Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

In his dreams, however, he had to admit that Gerhardt Döhring had not been mad, contrary to the family’s opinion. He was tormented by being unable to avoid his own story, but only a lack of acceptable solutions to his problems later drove him to insanity. Defeat could not be redeemed by murders. Now he could see this with absolute clarity, but it only made him experience the intolerability of his newfound knowledge. With this knowledge, he would follow into madness the old man who lived in him.

The fruit-drying shed was heated up twice a year.

When fruit was plentiful, the first heating would last and continue into the second one, and together they would take a whole month. It was quite possible that in the fourth year, after having been heated to a red-hot state twice a year, the paper box simply went up in flames.

Of Döhring’s two daughters, Isolde disliked housework more than her sister did.

After the horrible death of their father, all the heavy work was left to the only son. The widow tried to keep things equal among the three of them. She was always after Isolde, would not let her shirk her duties or slacken at the expense of her siblings; that winter too it was Isolde whom she sent alone to the farm to put the drying racks in order. This job did not necessarily require two people. And if Isolde was afraid, well, let her get over it. As she was pulling the racks out of their slots, she noticed a few sparkling objects among the charred remnants of the paper box inside a pan that usually caught dripping fruit juice. She didn’t know what to think. A few minutes later she found the large pile of gold in the secret hollow. It was clearer than daylight who and in what circumstances must have hidden it there.

For the first time in his life, he was sure about something.

Even though he had been the cause of many terrible things.

And at last, he was startled to wakefulness by the horror of his dream, which showed him things no one had been able to decipher.

While taking in the bedroom and its open doors glimmering in the yellow and red reflections of the nocturnal city, he still hoped a little that shitting in his pants was part of his dream.

But it was, along with its stench, part of reality.

He pulled up the wide, striped pajama pants to his knees, held them together, and stepped off the bed; it could drip only to his knees. Plenty of it remained on the bedding. He took small steps, managing to carry the sausage for a few paces, squeezed between the cheeks of his buttocks, but the moment he reached the nearby bathroom, it fell out, fell apart, and he had to scoop out the pieces with his hand from the diarrhea-filled pajama pants.

By then, everything was dripping and became smeared everywhere, as blood would be after a brutal murder.

He had had it up to here with them.

He saw clearly that the morality, loyalty, and devotion he had demanded of himself were nothing but shameless hypocrisy, lying, and cowardice. Simply put, I’m gay — he should have said it out loud.

I’m looking at the men, he now admitted to himself.

Still, he couldn’t accuse himself of anything.

It would be closer to the truth to say he didn’t know his way around women and, though he was looking for nothing more than their company, was frightened of them. He couldn’t specify what he was frightened of, and would have been hard put to draw up the orographic and hydrographic maps of his fear, but he grew so intent on observing what men did, whether they were as frightened as he was or what made them luckily enough not frightened, that he could not pay attention to anything else.

To be able to see them openly, without reserve; there should be nothing he didn’t know about them; how do they do it, that’s what he wanted to know; that’s what he caught himself wanting to know more than anything else.

Every single man got him excited.

I’m a lousy little liar, he thought, alarmed, always have been; in an undertone, he kept speaking and breathing on the windowpane, while what he really wanted was to go down, cross the boulevard, and talk to that woman. Perhaps what frightened him so much was the possibility that suddenly somebody, an unknown woman, simply with her sheer existence, might give him pleasure. For whom he felt nothing and whom he did not love; how could he without knowing her; yet he was in love with her. But how can one be in love in such circumstances. He wanted to possess her. Could that be the sum total of that much-admired thing called love. It’s not only me; everybody is selfish, mendacious, evil.

His aunt Nínó too, everyone, every woman is a traitor, they are born traitors.

But even with sentences like these, he could not find the right place for his own betrayal because the moment he’d said he did not want it, had had enough of death, he’d simply managed to evoke even more intensely everything it would be best to forget.

As if he were shouting at himself, asking why did you let Nínó leave with that other woman, that dumb slut, why didn’t you go with her yourself, but the question could mean only one thing: why is your life so miserable. His protest notwithstanding, death would reach out to him with the hand of his aunt. And there was no point in making excuses for himself, that Nínó couldn’t care less about the death of that old fascist either; all she cared about was the inheritance for her loathsome evil little son, nothing else.

It could not have been anything but an illusion or wishful thinking to imagine that there existed human relationships lasting more than a few seconds. They’re nothing but snorting pigs, all of them. And they dare call it love when they wallow in the slop, snorting their heads off, and that’s what they value above everything else.

I’m not going. I am not going anywhere. I am not.

He went on turning these words over in his mind a long time after the foyer door had slammed shut behind the two women and complete silence had finally descended on the apartment.

Ilona did not move, but her presence or absence made no difference. He looked through her as if she did not exist. In his eyes, Ilona was no different from anyone else, a born traitor. A born servant, a whoring female who could not take her own fate into her hands so she rented it out to others.

He pressed his forehead against the windowpane again. The reflected masses of the sky moved brightly across the dark sidewalk.

Nowhere, you understand, nowhere. For himself, he had to convince Nínó of his rectitude.

I’m not going.

Down on the street, the cab was still waiting for the women.

What could they be doing so long in the stairwell. As if they had forgotten why they were supposed to hurry. In the farthest room facing the street, reclining on the professor’s abandoned sofa, Ilona was weeping. Now she could mourn her shattered life. It felt good to hear her little moans.

Downstairs, in front of the apartment building, the two women were crossing the street in a hurry, leaning into the wind. That’s what he’d been waiting for. As far as the eye could see there was nobody around, the boulevard was empty; Oktogon Square remained deserted. Let them go. I’m not going anywhere. He bade them farewell with these irritated words, emptied of meaning, while it was clear to him that lying to himself was in vain. Going nowhere. As soon as they were out of sight, he’d take his coat and be gone. Nothing to wait for anymore. He’s finally free. He’d face any risk. Actually, it was hard for him to call the dying man an old fascist pig, but by using that appellation he had liberated himself. Broken with his family.

At last he could tell himself that he was breaking with his family, that was the word, break, with which he supported his rebellion or, rather, made himself realize there was no way back.