Parallel Stories: A Novel (40 page)

On this far shore, nothing had a name, naming was not obligatory, the entire story had not a single date; thus, events had no weight. He could not go over at just any time he wanted to, but when he fulfilled the only and very simple requirement, nothing stood in his way. On his fingers, he had to preserve the secretions and exudations of his body. Not wash his hands after urinating. If they didn’t check up on him, he’d skip washing his hands at least once or twice a day, deceiving even himself. As if he were in a hurry or had forgotten what they had pounded into him. The omission was not unconscious, though he couldn’t have told when it was or wasn’t. Neither did he know whether others were doing things like that, though he discovered that some boys picked their noses. Secretly, they eat their dry snot or, when back from the sports fields and taking off their socks, they dig in between their toes and keep smelling the stench of the darkest excretions of their feet. The stronger he felt the morass of hopelessness under his feet and the deeper he became entangled in some lie or wound up in some trouble, the more frequently he turned to a
oui
,
voilà
, yes,
d’accord
. Who else could he turn to if not to himself. Though sometimes his desperation was so deep that he could not utter this yes, and then it turned into a
non
, no. Then, clinging to denial, he sank even deeper; from there at least he could not see out at anything at all.

To this day, he urinated like a little boy. He did not pull back his wrinkly, unusually long, funnel-shaped and pointy foreskin from his bulb, and when he finished he barely shook his member, letting some of the fluid be smeared on his fingers. He’d dig in with his fingers between his thighs under the testicles, where he always found for himself some worthy odor. Only rarely did he risk invading the cheeks of his buttocks to touch the crimped edge of his contracted anus. Perhaps to rub it just a little bit, to reach into it, as an experiment. But it did happen on occasion. The various odors nicely mingled on his fingers where he preserved them for the rest of the day. He saved them for the night, when he would have unhindered access to his body, though he had to be on his guard in the bluish light of the dormitory, listen for and follow with open eyes every little stirring. He taught his body, led it to the point of dark defiance; he was the one who exposed it to danger and self-denial. He was delaying, playing for time, dragging the odor across his lips. This slowed him down, his breath was caught, and he returned to the cunning, careful little boy playing with the deadly danger of defenselessness, the little boy he had once been and whom he had never left.

When he couldn’t tuck his weenie between his thighs, or couldn’t touch it, not even through his pants, because in the boarding school everybody was watching everybody else all the time, he consoled himself with these odors. And this remained the same later too, with his cock, though its odor had become more penetrating. He was in need of consolation almost all the time, and until now the clandestine way he went about acquiring it seemed not have attracted anyone’s attention. He passed the test of various dangers; he never proved to be punishable. Success justified his behavior retroactively. Putrefying urine, the translucent drops of semen that bubbled forth at the most innocent sensual excitement, the dried remains of the previous night’s ejaculation and the excretions of his penis, now swelling, now shrinking under the uncircumcised foreskin, were the ingredients that produced this lasting, penetrating odor. He kept sniffing it, drew it across his lips.

Then he spread the fingers of both hands again and set out with them, slowly, ceremoniously. This was not done absentmindedly, far from it, indeed on the contrary. He did it as someone with a cultic respect for every fraction of every second of time. Although his attention is personal, he is not the one who is acting; he is merely performing certain movements prescribed in ancient times. As one person initiating another, who now happens to be an ignorant woman, into the cult of his body, the way others had initiated him. He never forgot this. What Gyöngyvér comprehended of the whole thing was that she should not interfere, and she wouldn’t know how either. Just as one should not chatter during the celebration of sacraments. Morally, she felt she had no right to say anything. What she was seeing reminded her of all sorts of other men who had done similar things in front of her.

Besides, she wasn’t that interested. As far as she was concerned, Ágost could do with himself whatever he wanted to, he could even beat his meat. She would have liked to get to bed quickly, so early next morning, before her singing lesson, she could go swimming. Still, she couldn’t keep her mouth shut.

