Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

Erna thought it was important to mention the braids and knee-socks, but I can’t tell you why, I really can’t. I myself knew nothing of all this. What can I tell you: the last time I saw them must have been in ’thirty-eight, when I came back here from Berlin. And even then it was only for a few minutes. Yes, her daughter refused to cut off her braids even after finishing school. She was a deeply devout soul, preferred to wear pleated skirts with her middy blouse.

She was arrested along with four others for some insignificant matter about organizing a few people, some childish thing, and she was taken to the Majestic.

She wanted to sound casual when mentioning this Majestic because she knew that Mária Szapáry too, after her arrest in 1944, had been taken to this Gestapo villa on Sváb Mountain.

Through the boarded-up window of her cell, she heard the cogwheel train when it stopped at the Művész Road station and then moved on. On the second day, judging by the sounds, she figured out where she was. Margit Huber waited a moment, watching, mesmerized, the features of their hostess. She had been beaten there, in the Majestic, several times. But she said nothing. Filled with indifferent anticipation, her lips trembling uncooperatively, she raised her strong eyebrows.

A week later, they took them to Berlin, as Erna Demén tells it, straight to Alexanderplatz. They wanted to make a big deal of the whole thing. Until Berlin, there were others, but afterward there was only one eyewitness, she continued, according to whom Erna’s daughter was sent off in a transport to Ravensbrück. They left no stone unturned. Dr. Lehr, of course, had connections with everybody, including the Nazis.

That’s the girl’s story in a nutshell.

But now there’s new information, said the woman in the silk dress, taking over the story, that the girl and Irmus were together, allegedly, in the Helmbrecht death march.

Oh, no.

Yes.

It must be a misunderstanding, or a fatal error.

And now all three of them realized it would be important to come up with some plan before Irma Szemző arrived. Whether they should burden her with this news, or should wait, perhaps slowly preparing her for the task that for humanitarian reasons could not be avoided, or should hold their peace. Mária Szapáry turned stubborn; not only was the matter not that urgent, but she did not even understand it. As if saying both yes and no, she swayed her large head, consolidating her stubborn silence.

Whenever conversation strayed to such topics, she’d keep quiet. Immediately after the siege of Budapest, they had giggled together about the most absurd things. But as the years passed, although nothing changed she found it harder and harder to talk about old issues; no matter whether some receded and some she forgot, she couldn’t do it. Her throat, her nose, perhaps the mucous membrane on the roof of her mouth preserved the stench of carrion. Her mind filled only with things one could not possibly speak about in a normal voice.

The sled with the ropes, whatever happened to the sled which they’d used to move the frozen Russian corpses. And she had never told anyone — except Médi, once — that she had raised her reflex camera above her head, hadn’t even leaned over the terrace railing, had clung to the wall sheathed in smooth cream-colored sheets of artificial stone so that nobody would see her, and had taken pictures for three consecutive days.

The pictures included ones of the dry pool of Szent István Park into which people were herded, and the yellow-tiled roadway on which the different groups were led away. What occurred to her now was that perhaps she had seen a girl with braids in the cellar of the Majestic, even though she’d seen no girl there with or without braids. I did not see her. I only saw the crudely whitewashed brick wall in the corridor. As though she had to keep apologizing. She’d never developed the negative, but kept them in the false-bottom drawer of the huge warped, buckling baroque escritoire.

She could not fathom what this miserable Démen woman could possibly want to know about these events, what she was so curious about. What would she do with her knowledge if she gained any, how would she gain. Why should she be helped. But one could not say this out loud, and because she knew she couldn’t say anything, not even to these friends, she could once again smell the sweet fragrance of the petunias. She said nothing about the sweet stench of carrion. And she also remained silent about how every year she compulsively planted, nurtured, and watered her flowers, but then at the end ripped them out of the dirt by their roots.

This has been the only trace she’s managed to come upon for years. I shouldn’t think she’s obsessed, but for her this is at least something practical to hold on to.

This is a colossal stupidity. What practical, what hold on to. This woman, this Erna of yours, she may not be a nutcase, but she’s not bright. No point in deceiving her, which you also know very well, my dear Médi, she said, speaking loudly to counter Margit Huber’s strong voice.

What can I do, she asked me to bring them together. I too think it’s stupid, but how can I get out of it. Ravensbrück is only an hour from Berlin. But from there she should have gotten first to Flossenbürg, or anywhere. All this sounds rather improbable, as she well knows. She’s asked many questions and looked into the matter in many places, no such transports appeared on any train schedules, still she has to hear it with her own ears.

Well, that’s what she said, and I can’t say more.

If we were to bring them together, and that’s what we were talking about, interjected the woman in the silk dress, who had a harder time overcoming the tugboat noise, then we’ll never dig Irmuska out of the pit.

Don’t be so sure. Sometimes she speaks of her own free will and you can hardly make her stop.

Simultaneously Mária Szapáry kept repeating, no, no, there’s nothing left but nonexistent cases. After twenty years there’s not a single trace left, nothing. Let’s understand each other, my love, this may well end up being one of the nonexistent cases. That’s what we’re looking at. You should have told her, listen, dear Erna, I understand you, but Irmuska doesn’t remember a thing. Nothing. And don’t worry, my dear Belluka, we won’t have to dig her out of anything. I won’t have her remembering anything. There is no pit. It’s all over. Twenty years later, there’s no need to remember.

Math was never your strong point, Mária. Let’s stay with fifteen.

All right, but what should we do, asked the worried friend in the silk dress, that’s exactly what we’ve been trying to come up with, what to do.

Oh come on, let’s not be ridiculous.

Well, I tell you, sweet Belluka, replied Mária Szapáry slowly, as if addressing a retarded person.

She wasn’t beautiful even when young, but she made many conquests with her smile and the power emanating from her body. With her healthy, pretty teeth, the well-defined arc of her lips, and the domed shiny forehead that commanded her entire face.

Let’s go to the kitchen and make gin fizzes. That’s all we can do, and, just as you’ve suggested, we’ll celebrate the festival of lemon blossoms or squash blossoms or whatever.

Nonetheless, she could not curb her seething and unaccountable anger, directed alternately against the others and herself, with these remarks. She burst out; she was beside herself; a horrific grin remained from her laughter when she began to yell, bringing sounds up from the depths. The vehemence of which surprised the two other women.

Would you just shut up, just this once, would you. Am I understood. I won’t have you screaming all sorts of nonsense in this infernal noise.