Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

Whatever flowed from body to body through their gloved hands could not necessarily be identified as maternal love. If only one could shut off the disrupted current so easily, she thought suddenly. Still, there was something maternal here; after all, this woman belonged to her son, and she, being his mother, had to feel something of what her son found attractive in her. Or rather, it did not resemble the sensation she had not felt for quite some time at the sight of men.

In time, her desires somewhat shifted in proportion. She would dishonor the memory of her little girl if she called this strange woman her child.

Perhaps what she had to forego had already been marked on that map which, as a little girl, she’d seen in the sky framed by the treetops.

Still, even now, and forever, she must be restrained, self-possessed; no use asking why she couldn’t lose her mind, spin out of control just one more time.

Lady Erna’s other hand, perturbed by this welter of emotions, stirred a little, of course, and her small lips edged with wrinkles trembled. Helplessly and hungrily, seeking and avoiding the other’s gaze, they looked at each other while the car sped along the boulevard with the noise of rain lashing at the windows.

I don’t know what this afternoon will bring, she said, keeping her voice low if only because of the cabbie, as she grasped the young woman’s gloved hand. The cabbie, with his unusual face yet goodly mien, whom she could not place, was obviously observing them. I don’t really know how, she continued, her voice trailing off awkwardly, but I must come up with something. And in her effort not to alarm Gyöngyvér with a sudden gush of emotion, and not to lay herself open either, she sighed and, with her upper lip retracted like an animal snarling in pain or joy, burst out laughing.

Sigh and laughter followed each other.

You may not believe it, Gyöngyvér, but I’ve no mourning clothes.

And when she said this, she felt strong enough to break the flow between the two of them. As if asking for indulgence, signaling that the other person should not give the fleeting moment too much weight.

There is one big role left she would not mind playing.

Some other time.

She must now continue in a reasonable tone.

I must get downtown to the shops, if only for a short time. I’d be grateful if you’d come along, Gyöngyvér. I’ve got shoes, I’ve got handbags and coats, actually I’ve got everything, but black stockings, for example, I don’t have at all. Actually black is not my color. Well, I’m lying. If the moths haven’t eaten them, I must still have a black velvet cocktail dress and a black taffeta suit. But those aren’t exactly right for now, they won’t do at all. You can appreciate that in the circumstances I can’t deal with things like this by myself.

But I would trust your judgment entirely.

Gyöngyvér was not quick to answer, she remained silent, or she did not grasp the meaning of the unfolding scene; but she did not alter her pained smile. After so much mute and treacherous humiliation, this unexpected trust was like an even more treacherous attack; it paralyzed her. It deeply shocked her that a person could speak like this about her own husband’s impending death, so openly, so shamelessly and brutally. She could not consciously gauge all the places Lady Erna knew and had been to, how many things she had had her hands in; even what she experienced unconsciously of Lady Erna’s deeds and existence was too much for her — the familiar strong attraction and familiar proximity, which she could not avoid. Besides, she had a problem concentrating on more than one thing at a time.

When Ágost or other men before him called her at the kindergarten when she happened to be playing with the children or singing to them, when someone came in to tell her she was wanted on the telephone, she had to pay very close attention to understand the person at the other end of the line. When she left the house in the morning she became distant from him; it was as if she did not have another life besides the kindergarten.

And the same was true the other way around.

If they went out in the evening, to the Fészek Club or anywhere else, and people she did not know asked her what she did, she would say, I’m a kindergarten teacher, but then suddenly she’d be unable to explain what that meant. Hours would go by and still she could not recall what she did there. In a matter of seconds the divider in her soul would rise between things, and it was wider than the Great Wall of China. Because if something had not happened, then something entirely different must have, and the former was no longer visible. She was in constant fear of not understanding what had happened or was happening in a given moment. She got the idea that others could not grasp her incomprehension. She kept it a secret how difficult it was for her to get into the present from her various pasts. She did not comprehend how others could connect different things and times in themselves. This is why she did not feel at home except among children. She would stand by the telephone, listening to the familiar voice to which no face or expression belonged, only a possible name and a pure sensation.

Although they had been living under the same roof for half a year, she had not been this close, even in the simple, physical sense, to Ágost’s mother. Their shoulders touched, their thighs a little too, and neither of them found it necessary to move away. Sometimes Gyöngyvér keenly perceived how different mother and son were in many areas; at other times she was surprised, it nearly overwhelmed her, by how alike they were in other ways. Now, from the moment they walked out of the apartment, she had sensed nothing but their similarity. Neither physical nor mental difference existed any longer between aging woman and young son. Her entire attention was taken up with the sensation that she was in the presence not of that barrier thicker than the Great Wall of China but of a familiar attraction, an intimacy she could not avoid yet could not make her own.

This led to an insane thought — perhaps she should reach Ágost through the person of this elderly woman.

During the past weeks Ágost had quietly, politely, and brutally rejected her and not only in his sleep and not by chance. The night before, the struggle had turned brutal; it wasn’t, Gyöngyvér felt, the usual transition between two bitter fights and reconciliation, which sometimes she provoked for its gratifying excitement. Now, with the older woman suddenly opening up, Gyöngyvér felt that these two mature humans were made of much the same stuff. If only she could cross over into Erna, she might be saved. In the meantime, her splitting headache was getting worse. The realization struck her like lightning: if she could manage this, she would truly be saved. It was no longer about mother and son having identical tones of voice, skin color, deep and close-set eyes, piercing and constantly inquiring looks, of being almost perfect reflections of each other. No. Which would explain everything.

Gyöngyvér, contrary to all appearances, was not stupid. True, what she could formulate for herself, based on the reports of her senses, was usually flatter, more banal, more boring, and much simpler, almost primitive, because so much less than what she had sensed. Now, for example, she kept telling herself that if she succeeded in winning over the mother, she would not have to move out of the apartment. Which she dreaded.

Like a child, she was euphoric that Lady Erna would save her.

The survival instinct compels no less greed from her than it did from other people. Still, she often became entangled in situations in which she appeared to have committed some unforgivable impropriety or done something immoral.