Parallel Stories: A Novel (131 page)

If I may be candid with you, Countess Imola said quietly.

I count on nothing but, said Baroness Karla dryly.

All right, his physique is pleasing, his mouth is beautiful, I grant you, and there’s something disarming in his facial expression too, as if he were looking into your depths and seeing your little feminine thoughts, but his nose, if I may put it this way, must cause alarm in everyone, in me it was real panic.

The baroness gave her a look. His nose of all features, his nose.

To be honest, I don’t understand your enthusiasm.

Of all his features you object to his nose, I’m very surprised, Imola—why deny it, I’m astounded. And how peculiar you are about the nose of your betrothed, my God, what do you want with all this. Yesterday, how thoroughly you described to me your future father-in-law’s snub nose. Involuntarily she thought of the red of the Boîte and the pretty little ivory
godemiché
; a mysterious good friend had made this his parting gift, as if to say that from now on she’d have to worry about her pleasures on her own.

He had vanished from her life the same way he had suddenly appeared in it.

Papa Miklós has a kindly nose, yes.

In that case, I must have misunderstood your annoyance.

It’s possible, obviously. That must have been it.

It sounds strange, it sounds more suspicious with every word. You’re acting very strangely today.

Deep in their own oppressive thoughts, a little bruised by each other, they walked on, silent against the pattering of their high heels.

She kept the little Chinese
godemiché
, shiny with centuries of use, in her bedroom, in the Chinese writing cabinet that could be locked.

But the association of ideas confused her, because compared to the angelic being clip-clopping next to her, who was obviously rushing unstoppably to her doom, she thought of herself as a deeply depraved person.

Someone looking back from the far side of the abyss of fateful things.

Don’t take this amiss now, said the countess, her voice both passionate and calculating, it’s as if he had not a nose but a trunk, a beak. It grows straight out of his forehead, she said, blustering because she was struggling with real emotions. She had to overcome her attraction to him at all cost so as not to endanger others’ attraction to her, which was more important to her than anything.

As if it were the beak of a marabou, he’s ready to stick it in you, or of a penguin, certainly not a human nose.

Big bird, she cried.

She has been observing Countess Auenberg for more than ten years.

Each time it surprised her anew what an enormous amount of destructive hatred this delicate, exceedingly intelligent being—blessed with an angelic figure and impectable manners—must deflect and stave off with the help of social conventions. How she must be raging inside. And this forced her to think once again of her own sensual life, condemned to muteness. Yet there was nothing personal in Imola’s raging, she remained truly naïve. Baron von der Schuer, whom she had just met, could not have elicited and did not deserve her concentrated hatred.

These obviously inherited neurotic symptoms were clear to the baroness.

Poor thing: these Auenbergs are capable of flying into rages over the most trivial things and in the most unexpected situations.

Being a bit taller and stronger than Imola, she looked down cautiously at her.

Lest she confuse her even more with pity.

And then she became angry with this silly pitiable girl; despite all her understanding and forgiving she became angry with her. She wants to take this man away from her; for that, the little one would have the finesse, wouldn’t she. She became so angry she almost began to rage herself, her own family’s neurosis being characterized by a dangerous absence of an ability to relinquish tranquillity and discrimination.

What a viper.

She is trying with her words to ruin, to pulverize my attraction to him, which I need for my career if for nothing else.

What a sharp little tongue she has. She is picking at me with her sharp little tongue.

Although she still felt the weight of Schuer’s hand on her arm, she knew that beyond their common scientific interest she had no chance with him. This stupid uneducated socialite beauty would have plenty of chances, however.

And she also had to acknowledge that no matter how many names she had called her—dizzy hen, silly goose, whatever—the woman was not stupid.

Sometimes we women are frightened by significant symbols of raw vitality, she replied considerately, as if she were ready, despite her excessive emotion, to protect the younger though probably no longer untouched woman, but there’s no need to blame anyone for this. Think about it, whom can you blame for a certain kind of nose. Come, my dear, don’t be so childish.

A veritable freak, the countess cried, hysterical and not to be calmed, as if with neurotic strength she would avenge the emotional injuries she had suffered a moment earlier.

If you ask me, he probably has other bodily deformities too, he must have, believe me, this man is hiding something.

And I know what it is, she exclaimed at last, enraged and almost desperate.

They burst out laughing at this, which satisfied them both. They naturally laughed with the same malevolent little-girlish joy; after all, they were laughing about a showy, self-satisfied man, and behind his back.

What a little devil you are, and you don’t even know what you’re talking about, my dear, said the Baroness Thum, laughing so hard that tears came to her eyes.

And the little devilry bound them together with a special strength. They would never behave like this with other people.

As usual you don’t know, how could you possibly, she said, and, clicking open the clasp of her wonderful little snakeskin handbag to take out her batiste handkerchief and blot her tears, she put on a deceitfully dreamy face to indicate that she was not ready to give away all her secrets.

Believe me, the corner of her mouth seemed to say, there are plenty of them.

In the meantime, her soul nearly froze with the pleasure-filled image. Her great scientific rival, at whose hands she had suffered defeat after defeat, might have on his body some carefully concealed and embarrassing abnormality. Because of which he should have had himself sterilized long ago instead of bestowing three children on the world.

This had never occurred to her.

He has three nipples. I will count his teeth. Maybe he’s got two sets of testicles.

Which this ugly little witch feels or notices better than I do.

Well, that’s wonderful, she cried.

I know it’s not proper to talk about things like this with you, the countess continued, enjoying the way she could show her worst side to Karla. As a matter of fact, it’s not proper to do it with anyone, but I can’t help it.

Fortunately Karla was able to cover her profile with the handkerchief while blotting tears from the corners of her eyes perhaps a little too carefully.

