Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

In Hajós Street, right behind the Opera.

I see, Lady Erna replied, as if with these two words the entire matter had been settled forever.

Just as she had not beaten about the bush with Kristóf either; if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. No betrayal fazed her, and this was a source of her strength. There was no empathy or love, nothing, there was nothing without a beginning, and in that case why shouldn’t everything have an end as well. There was perhaps one amorous exception in her life. Whenever she remembered it, she shuddered with joy and sorrow. Hatred is more persistent, unfortunately, but even that comes to an end one day. At the same time she realized that her nihilism was a strength only in the eyes of others, because at bottom she always had to choose it; that’s how it is when misanthropy is born of insult.

If not for this weakness of hers, she might not have had heart problems. Now Gyöngyvér managed to say something that made Lady Erna turn around.

At least I’d get to see some ready-made suits, she said pensively, and was happy that when talking about clothes she did not have to feel Ágost’s body inside hers, his face on her face. There’s no use looking for an English suit. Not only in black but in any color. Besides, the English style is too severe and not very feminine. If you ask me, it’s not worth having one made, either.

While the taxi waited for the light to change and an almost empty trolley passed in front of them, the cabbie watched in the rearview mirror, hoping to understand what the women were talking about, in his concentration forgetting to take off when the light changed.

But for god’s sake, exclaimed Lady Erna irritably, what makes you think I want a black English suit. I never said anything so asinine, and why would I.

Please believe me, Gyöngyvér went on, any seamstress can come up with a nice little suit in two days. And it’s something that has many uses. You can wear it with a blouse or a thin turtleneck, which is very nice. The better the fabric, the greater one’s playing field with a suit like that.

You may be right, Lady Erna replied, surprised.

Why did she have to share these delicate matters with this woman. She wanted to withdraw, not let their shoulders touch.

Yet there was something impressive and self-assured in what Gyöngyvér had said. And it was news to Lady Erna that the English suit was passé, démodé; she’d never heard English tailoring called overly severe. What idiocy. As if it did her any good to learn about English suits. Still, the contact of the shoulders felt good. Taking advantage, deviously, of what seemed accidental. What had been cut off between the gloved hands a moment ago now streamed through their coats and dresses. But, refusing to believe it might make her feel better about herself, she could not. And she let it happen for another reason: Gyöngyvér sat on the side of her heart, and her touch had a decidedly calming effect on the rhythm of her heartbeat.

Her medication had largely resolved her two attacks that morning, and she had some satisfaction in having emptied her bowels properly; in the pericardial depression, however, there remained a certain amount of tension, a restlessness that had deepened with the news from the hospital and the ensuing haste.

Very close to a fatal ventricular fibrillation.

It seems I’ll be indisposed again, she thought suddenly and for good reason. What she felt was less than the usual forewarning of an attack but more than a mind set on self-preservation could ignore. She grimly monitored her body functions and could not arrest her rising fear. Her tension was eased somewhat by the involuntary contact with Gyöngyvér’s shoulder, though it communicated tension radiating from Gyöngyvér’s body, unhindered by any excess of weight or fat.

Unexpected happiness radiated directly into the muscles of Lady Erna’s heart made tense by dread, and her pulse slowed, the auricles and ventricles working less convulsively. In proximity to the other woman, the cardiac tension she had been carrying around for weeks as a terrible ache of the soul was subsiding. Of course, she could not count on any lasting relief. Any feeling that originates in another human being, however pleasant, by necessity leads to new, possibly harmful stimulation. If you need me to calm you down, I’ll give you something, but you can be sure I shall take it back or make you work it off. And assaults of pain or pleasure are all the same to one’s system. It responds to both with agitation. Agitation raises the pulse rate, the pulse increases the blood pressure, pleasure and pain exact the same price. Young people hardly distinguish between the two payments: a young body takes joy in sensing the heart’s pursuit of either pleasure or danger.

A damaged system will, however, after perfidious silence avenge emotional excess with an acute shortness of breath. Not when first stimulated to excitement but a little later, when the heart muscles can no longer meet the demands of rising blood pressure, speeding pulse, and localized hyperemia. Pressure and asphyxiation are warning signals when the shoulders or lips or loins, engorging with blood, are no longer points of stimulation, but the entire body is — from the hair on the head to the tops of the toes, when the very flesh of the heart labors under the spell of stimulation.

It does not have the reserves to supply the system’s center and peripheries simultaneously.

But by then it’s too late.

Gyöngyvér, my little girl, said Lady Erna, her voice hoarse and reduced to a whisper by the sudden urge for self-preservation. She was loath to say aloud what she was about to say. It was exactly what she wanted to keep to herself. I don’t want to frighten you, but I haven’t been feeling well since early this morning, and I think I had better prepare you. If you see that I’m getting worse, my medicine is here, in my purse. If I become very weak or even faint, you should put it under my tongue.

Yes, I know the medicine, Gyöngyvér answered dryly, as if she too wanted to move past this, wanted to get it behind her.

Contrary to Lady Erna’s expectation, neither fear nor surprise showed on Gyöngyvér’s face. Indeed, her pretended empathy and genuine curiosity only grew.

With the excuse of having to look for her medicine, Lady Erna turned and shifted away on the seat with a small laugh. As if to apologize for clinging to her miserable life. Which is truly laughable. Common sense told her it would be more pleasant to slip into the hereafter in a state of unconsciousness than to continue wide awake, trembling for her wretched life. And if that was how it was going to be, and it could hardly be otherwise, why bring her back with the help of medication, why couldn’t she be content to simply faint away. No matter how hard she tried to find her instinct for self-preservation ridiculous, her fear of death won out. There was another creature within her, too terrified to be amused — in the hope of overcoming fear — at being terrified. Efforts to master her fear had never been successful, yet she never gave up. Exactly the opposite happened. Laughter did not help overcome the dread, and the elemental fear, much stronger than she, deeply humiliated her and repeatedly made a mockery of her faith in common sense.

Common sense failed to stop the symptoms; her hands shook visibly. The telltale spots caused by afflictions of the nervous system, going from flushed to pale, made their appearance, along with imperceptible dewdrops of fear gathering along the rim of her upper lip. And there was no good reason why she was unable to click open the latch of her handbag.

Even if I confide in this woman, I can’t expect anything from her but hypocrisy. In her restrained fury, she practically tore the gloves off her hands. She didn’t regret this. She had noticed earlier that at times Gyöngyvér’s eyes were glued to her. At least her hands had not yet lost their shapeliness. The young woman had something to envy. Leaning back from the edge of her consciousness, she somehow gathered that what she was doing now had nothing to do with her heart; false alarm, a lot of hysterics, no threat of another attack. But her inner tensions, with their various origins and vectors, were raging so furiously that she genuinely feared being unable to control herself.