Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

One of the most brilliant minds of the age coming undone under his family’s eyes, and all as the consequence of one attack. The news was received with incredulity even by those who thought he had used his mental abilities exclusively for evil purposes, in the service of brutal authorities, which is why so many hated him, considered him spineless, held him in contempt. Now he was flat on his back. In a case like this, however, even gloating subsides because the sight of mental deterioration clearly declares that what a person knows and thinks is not necessarily his to command.

Sometimes he would appear in his white nightshirt, hesitantly, in one of the rooms. He would speak quietly or mumble to himself. He didn’t know who the different beings might be who were sleeping all over the place in the various rooms or suddenly turning on lights to blind him. They did it deliberately. Quickly he would ask for water. He had to be on guard; otherwise, they would surely confuse him. He begged their pardon, but he hadn’t learned to find his way around this apartment. As if in his conscious mind he had another home. They showed him where the toilet was. They would support him, guide him, give him water, help him urinate, and then at some point they would leave him on his own again.

He graciously agreed to everything, with one exception. He did not want to go back to his sofabed, anything but that, because he knew well why they wished him to be there.

That is where they will kill him, in his bed. And he puts them to the test, to see whether they are willing to satisfy his wishes.

Quickly he asked for something to eat.

Except for Ilona, no one understood his mutterings. Just a little bread, nothing else. He’d love to chew on a little dry bread. And they gave it to him because if they didn’t understand what he wanted, or wouldn’t give him the bread, he would begin to shake, his entire body atremble as if shivering, as if he was terribly cold, while in fact he was weeping, without a single tear, and no one in his right mind could withstand such a sight. He liked best sitting in the hallway with his bread, in a place where a light was always on. But he only pretended to eat the bread. This too belonged to a recently discovered quality, to his ancient, secret knowledge. He would chomp a little on the bread, look around carefully, and then with a quick, almost animal-like movement shove it into the sleeve of his nightshirt and from then on made sure it did not fall out. He would hide it among his books. Occasionally he would slip a thinner slice in between piles of his manuscripts. Every object remained in its place but was assigned a new function. The two paintings, for example, he probably still recognized. Perhaps he no longer had any other window to the outside world. Sometimes they left him there for a whole night; they’d put socks on his feet, throw a blanket over his shoulders, and he would go about the battlefield examining the corpses trampled under horses’ hoofs, or chat about intricate moral questions with Captain József Lehr.

In any case, it usually took a good long hour following their return home before everything quieted down again and no light could be seen coming from under the doors.

When he couldn’t fall asleep again, Lady Erna would turn on his light and he would read, sometimes until dawn. But not a single week passed without his trying to convince his son that they should move out of this apartment. He’d take care of all the necessary bureaucratic arrangements and cover all expenses. They became entangled in hopeless arguments. They didn’t say anything directly but managed to unleash huge reserves from their respective stockpiles of rebukes. Every uttered word hurt. Sizzled with repressed fury. Ágost argued that for the sake of a few days, maybe a few weeks, it wasn’t worth upsetting his father’s life. His mother countered that he’d certainly be right if the few weeks weren’t extended to another four years. This could have been accepted as reasonable, just as one could understand Ágost’s argument, since they did not lack all reason. But the conflict between them was not about reasonableness and certainly not about the mutuality of understanding.

He could not let his mother send him away again; that would have strengthened his quietly tormenting conviction, and that’s what he dreaded most, that’s what he never talked about to anyone except his friends.

As a matter of fact, he does not and never did have a mother. True, while he had lived far away he conducted a very heartfelt correspondence with this strange woman. And his father, un vrai monstre , was not worth killing, because he’d come to life in a dozen new forms. His mother never loved him, and he wasn’t the only one she did not love; she probably never loved anyone, and this is the inheritance he, the son, has to perpetuate. Qu’elle aille au diable. He felt, he thought, precisely for the sake of maintaining the semblance of a relationship with his mother, that he should leave — but only of his own free will, not be sent away or dismissed like a snotty little boy. And if he made a lot of noise with his life, well, let them put up with it. To hell with them. Every evening he waited for a telephone call or a confidential message, a message delivered by hand, something, a secret signal or written order so he could again leave this miserable country. Gyöngyvér, of course, knew nothing of these hopes. Earlier, he had worked abroad as a diplomat, and he had liked it; he had returned from his last position four years earlier and was now working at home on part of a confidential job: that is how Gyöngyvér understood the situation.

Kristóf knew no more either; besides, he wasn’t interested in his cousin’s future.

Nínó, however, should have understood what her son was counting on, what he was waiting for, what he suffered from. She herself had intervened on his behalf in some higher circles, but in vain. Which she could not comprehend and protested vigorously. By the nature of things, she could not have known anything about his conspiratorial tasks. More precisely, she pretended not to know what she should suspect.

Or he might have been waiting to be told that his services were no longer required, neither clandestine nor public ones. He did consider this possibility. Then why scare Gyöngyvér with the possibility that tomorrow he might leave her for good. He wouldn’t admit it even to himself, but he kept his eyes open, constantly alert to possible new ways of being approached. He detected no signs of being observed, or did not want to acknowledge that his best friends adequately fulfilled the job of observers. At most, he was willing to admit that perhaps they were all being observed, and he should pay more attention to that possibility. He had no strength to stifle his own hopes. In which case he should acknowledge that he was forever imprisoned in this miserable country, in this jail that, after all, was his homeland. Patrie de merde. He’d have to live his life in this profoundly unhappy city as an exile; and he’d be forever locked up with people whom neither his body nor his soul desired. He desired no one, nothing. His idée fixe was that only servants and gentry lived in this shit country, no one else.

In vain he told them that when it comes to one’s own affairs one cannot shift responsibility to others, even if one’s circumstances are oppressive. They just stared at him, couldn’t give a decent answer to anything, always changed the subject and went on talking. But he would not wait to become a victim of their obtuseness, their constant grudging, lethargy, their pathological tendency to prevaricate, and their slowness hobbled by helplessness. He was not going to wait for this. He had had it with his friends. He could see on them how much he had changed. Here, one conforms to the mentality of either servants or gentry; there is no other choice where there are no free people. Their souls are imprisoned.