in his lap, but for a long time Elvis failed to make anyone move.

As if no one could return to the former lightheartedness in front of the others. There was also a feeling of shame that the earlier lightheartedness had been nothing but an illusion of guilelessness.

Not much time went by.

Kristóf was struggling with his own little misery; everything would be miserable, whether he stayed or left. Then suddenly he heard Klára screaming from somewhere. It couldn’t be anything else. All he had to do was reach the wide-open door. Could he be mistaken. Many people were there, standing or sitting on the floor, and he was not alone with his fear, for the distressed screams made others move too, or at least get up.

In the middle of the next room the crowd instantly thinned out.

Klára was there by herself; some people fled while others wanted to rush to help her or stood paralyzed; Kristóf did not immediately manage to break through the human ring made helpless by this double tension.

They all saw what was happening, a single look sufficed. But the improbability of the occurrence frightened some of them away and paralyzed others. It was not fear, indifference, or curiosity that worked so powerfully but modesty. Perhaps they shouldn’t see what they were seeing.

Empathy and willingness to help need time to overcome modesty.

Earlier, Klára had been among those who, defying the communal helplessness, had begun to dance. She was a rebel, after all. That’s how we’ll respond, we’ll dance. Finally she took her faith into her own hands. Now let’s dance and leave no stone standing.

Yes, Almighty, let’s see what the two of us can do together.

She was standing in the middle of the room as if frozen while waiting for a partner before taking her next dance step.

With her legs apart in the middle of the parquet floor inside the human ring and no longer screaming. As if she were listening intensely to something, to an inner voice. Her lips had parted and remained parted, her huge eyes opened wide onto the silent universe. Not only was blood dripping down her stockinged thighs — she must have started screaming when she noticed it — but in the next two pulsing thrusts, in front of everyone, blood clots came pouring out of her. Perhaps they could hear the clots plashing down, perhaps the sound could have been heard, but no one who heard it wanted to hear it.

Elvis continued to wail his melody to himself and then someone unplugged him.

Someone handed a kind of black wrap to Simon, who was moaning, moaning to keep himself from howling. He had elbowed his way to her from another room. What somebody handed to him was one of those big, soft, warm knitted shawls that peasant women put on their shoulders when going to church on cold Sunday mornings.

Still moaning, he quickly bundled her in it, covered her mute body, spoke to her, and held her so others could not see her face, she should not be defenseless, telling her she would be all right, he was already taking her, but how should he take her, he asked himself out loud.

As someone who usually does not deal in blood or loss of blood.

I’m a physician, someone said.

We’ll call an ambulance, shouted someone else.

Hold on, my sweet, if you can, hold on to my neck, my darling, and there won’t be any trouble, I will lift you up, I’ll carry you, where is your bag, where is the car key.

By then Kristóf was standing there too.

Go find her coat. Don’t call an ambulance, he shouted.

Several people followed them to help, the physician among them, he was the one who opened the door, and people in the stairway supported Simon’s arms, following him with physical contact, women and men ready to cushion his fall should he trip with his burden. But there was no need for help because he was taking her quickly and securely, as if carrying no weight at all.

In his nervousness Kristóf could not find it. Because he forgot he was looking not for a regular coat but a mink coat, he should be looking for the mink. And that was really his only task. Yet he could not find it, though he remembered where to look. Klára might catch cold because of his fecklessness. He shoved all the coats off the racks, but could not find the mink coat. Not on a hanger, not anywhere. Of course he found his own coat with no trouble, it just came to his hand, and he shoved it aside. Rummaging among the coats on the platform, he called to one of the vampire girls; she probably wasn’t from Vienna and she was now fearfully following his every movement; he told her what to look for. A long mink coat, that’s what she should look for.

While they were throwing coats about and people watched them in alarm, there passed a small segment of his life in which he was not certain he was a person. Or maybe he was a person who imagined himself in a situation like this, and then he would have to find a truly existing object in the realm of imagination.

The girl who loved to laugh was helping him, she too kept throwing coats in all directions, but they didn’t have much time.

As if he had lost his mind, he kept shouting to everyone, asking where else were there coats in the apartment and that everyone should look for it.

Let me get by.

The frightened and somewhat reduced crowd let him by, naturally, and tried to help, but he must have changed his mind because then he ran after Simon and Klára. Klára had been put in the backseat, bundled in the large shawl; her hair shone in the darkness.

Kristóf fell against the car, which was surrounded by people, and told Simon, who had been waiting for him, that he could not find it, couldn’t.

Then we’re leaving, Simon shouted, and you’ll find the coat.

The next day, when startled to wakefulness by his nausea, he realized he hadn’t found the coat.

He was still drunk and there was still no mink coat.

Or he’d gone mad and then, luckily, was only imagining this entire shocking idiocy. Even so, he should get dressed to look for Andria Lüttwitz’s mink coat and look for Klára.

Actually, from the first moment of wakefulness he could not shake the thought that Pisti had stolen the coat.

Not because he had no coat, he probably did. And if a man with no coat steals, he wouldn’t steal a woman’s mink coat.

Pisti did this to him, but not because of the money.

He found Ágost’s room empty.

The bed was untouched, left the way Ilona nicely turns it down every night, folding the quilt back.

He knew where to find money.