Parallel Stories: A Novel (187 page)

And after that, what further vileness might he expect of himself.

Hearing Klára’s story, he quickly forgot the last word of his own infantile inner monologue, and in his mind he picked up the thread here, with Ilona.

There was no place to return to in the deplorably mendacious story of his life; this was the only pure spot, where the darkness was thickest, and he had no more reasonable questions.

It would have been futile to resist, he could not have deflected the other person’s story, and so for the first time in his life he was ready for anything.

It felt like being drawn into a whirlpool, Kristóf should believe her, and forgive her, but she simply must tell somebody about it, she can’t keep it inside any longer. If only she had a girlfriend, but she didn’t, not a single girlfriend. After a spontaneous abortion, the world was empty, as if true-blue British Darwinists had invented it. She loathes the whole business of girlfriends. Determinism takes over everything, and there’s nothing more disgusting or destructive.

Come on, get off it, what does determinism have to do with this, Kristóf snapped in the dark. Rattling off your priggish texts as though they could be of any help to you.

How should I help myself, then.

How should I know.

And for weeks after an abortion like that they can’t even think about having intercourse, at least that.

She had the nerve to use that expression,
having intercourse
, and again this rotten
at least
. It really annoyed him. Why such scorn for the world. Kristóf had to catch his breath because of this woman or because of his reverence for Creation.

Why is she using such words, what’s the good of such a fixed idea, she should tell him that.

No matter how much they’d want to, what fixed idea, the woman asked back innocently.

Doesn’t matter, why does she use such rude words.

What sort of words should she use, for the sake of that son-of-a-bitch fucked-up God, if Kristóf won’t hear her out. If he isn’t interested, just say so.

He’s interested, of course he is.

Then what do you want.

He’ll be quiet.

She’d lost count of how many times they’d scraped her out. Have they ever scraped you out, she yelled, and that made her mean, really mean.

It was beyond understanding how she could grant herself so much meanness.

One of her periods lasts into the next, and if Kristóf really wants to know, she can tell him that once she had an extrauterine pregnancy, and that’s why she said, earlier, at least four times. And if one day he has an extrauterine pregnancy, then he’ll understand what she’s talking about. And then she screamed at him, do you understand. One period lasts into the next. Impossible to know whether she’s bleeding because of the scraping or it’s her regular period.

Who knows what’s irregular, anyway.

If she doesn’t seep for two days, they’re very happy.

She barely manages to scrape Simon back from his dumb drinking sprees, she said it like that, scrape him back. Not to mention his stupid womanizing; to spoon him back. He leaves me there, in my blood, and goes off to his women, he still feels like it, and I’m supposed to be the understanding one. Their life became one big running amok; why am I saying became, that’s what it had been from the start. She can barely stand on her feet because of the scrapings, but that’s the only way they can reduce the bleeding. Kristóf may laugh. The hormone treatment stopped her menstruation, not a drop of blood came out of her body, but hair grew between her breasts, and a mustache and beard, she was tearing at them, rubbing resin on them, thinking she’d go out of her mind. And they can’t get to the bottom of it, they have no new ideas, sooner or later her womb will become cancerous, that’s how she said it, my womb will become cancerous, so it has to be scraped.

Then why talk about it so much, why don’t you shut your trap.

Kristóf was beside himself as he yelled, though he was pleading with her, against all his earlier vows; he wanted quiet and wanted the woman not to tell him about these things.

Why aren’t you happy that you’re pregnant at last. And let’s be quiet about it.

Yes, and I can keep standing at the counter all day, dreading whether I’m bleeding or not. And she’s aware that she shouldn’t be so scared. But she is immoderate in everything, in case Kristóf hadn’t yet noticed. What the hell does she need a baby for, what is this big fuss about a baby, she has no answer to this question either.

Why this fucking mushiness.

Don’t talk like that, please don’t.

If Kristóf is so smart, if he knows what she should do now and how she should talk, then let him answer the question. Or if she loses the child, why can’t she be happy about that, let it go if it has to go, it’s probably for the best.

