Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

The blood is pouring out, said the woman for the second time, still in a quiet, soft voice.

Stop talking so much and let me have your pillow, Rózsika, he said quickly, and knelt by the body on the stone floor.

He saw the flashing of tightly clenched teeth from behind the frothy, slightly open lips. Whether he had bitten his tongue in half or not, it was no longer possible to pry open his teeth. There was not a second to lose. He simply dropped the cream bottle, which was now superfluous, and with both hands, as if gently embracing the boy, shoved, stuffed, pressed, and pushed his blue bathrobe under the arching body. The last time he had done something like this was in the main-floor shower room of the boarding school in Wiesenbad. He was now waiting for the pillow. The tonic convulsion began to ease up. As if the body were relaxing on the soft bathrobe, but this did not mean the fit was over.

The blood is pouring from his head, repeated the woman for the third time.

Hans was concentrating on the young man’s outturned eyes, white frothy lips, the rhythm of the spasms, but he also sensed the possibility of being swept away by a terrible flood of hysterics about to gush forth from the motionless body of this woman by the table. He felt its imminence, and he was right.

Oh, my god, she squealed, beside herself, do something already. Blood’s pouring from his head. Can’t you see how it’s flowing out, there, right there, it’s pouring out, she screeched. Blood is pouring from his head.

Hans turned around slowly, looked up at her, and replied wearily. Of course I see it, I see everything, Rózsika. And then he bellowed so loudly that the woman’s enormous body trembled like a leaf. Get back to your work. And give me that fucking pillow.

At least she now knew what to do.

She handed over the pillow from her chair and then gave him her thick hand-knitted cardigan too, but simultaneously protested that no matter what happened she wouldn’t let Hans talk to her like this. She assumed he had said fucking in some sort of connection with her.

Well , said André at the far end of the corridor, laughing with relief, if I’m not mistaken it’s an honest-to-goodness epileptic fit.

And before turning to go, André and Ágost looked at each other as experienced diplomats assessing the damage caused by warfare and taking measures to prevent its consequences. André had to acknowledge his defeat very quickly. And Ágost had to overcome the easy joy he felt about his unexpected good luck. It was there, glittering in his deep-set eyes.

And because he did overcome it without effort, because it was not hard to refrain from gloating, he felt happier and the old sparkle returned to his eyes. That could only make André happy too. Because, owing to an unexpected incident, they had gotten away with it: they wouldn’t have to cope with a three-week depression. He added a little nod that meant appreciation and acknowledgment on the one hand, and on the other a warning that the matter was only postponed and ultimately Ágost would not get away with it without a detailed confession.

And with that, they broke eye contact. André retired to his cabin to get dressed at last. If Kovách could take care of everything, why should he, André, bother with the epileptic fit of a complete stranger. Ágost went into the cabin attendant’s dark booth because he thought he should tell the bathhouse to call for a physician. He was not especially shaken by the attendant’s seizure, but he always liked to help Hans, to see him selflessly and instinctively offer his services to others. Ágost lacked this ability. He found a tattered sheet fastened to the wall by a thumbtack, listing the internal telephone numbers; it had been corrected many times. He saw the entry for the physician on duty but could not make out the number. He wished the whole country to hell with its idiotic lists stuck all over the place.

There was no dial tone; he kept tapping the receiver’s cradle.

In the meantime, the empty main-floor corridor came to life, filling up with people attracted by the frightening screams, everybody running. Half-dressed customers and desperate but helpless staff members. An older cabin attendant, with a horrible war wound, two shiny dents on his skull, two younger women from the cloakroom who would have gladly taken care of the young man, if only to irritate Rózsika, and of course the wavy-haired swimming instructor, that slightly decrepit nervous dandy who at this hour had no students. Everybody was talking at once; questions and irrelevant comments flew everywhere, as if they couldn’t see what had happened, while Rózsika continued with her ever louder indignation. The seizure moved from the tonic phase to the clonic one, with the body on the stone floor rapidly alternating between contraction and relaxation; the face looked as though a terrible hand had crumpled it. And blood kept spreading in the ribbing of the yellow tiles, and only Hans noticed it was becoming more watery.

And the pillow was still warm from the indignant woman’s large bottom. André waited for the helpless body to relax so he could thrust the pillow between the floor and the boy’s head. As he lifted the stiff head, he reached into thick blood and felt as if his finger had slipped into the open wound. Because the head is full of capillaries, it bleeds quickly and profusely when injured, but the bleeding can also subside just as quickly. He was hoping the head injury was not serious. The tonic and clonic spasms were alternating more vehemently, which loosened the tensors in the young man’s neck and, as a result, the body writhing in opposite directions was literally bouncing the lifeless head on the red pillow. He waited patiently and there came an opportune moment when he could shove the pink bottle deftly between the young man’s teeth.

In the meantime, the hubbub above them seemed to be growing louder.

In addition, exactly during the worst moments, more bathers arrived. They could barely squeeze by the struggling body on the floor, the long legs of the kneeling man, the upended table, and the loudly protesting hefty woman hovering above them. Two of the new arrivals could not even get inside. Two frightened teenage girls kept peeking curiously through the always steamy windbreaks.

On an empty wall of the aunt’s dining room hung one large and noteworthy oil painting, a Leistikow* that could be found in albums and catalogues and occasionally at exhibitions. Sometimes porters would arrive, take it off the wall, pack it, and take it away. They would bring it back after a long time and then it would hang on the large empty wall the way it was hanging there on this winter morning.

Its perspective was deepened by the shadows of branches swaying in the strong wind.

Catalogues provided the essential data of the painting, of course, such as its size and title, they noted that it was a signed work, but at the aunt’s request they merely indicated that the painting was privately owned. As a child, Döhring often wondered about this. Here was a valuable object in the world, unobtainable for most people, and even its location had to be kept secret. As he saw it, it was only thanks to a strange series of lucky coincidences that he could at any time view a painting others could not see whenever they wished. What this capricious series of coincidences was, he did not understand; what is coincidence, what is sheer luck. Later, he probably wouldn’t have enrolled to study philosophy had these questions not remained firmly in his mind. The painting was mysterious enough to stimulate his imagination.

He could start at any point; at most, he would become bored, but he had never gotten to the end of the road.

Sometimes he caught himself arriving at the same spot; this too is familiar.