Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

But what he had mentioned had to do with much more common reasons, Döhring interposed.

The salesgirl was now behind the counter, she pressed some button and they were both bathed in a strong light.

People dealing with male underwear, replied the young woman wearily, deal with philosophy, which of course doesn’t mean that the peculiarities of the male body are forgotten for even a moment; not at all, on the contrary. The materials used must conform to the physical attributes. And she mentions these merely because, in her personal opinion, one should not separate the functional viewpoints from the aesthetic ones.

In a fairly irritated voice, Döhring asked whether this was really her personal opinion; her use of the word, to his surprise, annoyed him.

On the salesgirl’s face appeared signs of approaching danger, and a retreat was sounded. She nodded cautiously, yes, this would be her personal opinion.

Döhring liked the self-assurance with which the salesgirl lied shamelessly straight to his face. At the same time a small voice whispered to him not to dwell on the matter; he’d only be disappointed, it wasn’t worth it.

Still, he asked what the salesgirl had in mind.

Especially on the body of a man, replied the salesgirl almost reluctantly, stretched or out-of-shape underwear can’t perform its task. Its fundamental purpose is to provide protection. No situation should arise in which it cannot be relied on for safe support and the ability to keep its shape. That is its function; that is what it must do.

For a few short moments, an irritating static of silence crackled in the invisible speakers.

And the salesgirl lowered her eyes, as one wishing to conceal her face even more modestly. Not because she is ashamed, but because this is what professional integrity demands; after all, of the two of them she knows more about male underwear. Yet she did not flaunt her knowledge. The strong beam of light from above reached her brow at a sharp angle. It settled on her eyelashes, outlined the rims of her lips, painted almost black, and slashed her face with long shadows. The impression was that at any moment the light might flick the mask off this face.

Döhring became alarmed, however, did not want to see the face, felt that in this light his own face was equally defenseless. All this did not last long, the crackling increased and turned harsh until it became a single twang.

The salesgirl raised her head.

She is making only modest suggestions, she said, and if he’s sure she’s not taking too much of his time, she’d like to show the recommended items to him. She guessed that Döhring wore not the smallest size, but one not much larger, probably size two. And she asked if she was right.

Döhring motioned hesitantly that she was, because he couldn’t confess that he had never before bought bathing trunks or underpants for himself. And then he surprised himself by saying this out loud. He sounded a little as if he thought this was something to boast about. No, he was not familiar with the size numbers, he said, he had never bought anything all by himself.

But the salesgirl did not wait for him to complete the sentence; she pulled open a deep drawer and, like a magician, with adroit fingers spread a large bagful of cellophane packets on the glass counter. Only then did she look back up at Döhring, and her eyes asked curiously whether it was possible that he had really never purchased anything. Döhring nodded and felt he was blushing.

We have two series, two full lines of these, he heard the salesgirl’s reasoned voice. Gray ones, from black to white, and she’d like to show the other line too, including all possible colors beginning with white and all the way to black.

And the adroit fingers now spread out the cellophane packets from another large, rustling bag. He looked at the woman a little incredulously and annoyed to once again be up against an improbable claim of hers. Why must this woman rattle off these empty commonplaces. What does all possible colors mean. But while he was fuming about this and managed to look up again, many things happened in the darkness. In fact, nothing happened except behind the shutters of his closed eyes, and possibly coming over from the previous night, an ancient steamboat appeared.

In a sunny, barren landscape, among bare rocks, a superannuated steamboat, its hull nothing but rust, was making its way upstream in the narrow and shallow riverbed.

How absurd and foolish was its progress.

He would have shouted, but it was already too late; he heard the horrible thud that echoed long in the high mountain pass, and then the grating as rocks lurking in the muddy riverbed tore open the side of the boat. The hull trembled, but the engine did not stop; it kept puffing and struggling upstream. And then it was really the end; with the bottom ripped out, water rushed in, thick dark smoke arose, and suddenly lighter clouds of steam also began to rise.

Stuck between the erstwhile river’s narrow shores, the boat turned on its side and stopped. No one moved or called out.

A mute landscape.

No one could have moved or called, because there was no one on board. A completely empty ship. The reason there is nobody in it, Döhring heard the explanation in his own surprised voice, is because I am.

This is what I am. But at this moment he not only failed to understand why he was remembering a dream that he had forgotten when he had awakened that morning, but also did not know who he might be, talking to himself like this. As though somebody else was inside him who was talking to him.

He was completely confused; he must have stared stupidly at the salesgirl.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t know his size, because in this store he can always try on anything. That’s no problem, which is to say he never has to feel that trying something on means an obligation to buy.

This is the philosophy of the business in their store, she declared triumphantly.

Döhring attempted a smile, though his face must have shown desperation. This was something he should have understood, but he had trouble comprehending the phonetic shape of the words. He still hoped to put a quick end to the salesgirl’s philosophical discourse. He literally recoiled. What he saw before him were the salesgirl’s long, nimble fingers, the clotted-blood-red fingernails on top of the shiny cellophane under the spotlights’ strong beams, and this sight was about to carry him away again. And here was the steamboat too, but he already saw himself as a child sitting in the cooling water of a bathtub. He was screaming at the top of his lungs that he wanted to be washed by his aunt and not by his stepmother. He liked that very much. When the aunt came, it was as though with her red nails she plowed his skin, his flesh, his entire body.

The soap kept slipping; with each slip the thin blades of her nails dug pleasurably into his body.

At the same time he sensed that from this large dark space that no longer had any exits he was hearing some other kind of human sound. Coming from behind the music, finding a way between the twangs. He noted a man’s ticklish laughter. Until now, he had never paid attention to the way the most disparate thoughts, sensations, and stories run and split into separate strands along one another. The brief laugh was answered by another man’s good-natured humming. But at the moment, he did not know what to do with the forgotten desire and gratification, just as he didn’t know what to do with the ship that had sprung a leak and now lay on its side though there was nothing in which it could have sunk. His aunt had gratified him even while he was a young child, but since his adolescence she had denied him the pleasure. Back then, his aunt could not have been older than the salesgirl was now. Both of them cold and distant, ready to do anything for the sake of their profession. He could admire the one in the other. He had no way of escaping the entanglement in which he found himself in the store. He desired the salesgirl’s hand, yet his brain felt pain with her every sentence; with his fingers he had to dig into his own hair, rub his scalp so he wouldn’t be driven mad by commonplaces, it was that painful.