But they wanted to have at least three children.

Have you gone mad, why are you telling me what the two of you want.

Then to whom should I tell it.

All right then, tell me.

Maybe it will be easier after the first one, people say it’s easier after the first one. She’s now exactly in her sixth week and very proud of it, and she’s hopeful again.

And she couldn’t even tell what hurts more.

She is so sensitive.

If Simon did not adore her so intensely, if their love and alliance had not meant more to him than his life—Kristóf should remember once and for all that Simon adores and worships her—then he wouldn’t rave and rant so desperately and probably wouldn’t have to drink and chase after women so much. And have pangs of conscience on top of everything.

He blackmails her with that too.

She doesn’t want even one from him, from such a fickle character, Kristóf should believe her.

Of course she understands him. Still, it hurts terribly.

This is the terrible, incomprehensible paradox in their relationship.

Kristóf did not know what a paradox was, though he had heard the word several times before.

When she bleeds for weeks on end, Simon becomes inhuman. Since they can’t do it—and they can’t, they tried a number of times—she could let him do it by himself, and sometimes she does, for a while. But she doesn’t feel anything then—someone plashing about in her blood, that’s all she feels, nothing more. It’s as if she’s slowly silting up, and why should she let this happen. And when she doesn’t, he goes to have intercourse with other women, gets angry and rebukes her for never but never understanding what’s going on in a man at times like that, and keeps throwing things around and swearing.

But she won’t tell all this to Kristóf, because she can’t humiliate herself so much with her story.

You’re a neurotic, selfish slut.

And maybe she was neurotic, if she couldn’t control her jealousy and couldn’t help Simon.

An indifferent beast, like your mother and your whole class and your entire son-of-a-bitch clan, egoist beasts, all of you.

I resent that. I am on my own.

You people don’t know what human warmth is, or self-sacrifice.

Then go fuck your own social class, you dumb animal, not me.

But that’s not even true, what am I saying, she corrected herself.

Saying things like this about herself would be unjust, because Simon was always a drinker. He had been a drinker way before he had met her, and he drank because he was so much in love or he drank because they happened to be breaking up, he always had a reason to drink. He’s a pig, a boar, she doesn’t know what else to say about him, Simon is a prole wild boar from Angyalföld, she said, as if bragging proudly with her negative judgment, so she could at the same time berate him and love him, love him and worship him. Kristóf must see what a wonderful man this man is. There’s not one man in his family who isn’t a drinker. They all drink, the women too. And why shouldn’t they. She has nothing against drinking; otherwise, it would be impossible to put up with this rotten life and with what sober people thought was reasonable drinking. They drink like fish but, Kristóf must try to imagine this, they don’t drink together on holidays because they’d probably kill each other if they did, so they go drinking separately and then come home one by one, all of them drunk. Let those dumb proles drink themselves to death. She understands them. What’s not to understand here. Now and again she joins them and tosses down a few, right along with them. Only their mother doesn’t drink, she’s a pathologically sober woman, she doesn’t need alcohol, not even to keep her mind sober. For a long time she thought that their love would save Simon from this swamp, this family morass, these wild boars who enjoy grunting and wallowing in their own filth. Simon would gain so much from her that would help him relax, calm down. She’d bear children for him, lots of little girls and boys. Or at least three. She had no intention of fucking up her life with too many stupid births. That’s how she said it, fucking up. This dumb prole family immediately accepted her, she said with feeling, even though they were all, except for a few stray Hungarian Nazis, reds. She needed this, and they sensed her weakness, what with her hating her own mother, and her sister really getting on her nerves with her unbearable habits. Her older brother, well, she feels sorry for him. She has no family, she walked out on them, disowned them all, doesn’t need them. And they’re fairly numerous too, when they come together for Easter or New Year’s it’s like a big funereal show of waxworks, and not a single live being among them. And these stupid proles are all fanatic atheists. But she doesn’t deceive herself. Her mother-in-law disdains her instinctively, in her heart of hearts, in her guts. What she thinks about her is, what is this little high-class cunt doing putting on airs with her permanent bleeds and her affectations, knocking herself to the ground and fainting left and right, pretending to have migraines; she said it like that, high-class cunt.