Next time, at least close the rotten shutters if this is what you want to do, she hissed in her unappeasable anger, folding in the white-lacquered sections of the shutters from the window frame and slamming them into place, an action that vented some of her fury.

The long sections of the shutters were decorated with archaized profiles familiar from the building’s facade and the walls of the lobby and stairwell.

She felt she’d become ludicrous, even to herself, but still, with his obscene behavior Ágost was depriving her of something. What was she here for anyway. And in this, unwritten morality seemed to be on her side; after all, he was doing something in clear contradiction to accepted conventions. Even though she could see, as indeed she did, that he was giving more than he was taking. And she spoke as a kindergarten teacher, for she instinctively felt the presence of an inconsolable little boy in need of support.

The shutters’ lock clicked shut. Ilona forgets every night to close it in their room. This particular night, Kristóf was again awakened by the loud click. When they locked themselves in at night, the silence always grew ominous in the rooms facing the courtyard, which were so quiet anyway. In her silver-gray, shiny silk nightgown that gently clung to the flesh of her long thighs, and in her slippers trimmed with swansdown that barely peeked out from under the nightgown, Gyöngyvér remained in front of the suddenly blinded windows. Offended, she threw her head back; she would have liked to turn away, but kept watching him attentively. She coldly surveyed the terrain. The dark socks by the bed indicated that the man had begun undressing there. A little farther away, his white underpants were lying on the rug. His shirt was shining white on the back of an easy chair. She saw herself picking up these items one by one and burying her face in them. Scents and odors were among the incomprehensible things that would not let her leave Ágost’s side. If she had to describe his smell to someone, she would have likened it to a burnt electric wire. It didn’t satisfy her desire; she didn’t understand it, because she wanted nothing else but to see. Just to see. And not more humiliation. Just as she did not understand how a scent like that proved so irresistible to her. To see everything he would deliberately or involuntarily be ready to show her, what she could never have seen before. Anyway, her experiences with men cautioned her to keep her head, her calm, and her humility. When men are doing something like this, they are unpredictable and might beat her. But everything was changing constantly; her views and opinions were not binding either, and she could not stick to her decisions. She knew that what she was about to do this minute was not right because only her voraciousness, her wounded pride, and mainly her jealousy propelled her forward; go ahead, go, grab hold of it.

While Ágost, with his palms barely touching the surface of his skin, slowly slid his hands over his own body, alternately turning his palms in and out, Gyöngyvér started for him. And as the back of his hand touched the arch of his neck and then, following the round chest muscles, made light contact with the abdominal wall, his dark-haired loins convulsed as if excitement was trying to lock the body back into itself. He pressed his eyes tight shut. Again the cock was filling up, growing hard, and was already separated from the testicles, though not far, and rose a little along its entire length. Which made the man’s lips part hesitantly. His slowness did not surprise Gyöngyvér; on other occasions too he treated his pleasure with great economy, even frugality. He wanted to stretch each second into infinity. As if he were watching separately every sparkling atom, every single cooling grain of pleasure emanating from the nerve cells, doggedly following them, until sadly he would part with them when they lost their strength and unfeelingly died away. But now she saw that with the slowness he not only delayed the possible gratification but wanted to avoid it altogether or, as if it were something coarse and common, outright despised it. He isn’t looking for others in his desire. At most, there are viewers, observers, but these are not allowed to become embodied in any one person. This was indeed something new for Gyöngyvér.

