Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

But in the morning Balter did not find fallen apricots under the tree. He stared at the ground dumbfounded. Of course, in the shade of the wide-crowned tree and on this sandy rise grass grew very sparsely. He kept looking but did not find any fruit under the outermost branches either. He hadn’t bothered to separate the sounds and sights of his dreams from those of his wakefulness, or perhaps to look for some connection between them. He quickly deflected his thoughts from this issue; some animal must have taken them, he said to himself, he only dreamed of hearing them fall; and he went about his business.

But he knew of no animal that would take or eat ripe apricots.

At noon, when the horseflies arrived and he was cooling himself under the tree, as was his wont, another few ripe apricots fell to the ground.

As some sort of last warning.

He looked at their soft flesh against the sandy-gray ground, but did not touch them. Later, after the last ring of the midday bells, he stood up to put on his shirt. But he couldn’t find it on the sunny branch where he had hung it a short hour earlier. He was amazed. He looked at the empty branch for a long time, then went into the house but did not find the shirt there either.

As if the landscape, dizzy with the midday heat, denied every answer dictated by common sense.

Of course, eventually he’d have to assess what was happening to him here.

He sat on his only chair in the room and forgot about his lunch. If I can’t find it now, he excused himself, I’ll find it later. A weak breeze barely moved the air. The wind couldn’t have carried away my faded old shirt, the earth couldn’t have swallowed it. That was the sum of his assessment. Anxiety and fear, which at other times might have quickly weakened him, did not recur today. Today he was not confronted with an imaginary danger; for the first time destiny had sent palpable signs to him. Now he was sure that apricots had fallen from the tree during the night, no matter how often he tried to defend his memory by calling it a dream. Nor did he doubt that he had spread his wet shirt out on the same sun-beaten branch today as always. In response to these ominous signs, he entrusted himself to his own calm nature; he seemed to know exactly what to expect of those signs.

The pastor’s appearance the evening before was part of the world’s order being cleansed.

For the end of his life he was left by himself; he had nobody and no longer could have anybody. Everyone was at a different place in their lives. When he’d dipped his body into the water last evening every illusion and pain had ended. For him life had no individual condition beyond its historical conditions, and he couldn’t think about mystical or metaphysical conditions. All that sort of thing was the business of women or priests. He had served whom he served, retired, and remained as alone as he had been all his life. He and that pastor had nothing in common; anyway, he disliked priests no matter what kind. No one had anything to do with anyone. He was glad he didn’t even want a mistress for himself anymore.

Just as, at the beginning of his life, he’d thought he’d have something to do with every woman, with any woman at any time.

At most he’ll have to get used to ghosts from his previous life still coming back to tease him.

He continued to trust his steadfast strength. All his life he looked down on men who from birth did not have real physical strength. He didn’t know what to do with men like that.

Images replaced memories; apparitions warning of danger stepped out of the images. These belonged among the inexplicable things a man didn’t bother with. His dead mother held one end of a chain made of these signals; he sat at the other end, content with his mental peace, his big limbs relaxed. His conversation with the pastor had warned him that at the worst someone might appear around his house at any time to take revenge on him. The prowling tramp could be none other than his own son. Just as his mother had sent the young female with his lunch, the woman who would have gladly cooked and washed for him, but whom he hadn’t wanted.

His thoughts about these secret connections were suddenly validated in the air by the unexpected tolling of the church bell.

The fiendishly unexpected sound shook his body, and his muscles jerked, just like the previous evening when he’d noticed the pastor’s motionless shadow under the apricot tree.

It must be close to two o’clock by now.

He was ashamed of a reaction like that; he was no fragile little woman.

The small bell was ringing in the village. The tolling let everyone know that someone had departed from the world of the living.

Even as a child he hadn’t understood why churchmen did not ring the bell the moment they first learned of a death or when they saw it with their own eyes because they’d been at the deathbed.

But they always waited with the bell until the full hour.

Hearing the knell, he stood up; he laughed in joy.

Though he couldn’t have said what gave him joy or why he laughed.

He was no longer free, but he had nothing to do with anyone, not with the dead either. The life and death of unknown people meant nothing. For the sake of his fellow workers he’d always had to pretend a little that life and death meant something to him. He did not go out of his house; with his restless soul he assessed the landscape. He was agitated because he no longer had to do anything for anyone’s sake. Nothing stirred anywhere, but he could not let himself be taken in by illusions that others had created. After the last death knell, he heard no unusual sounds. With his sharp gaze, he looked up and down the footpaths and between the more distant flower beds and vegetable patches. He saw trodden clumps, pressed-down blades of grass, traces of careful footprints. They could have been old, or new, or even the stranger’s. He had two rakes; the one with the finer tines would serve his purpose better. I’ll have my lunch in the evening, he said to himself as if no longer bound by the body’s or time’s simpler needs. From the four stakes marking his boundaries, he would progress toward the house with the rake. If I don’t finish it today, I will tomorrow. He was taking no chances, not because he considered either the size or impossibility of the job, but because he was thinking of the footprints he would obliterate. Occasionally the rake was caught in a clump of grass or cut too deep with its tines. He carefully smoothed over the indentations that might help with the deception. He wanted to see his situation as clearly as possible, and he had no other method for it but this one.

He spent some time under the tree; ignoring the heat and horseflies, he carefully worked around the fallen apricots, which flies and ants had meanwhile chewed and nibbled at.

Still, in the bubble of thick silence, he was not completely satisfied. Something he could not name was bothering him. Until he realized that he had to mark the place where each apricot fell.

He drew circles around them.

By the time he finished raking the entire area, much sooner than he had hoped, it was a red twilight again. He reached back from the threshold to sweep away his last footprint. Not an inch of his land remained without the fine traces of the rake. Thick silence sat over the landscape. He wolfed down some bread, scallions, and dry salami, but he found no drinking water in any of the cans.

He decided not to go to the village for water. But listening to the booming in his ear of dangerously thickening blood, he was not alone in his thirsty vigil that night.

From the willows, he heard the tawny owl, whose sound is like someone dripping water on the surface of motionless water.

Occasionally a ripe apricot fell to the ground.