Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

The young couple left the following morning.

Which for long days literally paralyzed Mrs. Lehr; shocked, she seemed physically to become one with her black garments.

That her own son should do this to her.

She swallowed the secret wedding; she didn’t have time not to because she had to maintain her dignity until the funeral.

She even liked the idea that at the funeral her son did not have to hide his mistress.

But to leave for their honeymoon the next day, well, that was too much.

Kristóf could not let her be alone, even if he had to keep running to the hospital. Mrs. Lehr forgot that she had wanted to kick him out of her apartment. Luckily for her, her memory could retain Geerte van Groot, because she had no one else left, literally not a single human being.

She did not even say good-bye to her son and daughter-in-law.

André Rott drove them to Ferihegy Airport.

Kristóf stole money again from Ágost’s drawer, so he could take a cab to Klára.

Gyöngyvér was about to raise her voice in the almost empty waiting room of the airport and complain that until now Athens had not been part of the itinerary, and what was this new plan anyway.

Think of what I told you last night, in detail, before we went to bed. I hope you can still remember.

Ágost spoke so quietly and pitilessly that she immediately fell silent.

If you want me to, I can repeat it for you.

She concluded from various circumstances at the Athens airport that they would not actually be visiting the Greek capital, because they were going to continue to either Tel Aviv or Istanbul. In her brand-new cream-colored two-piece suit, with a pillbox hat of the same bouclé fabric, she was now keeping her peace with the discipline of an appointed diplomat’s wife. It was as if she were hearing Margit Huber’s ringing encouragement, not so timidly, Gyöngyvér, sustain, sustain. Don’t control your breathing, that happens by itself, with your abdominal wall. Cheerfully she asked no questions and, carefully nurturing her smile, did not comment on the surprising developments, regardless of what might happen.

She did everything the way Margit Huber would have done.

Ágost could be very satisfied with her.

She saw great benefits in her newly gained self-discipline.

They sat on a comfortable leather couch in the waiting room at the airport for about ten minutes, no more. They hardly spoke because Ágost had to look through his freshly bought newspapers. He took off a glove to stroke the fine leather of the couch. The airport was bustling; objects, mysterious people, and their even more mysterious actions arrested Gyöngyvér’s attention. Occasionally something was announced in a number of languages of which she barely understood anything, but she could not truly listen because of her excitement.

She did not quite register when Ágost put down the newspapers and stood up.

Excuse me, he said with peremptory sternness, and this made Gyöngyvér look up and pay attention. He took off across the large hall with his briefcase.

He could have left it on the couch, but the stupid man even took his overcoat with him.

For the first time in her life, Gyöngyvér was left all alone in the echoing waiting area of an airport. Had she not always been left alone, she probably would not have reacted so vehemently; primal fear would not have awakened in her with such force. She wanted to call after him that she too needed to pee and would like to go along. But it was clear that she had to stay put and keep smiling, if only because of their luggage. Don’t be anxious, Gyöngyvér, remember, the job is to sustain, sustain, and she sustained. This helped a little. Ágost did everything with such apparent assurance, was so maddeningly at home everywhere, that she had to leave things to him.

At least she could see where to go when she’d have to. She was terrified that someone might speak to her and she would not understand.

She could still see, and she never forgot, that Ágost, in his hazel nut-brown millepoint traveling suit, at the far end of this white marble hall divided by pilasters, walked at a very leisurely pace down the marble steps. That is when, and in this way, she saw him for the last time. Later, though, she told the Greek security people interrogating her that, quite inexplicably, he had taken with him not only his briefcase but also his sand-colored Burberry coat.

The basement washroom she found at the bottom of those steps had no other exit, at least she could not find one when an hour later, having lost her patience and already in tears, she managed to entrust the luggage to somebody.

It wasn’t even his briefcase.

What briefcase.

A very nice, brown leather case, she thought it was brand new, she thought it was calfskin, which, along with their other luggage Ágost had taken out of the trunk of his friend’s car at Ferihegy Airport.

What friend.

Now she was confused, uncertain whether to reveal the friend’s name.

Had she seen the briefcase before.

Was she familiar with the contents of the briefcase.

She knew she didn’t have to answer these questions, she should not have mentioned the briefcase at all, or anything else for that matter, because they enjoyed diplomatic immunity, as Ágost had explained in detail the previous evening, but by now it was very late.

It was the same car, André Rott’s, in which one summer morning, after having awakened so happily in the maid’s room of the Pozsonyi Road apartment, they had driven to the Tisza.

As they say, they were as happy as larks that long-ago morning.

She saw that the security men were hooked on the briefcase like fish on the bait.

They jotted down André Rott’s name, but she corrected them, saying she had made a mistake earlier, his real name was András Rott.

As a very suspicious-looking interpreter translated it, she had not seen her husband with that briefcase before and its contents were unknown to her.

Gyöngyvér was living proof that the Hungarian government, in accordance with an agreement, wanted the Eichmann papers delivered to the court in Jerusalem.

Her confession was calculated into the game.

The disappearance of the embassy’s chief counselor on the way to his post was duly recorded, and this official record included the missing person’s overcoat and briefcase.

He was free at last.

And if he had thought about anything specific during the last happy weeks, anything related both to his everyday activities and to his entire life, then it was this condensed sentence, only four quietly jubilant words, which kept repeating: I’m free at last.

He said this to himself several times a day, hundreds of times a week, without becoming bored with the feeling that could be expressed in these words or with the ultimately empty words themselves.

Silence reigned over the landscape, stillness and peace pervaded the lovely sunshine-filled early summer.

With those four words, which he had heard so many times from released prisoners, he had to reassure himself about the correctness of his feeling, which he had never voiced to himself nor said out loud. In a peaceful state, noisy with the rush of blood, work-induced heavy breathing, and the buzzing of bees, he returned without realizing it to the time of that feeling, which he thought had been lost forever.

Memory first gave him signals when he moved; the movements led him back to knowing how to hold his tools, spade, hoe, and scythe. Then his muscles reminded him how to manage his movements. He returned here, to the past with its out-of-the-way groves, abandoned fields, and empty pastures, vineyards overrun by weeds, and decaying orchards where the normal silence of nature reigned; peace. He wished to reconquer this abandoned landscape with his labor, except that what he had forgotten most during the lapsed time in his life was how to manage his energies sensibly.