On the contrary, she answered, charmed by the countess’s openness, our famous science, my dear, consists of nothing but our debating just such questions and proposing all sorts of dubious hypotheses. This is what we are certified for, my dear, if I may put it that way. God creates many deformities and bodily abnormalities, and we carefully collect them, categorize and label them. Of course God did not specify what the norms of perfection were and we have no way of knowing whether he deposited them somewhere. Maybe it won’t interest you, but Schuer wrote his postdoctoral thesis on this very subject, and our bloodiest arguments are over questions of pathology. Ever since then, he’s been publishing the same paper over and over in all the racial-biological textbooks, to the point of becoming ridiculous.

Well, I shouldn’t burden you with this.

But you can believe me that every person is a freak, deformed from birth. If you take a closer look at them, you can see it with your own eyes.

Veritable monsters.

You can’t be so innocent as not to have noticed.

Only we are perfect and flawless, the two of us, cried the countess with painful pleasure, because she understood only too well what the other woman was talking about, and at this moment Baroness Thum indeed saw her as beautiful.

Which instantly made her feel younger and more slender herself, despite her torments of neediness and guilt feelings. She wanted to shout and protest, no, no, alas, alas, we’re not more perfect or more flawless than other people; it was part of her scientific credo that inherited deformities were intrinsic to a person’s beauty and indispensable for truly exceptional talent, which is why she opposed the sterilization of flawed individuals that Schuer approved and encouraged. She thought the practice of selection on the basis of racial biology and genetics was a crime against the German people, its consequences unpredictably destructive for the entire Nordic race. At most she approved of euthanasia for a much smaller part of the population, and certainly the deformed and mentally ill were to be kept from reproducing.

At most, making them disappear, putting them out of sight, which would eliminate superfluous expenses.

But she kept quiet, gave no voice to her scientific arguments.

Who else could be more beautiful, she cried with painful pleasure, as they gazed at each other, delighting in the reality of the person their eyes beheld.

I wouldn’t allow myself to say something like this to anyone else, said the countess quietly, almost somberly.

I believe you, I believe almost everything you say, my dear, said the baroness, though she was inexplicably irritated after their blissful harmony of the moment earlier. But I’d like to know how you came up with this foolishness.

Her silent admirer appeared to her in his physical reality, the one who with a certain regularity gratified her in the red-velvet room, while other men, total strangers emerging from the dimness, ran their fingers all over her spread legs and her bare arms raised above her head, but he never physically made her his own, never.

Even though, judging by the signs, he was not impotent.

The flavor of this dark adventure came from this insane lack.

Lack filled her life and made preparation for the one enormous gratification more exciting.

As if with her earlier comment, she had opened the gates and water was now rushing toward her uncontrollably.

What she knew of the man were his lips and his tongue. She made their acquaintance on her vagina, held open by her fingers, or on her clitoris; and she was also familiar with the peculiar fragrance of his bald head, damp with perspiration, as it rose from her loins; that, and nothing more.

Yet she penetrated the depth of the man’s passion; they shared their passion.

She let him do anything, but she would never touch her admirer. As if she were afraid that he would crumble to dust in her fingers. Occasionally, she would grab the strange men in his stead, the men who in the red darkness offered her their services, their hands, lips and tongues, and also their penises.

I’d be much obliged if you told me the sources of your information, she continued, still annoyed.

What information do you have in mind.

Where did you get it.

Get what.

Maybe I misunderstood you.

I rather think that I do not understand you.

But of course you do, you little beast.

What you say surprises me, I find your choice of words unwarranted, but I guess you’re no less a monster than I am.

They understood each other so well that they now, at this juncture of their conversation, faltered in enjoyable dread. Karla blushed—to her core, she felt—given the emotions and memories evoked by the loudly spoken words.

Obviously neither of them knew where to go from here.

You can’t be serious, said the countess, her voice gliding even higher than its usual high, sharp little-girl pitch, when you say you know him so intimately.

What are you talking about, said the baroness, becoming more entangled in her own blushing, you’re the one who spoke as if you knew the secrets of his body.

How could I, this is the first time I’ve ever seen him in my life.

They stopped, simultaneously, on the shady side of the sunlit street.

There was silence between them, the baroness did not respond or give any sign, and in the great Sunday serenity only the twittering of wrens could be heard in the distance.

In fact, Countess Auenberg didn’t want to know the answer to the question she had asked or at least implied.

Shameless, how can anyone be so shameless, grumbled Baroness Thum, rather enjoying the impasse.

Yet Imola did want to ask the older woman what might happen to her in married life. In this regard, the previous day’s visit to the atelier had quite upset her. She was not very young anymore, twenty-two years old; she needed to know many things about the male sex in general. She needed objective information. If there was such a thing. Would Karla tell her in detail what Mihály might do to her. There is no way of knowing such things. How should a woman give herself to a man without seeming to be either cold or lascivious. She observed the sculptor with his thinning hair and his statues, those enormous male bodies, with this question in mind. The sculptor quite resembled Mihály. And what would this famous unfamiliar man do with her if she took off all her clothes and gave him free rein. Or would men just pull up her nightshirt to get to her. She hadn’t dared risk the question of what she would do with such a man.

How should she give in to what she feels, when she’s never seen them naked and doesn’t even want to.

Not anybody.

Except, maybe Karla.

What did Karla do when she gave in.

What comes after a kiss, what should she do, she really needs to know. For her, letting another person’s tongue and saliva into her mouth was repulsive enough. Mihály behaved like a gentleman, kissing her only dryly at first, treating her gently, with consideration—only afterward. As if initiating her gradually. This made her almost explode with jealousy when she thought about it. It gnawed at her when she thought about what he had been doing. It was truly humiliating, disgraceful.