And that’s what I am, what else could I be.

Where does she get off claiming I don’t have migraines.

And I’m supposed to cast off my real self for these stupid proletarians. I’m not going to change myself for them, I can’t.

But where do you get all this contempt for others, where do you get the courage for it, what do you get out of it.

I do have migraines, yes. One can have migraines even if these people have never heard the term.

Come on, what’s the point of your hatred.

What hatred, what contempt, I haven’t any kind of feeling. I don’t feel anything for anyone. That’s the absolute truth, my lover has desensitized me, that’s the naked truth, what else, and that lover is my love, so there we are.

She kept quiet for a long time, staring somberly before her, and then obsessively began again.

Compared with him you are a coward, you milksop, you I don’t even hate because I have nothing to do with you, you’re a stranger, someone I don’t even know, and that’s it.

She could not solve her life. She thought she could, thought she’d have enough strength for it. And her mother-in-law keeps giving her advice that, despite her best intentions, she cannot accept.

She simply cannot.

And very quietly, then ever more loudly, she kept obsessively repeating that she cannot accept.

Kristóf didn’t know what she was talking about, what would she not accept, and what did her mother-in-law advise her, but that was no longer interesting. With her gloved hands Klára grasped the steering wheel as if to shake it; she could not accept it, no, no, she could not.

Sooner or later she’ll start drinking too.

She cannot accept it and, yes, she is full of hatred. She doesn’t know what to do with their prole pieces of advice, she hates her miserable life and she’d be glad to blow it all up. If she had any dynamite. Simon would probably be better off with a strong woman, one of those clumsy, wide-hipped bitches. While she can’t even bring a child to full term, a real shame.

I am a dumb little high-class cunt.

Nevertheless she cannot accept it.

That man will kill her.

But even then she cannot accept it.

He has already killed her; because of him she has disowned her entire family.

She cannot accept it, but then why does she love him so much.

Kristóf grasped her hand and shoulder; he didn’t know exactly what he was grasping. To make her stop shaking the steering wheel so senselessly and so he wouldn’t have to be disgusted with her and her every word, or with his own self-hatred. With her body, her mentality, her bluntness, her commonness, with everything she had taken upon herself or forced on herself, with her words. She had soiled everything with her words; he detested her and the scent of the borrowed mink coat disgusted him.

He was not sorry for her.

At least she should stop shaking the steering wheel.

But Klára swept along, almost tearing herself away from Kristóf’s calming hands and arms.

She can’t accept it, she shouted in the darkness, while the windshield wipers kept slowly flapping back and forth.

Don’t you touch me, she shouted in the darkness, I won’t be responsible for myself if you dare to touch me, not one finger.

I can’t accept it, no, I cannot.

I don’t want your touch.

Oh, please don’t be so good to me, you, you goody-goody sensible little boy, you make me laugh.

His main task was not to protect the miserable creature from her hysterical eruption and its tectonic force, but to overcome his own shocked physical aversion. It was as if he were responding to the same thing with his own aversion, saying exactly the same thing. Not only don’t I want to make you pregnant, I don’t even want to touch you. Or he should get out of their filthy, cold car because he’d really had enough of her, and just leave. Although he couldn’t say where he’d go. And never see this shameless woman again. He seized her firmly to free her, he shook her to let the hysteric come to at last. She shouldn’t add to her troubles with this fit. Bumping against the steering wheel and dashboard, they struggled briefly in the narrow space. His fingers kept slipping on the mink coat, or rather the silk lining of the coat kept slipping on her dress, on her bare skin, it slipped backward, he couldn’t get a grip on it, could not find one; Andria Lüttwitz’s lousy mink coat slipped down, stripping her bare.