Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

She saw her own loneliness reflected in the naked male body. The hopelessness of her own secret attempts at gratification. She was disgusted by this, or by herself; it aroused her self-contempt. But nor could she turn away, her curiosity wouldn’t let her; she wanted to see how men do it. She suspected that he might have done it in front of others. But not in front of me. Because he doesn’t trust me that much. Instantly she became jealous of others. The shouting was muted enough not to be heard in the other room.

Luckily she could somewhat restrain herself. She would gladly have shared all her joys with Kristóf, but she’d have been reluctant to tell him about her torments.

There was hardly an hour, a minute, in which she gave free rein to her emotions or feelings. She could never find out in advance from Kristóf whether he would be sleeping at home or staying away again for days. She envied him too; he probably had a good life. She envied everyone; her entire soul, all her goodness, was consumed by envy, behind which lurked amorous greed. I’m the only one who feels bad. It made a difference whether she could shout and yell freely or whether she had to restrain herself when in the throes of pleasure. Something of her pleasure always remained stuck in her. Ágost could not, probably did not want to crash through the barrier. One of them wanted to give too much, the other held it back. That is why they were not compatible, and this was impossible to understand.

Already in their second week she had begged him, please, let’s get out of here.

We can’t do it here. I can’t bear it. You look at me as if I were saying something insane. I’m whispering even now; I can’t stand this constant whispering.

Then speak more loudly.

How can I talk more loudly when that little idiot is behind the door.

You’ll get used to it.

Sometimes she thought this was a family trait; after all, Kristóf also had this indifferent way of answering her. She wasn’t sure. Maybe he’d be out of the house. At other times she thought this was so because these people were Jews. Very cold, passionless people who keep to themselves.

On her skin and in the strands of her hair she would sense Kristóf’s presence in the adjacent room. Or his absence, because that irritated her too. She sensed when he was asleep, because silence had a different quality then. Or that he wanted to be asleep but was awake, tossing and turning, and torturing her with his little noises. Yet no response ever came from the adjacent room. Although she couldn’t have said what response she expected from its darkness. She would have liked to see Kristóf lose his superior airs.

Forlorn and unapproachable, Ágost was standing in the almost empty room, quite near the tall door connecting it to Kristóf’s room. On this occasion too they did not know whether he was at home or not.

The nightlight, from under its wax-paper shade, illuminated Ágost from below and threw on the wall a long tilting shadow of his naked figure. Its contours would swing out and then back as he moved his hands, elbows, and arms; the shadow would tremble. Behind him the door to the living room was wide open. He hadn’t even closed the shutters on the two tall windows. Engrossed, he was slowly stroking himself with odd, broken movements. Showing and at the same time withholding something. Every one of his practiced movements proved that he knew what he was doing, to what purpose, and needed no one’s help. His smile seemed to hover independent of his face. Gyöngyvér found it especially painful that the smile was not meant for her; it was meant for no one. Anyone on the gallery, or people from any of the apartments facing the courtyard, could see in.

Why are you doing this in front of me? Have you lost your mind?

She received no answer.

They never came home before midnight. As if Ágost had said, let’s go somewhere, anywhere, just so it’s away from here. They went out every night. Then why don’t you want to move out of here. He gave no answer to that either. Most of the time they came home around one, one thirty. And every night they were a bit tipsy. On the way home, Gyöngyvér hummed arias to herself, practiced scales half-aloud, exercised her voice in the deserted streets. Ágost grew morose and silent, but claimed that it only seemed he was in a bad mood. In fact, sometimes, late at night, he was in a very good mood. He really felt good whenever he could withdraw into himself. With her arm in his, Gyöngyvér clung to him, trying to synchronize at least their steps. Anyone seeing them receding down a street with their long powerful stride would have thought, with pleasurable satisfaction, that they seemed very alike. Or if not alike, one could see why they belonged together. Their steps reverberated evenly among the silent buildings.

Icy gusts would sweep between their faces, each new one spraying cold and sticky drizzle into their eyes. They had to huddle closer, which Ágost didn’t mind at all.

That is how they reached home.

In these late hours, a deadly silence covered the entire city. There were no cars on the road; occasionally an empty streetcar would clatter by on the boulevard. In the sparkling drizzle dark Oktogon Square yawned mutely. Hardly any pedestrians anywhere, except maybe on the other side, in the recently reopened Savoy Café. On the Andrássy Road side, behind darkened windows, a bar was functioning again. Drumbeats were battering the walls; occasionally a saxophone wailed triumphantly or dolefully. Guests arrived here by taxicab; sometimes the noise of carousing guests reached the street, and there would always be taxis waiting outside. After the doors slammed shut and the cabs sped away, the night fell silent again. Farther off, where signs for the underground public toilet in the subway station lit up the sidewalk, some idle figures could be seen. The ladies’ section was closed at night; the men’s remained open until dawn. Balter opened it and closed it.

At dawn, at night, and several times a day, he had to limp across the boulevard, and for that he collected a separate salary from the Metropolitan Sewage Company. Sometimes, even at this late hour, a head might appear in the bright light, coming up out of the ground, rising on the steps, then joined by the rest of the body. It might be followed by another figure or, conversely, somebody might be going down those steps, slowly disappearing in the ground.

It was hard to tell what was happening.

Other solitary men, like shadows, huddled in nearby entranceways, waiting. Some of them stood behind the lit-up round advertising column, smoking cigarettes. Others pretended not to be hunting for anyone, only waiting for the streetcar as they paced the island of the stop.

But when the streetcar came, they would not get on.

Gyöngyvér tried not to make noise, she wanted both of them to keep their voices down. They always woke up everyone in the huge apartment on the boulevard when they came home; some were startled, some only pulled the pillow over their ears.

Have you gone completely out of your mind, she whispered angrily, and in her light semi-high-heeled mules decorated with swansdown she hurried across the large room to close the shutters of the two windows giving on the courtyard. The darkened, desiccated old parquet floor followed her steps with loud creaks. How can you do such a thing, for god’s sake. Ágost did not answer. Not even for a second did he break contact with himself.

Their arrival had its own routine. Gyöngyvér first went to the toilet, then to the bathroom, Ágost right to the kitchen. He rarely ate at strange places; starved, he had to wolf down something very fast. Doors opened and closed, light switches clicked on in a predetermined order. The abundant and powerful stream of Gyöngyvér’s urine either made a harsh noise as it hit the toilet bowl or splashed hard in water.