Who had seen, not once and not twice, how men, bending over her, grabbed their cocks, only half-hardened or shrunken by fear, and quickly, bashfully, with nervous movements, tried to stimulate them, spur them on. As if ready to tear them, tug at them, eager to rip them from their roots. While with their lips they would glue themselves to her mouth, jab at a nipple with their tongues, suck it in, bite it, or hook their tongues into her vagina, searching for her clitoris. She could not shake off the images of these men, struggling with their helplessness, becoming engaged in diversionary tactics. After all, they weren’t doing it to enjoy themselves, but to revive, resuscitate the diminishing excitement, paralyzed by too great excitement; they helped, urged, encouraged the blood to fill the cavities of their pricks, let them be hard so they could make the longed-for penetration. Into me. That was the goal, after all: into me. And she did not have to do much, only moan a little, make sounds in the air of polite expectations, whimper and groan provocatively and patiently, close her eyes or considerately look to the side so they would not see that she could see what they were doing, not to disturb them, not to expose their foolish, somewhat laughable little exertions. She loved these hotheaded or inhibited men because she had power over them and they, at least at times like this, allowed her to love them. She could give them an advance on the joy waiting for them with her voice, pant a little, whimper carefully, anything to help them get an erection. They were grateful for this and therefore more attentive. But not to interfere.

That could make all hell break loose.

Stupefied, with her eyes growing wide, she comprehended what she had known before but refused to acknowledge. Perhaps it wasn’t even her eyes that helped her; rather, it was in her brain that she saw everything in its proper place. It hurt her. He is in love only with himself, no one but himself. He avoids what other men so violently, immediately, and continually desire. Ágost had many traits, but he was neither hotheaded nor inhibited. All the other men played with themselves but wanted only her.

Her face was burning with shame, her forehead throbbing with pain.

Because until now she had managed to make herself believe that this man was no different from other men. Except that she loved him more than she had ever loved anyone else. She’d picked him out, she was the one who insisted on him, and she was not ashamed of that. She has not regretted it. Perhaps she loved him more because his body had a more pleasant smell, because he spoke more gently, because he knew and had seen so many things and had different habits; still, in her mind she had him in the same category with other men. These other men with their traits and limbs became a big jumble for her. In the midst of lovemaking, there were moments, less or more pleasant, when she had no idea where she was in the progress of her life, with which man at precisely what time. A strange room, a man’s tense butt, pressing hard hip, wet and gasping chest: none of this spoke to her. Which was a rather good thing. At least it didn’t remind her of anything. And they wouldn’t notice any of her feelings, because there were no outward signs to show that she might have mixed them up. What really amazed her was how she could receive into herself the cocks of men so different from one another, and why her life’s pulse wouldn’t slow down enough for her to settle at last with one of them. But now she had to separate them quickly, very quickly, in her mind. She could see that what other men wanted or demanded from her, Ágost could give himself better, as he had done in the past. As though until now he had satisfied her only out of pity or mere politeness. This was part of his upper-class behavior, in which case she had misunderstood everything, but everything. That is why her satisfaction always remained a bit hazy. She shuddered at the thought. Then her place was with the others, after all. Then she should move back to one of the flea-bitten sublet rooms and start all over again. She could see with her own eyes that this character in front of her wanted neither reciprocity nor mutuality.

And that was impossible to bear.

He can get along just fine all by himself.

She thought the exertion would split her head immediately. Let him drop dead. She was fuming, seething. Even though she had already known that this man, as opposed to all other men, did not like to ejaculate; he avoided it if possible. With immense and painful, spasmodic efforts he almost always managed to withhold it. But this too was beautiful, this convulsive defiance. Moving and frightening, like an earthquake. He’d moan, prefer to tear himself out of her, roughly and unexpectedly, double over, bite his lips, but would not let it happen. Until now, Gyöngyvér believed that this had something to do not with Ágost’s nature but with his upbringing. She thought that since men lucky enough to be born into upper-class families were whimsical anyway, why couldn’t Ágost have a quirk like that. Everybody is different, yes, but not him. She liked to look as the sweat-soaked body, hideously tense in its struggle with opposing forces, turned on its side, writhing and growing rigid at her feet. She followed with her own body the man’s vehement rhythms as he convulsed in the pleasurable repulsion of his efforts. As if there were still a chance of fulfillment.