Parallel Stories: A Novel (69 page)

I enjoyed their knowing more about me than, for lack of experience, I did myself. Whatever I did or didn’t do instantly became a decipherable signal for them, whether it was my silence or motionlessness; and therefore no matter how hard I might try, I stood before them more naked than I could have ever seen myself in my other life. If I understood anything of their language, I understood something of myself that I had once chastely concealed or covered with lies. Appearances could not cover my real being. Not only was I observing them, but I was beginning to see myself with the experienced eyes of those who listened constantly from their place in the darkness and, in accordance with their undisguised intentions, were keenly evaluating and grading my behavior.

To carry out my plan and gain the bridge, I had to walk along the creaky stretch of the promenade in front of the rowers’ clubhouse, or cut across the dense thicket with a few short steps and take the trail to return to the island’s lit-up interior, which at this hour was completely deserted.

Nothing moved.

Sometimes from the Pest shore, sometimes from the Buda shore, I could hear creaks turning into shrieks. Streetcar wheels make the metal rails shriek like that when they round a bend. And then there’d be nothing again, only the wind fingering the trees or a human step crackling in the thicket. One could tell by the sounds where a night streetcar on either side of the city happened to be. There were more places on the Buda shore where streetcars would shriek—in the great bend of Margit Boulevard or, farther on, at different points on Moszkva Square. On the Pest side, the number 2 streetcar might shriek before the Parliament or the number 6 on Marx Square, or it could be another night line, the number 3, making a wide two-part turn at Visegrád Street where it opens into Grand Boulevard to return to Váci Road.

Beyond the Árpád Bridge, where the industrial quarter of Angyalföld illuminated the vaporous nocturnal sky with its reflectors fastened above barbed-wire fences and brick walls, a steam hammer rumbled occasionally, would strike and pound; for a short while its battering would resound through the city, making eardrums, walls, and ground quiver, and then it would fall silent again.

I had been thirsty for hours, I felt completely dehydrated and slightly nauseated; I chose the latter route.

Under the giant plane trees was a quietly bubbling drinking fountain. If it hadn’t been for an occasional light breeze, I might have fainted; my knees had grown weak with exhaustion and excitement.

It bubbled among the stones.

If you leaned over and pushed a button, the water, flavored by rust, would shoot up to the roof of your mouth.

I couldn’t wait much longer with my urge to urinate.

I wanted to die, yet I had no place to run to from the eyes around me that hoped to discover my intentions. Unnoticed, they weaved through the night darkness and tore it to shreds; I had no tactics to outwit them with. Which made my decision laughable; it made me seem frivolous even to myself.

The place itself was tragic, yet many things here that were meant to appear very personal or tragic became comical in the eyes of an observer. If, for example, I chose the shorter route and with my suicidal intentions went along that irritatingly creaky section of the promenade between the trees and the echoing wall of the smooth white building, where ominous darkness seemed literally to be trapped and anything might happen, that would be construed as my reply to any of the men standing by, ready for anything, and would be interpreted as saying, come on, follow me, I want to be yours. That stretch of the promenade was an attention-grabbing area, where the tribal warriors did their business with their wide-open buttocks in the air and where the boys for sale sold themselves. Anyone going there had to count on the possibility of his own death. But if I went past them without signaling to anyone in particular, all four would follow me, each telling himself, let’s just go and see what happens, because they did not generally insist on doing it in pairs. That also made my jaw drop. In my other life I imagined that this was something impossible to do except in pairs. I’d have to shake them off, one after the other, before I could kill myself in peace. Or first I could drink to my heart’s content from the rusty water, then drown myself in the Danube.

And it would be embarrassing, too, if I simply swam out of the water.

And that is why about ten minutes before my planned death, when all of this occurred to me, I could barely restrain my jubilant good mood.

And indeed I failed to restrain it; the sheer idea of how the mind herds together so many opposing, disparate thoughts made me laugh out loud in the darkness, how far a decision is taken from one’s guiding instincts, how far the intent of an action from its pure effects. Out loud I laughed into the darkness, like a lunatic. Wildly, involuntarily, too loud, even though the reason I laughed was that I couldn’t have been more somber and sober.

And the response was whistles from various places.

Again I did not understand.

They could see from under the trees that the young gentleman in black, before taking off for anywhere, was frozen in his tracks and listening like an animal.

I saw myself as a young man gone crazy who nevertheless deliberately chooses death over his undisguised fate.

They warned one another of some danger with their whistles.

From the sinister darkness, from the depth of the shadow cast by the white building came the first whistle, but I didn’t see anyone there. Three of the four figures instantly vanished in the blooming grove. Or maybe they just withdrew into the thicket, I don’t know. As if, along with themselves, they had drawn their own whistling into some echoing space.

The silence thickened.

Anything might happen in it. These people were defenseless against one another.

Irresponsibly I hoped that the one man left was after all the marvelous giant who had pursued me, who despite the whistles did not take off and who stuck to his place. And a possible danger was the police too.

At the moment, no danger fazed me. I was ready to do great things.

I started toward the Árpád Bridge and I knew exactly why. I was in no hurry. I copped the method from them. And I stayed close to the water so that my leisurely steps would make no noise, on the narrow edge of the paved riverbank where the slag and whinstone strips met. One missed step would be enough for me to lose my balance and fall off the steep embankment, but I did not even look down at my feet. I had never felt my body to be so safe. As someone who has suddenly grown above himself. And sees the surrounding world from a higher viewpoint. The soles of my feet barely touched the creaking slag and uneven stones, my steps carried me rhythmically, almost melodiously forward. My neck lengthened too, the butterfly wings of my shoulder bones did not hold it back. I no longer had the feeling that I was not myself and that all this was happening to someone else. Still, I did have the peculiar feeling that there were people accompanying me. In fact, it was for them that I showed what I knew, how complete and light I felt my slender body to be. I became elongated in the waist, my shoulder blades and collarbones adjusted themselves, conformed to the new shape. Every one of my joints and muscles defied the dangers waiting for me. I showed my bodily safety to him, to the giant. I showed him my shirt, taut across my chest, clinging to my waist, my hard ass inside my shamelessly cut pants, and in the much-too-small underpants my semi-erect prick, shoved to the side at its base and adhering to the crook of the thigh, on which the too-tight foreskin now slid painfully back in all the excitement. In my way of walking I demonstrated all the good feelings nourished by my physical being.

With my walking I also showed him the sensation of the cool breezes as they pleasantly chilled my hot skin, and I showed this together with the taste of sweat. I showed it to the giant, who—with his massive, thick, and closely shaved neck, with his stubborn head and pitch-black hair, which kept falling on his forehead—was staying, I thought, under the trees where the trail and the promenade intersect.

What could this man be, I didn’t know.

One could guess the enormous configuration of his loins through his overalls; his powerful ass protruded abruptly. He had thick, dense eyebrows that met above his nose, his nose was short and strong, and on his jutting cheekbones the dark brown skin was so taut it seemed bluish. A navvy—this old-fashioned obsolescent word came to mind for him, the weight of dirt and its autumnal wet fragrance. Or perhaps a carpenter, a stonecutter, a cutter of wood or stone or something that must be grasped by hand. I couldn’t take my eyes off his head, his limbs, his face, his jaws, while we walked around or pursued each other on the trails. I could not forget, either, his suddenly flashing, suddenly vanishing smile.

It was a quick, mute smile.

I could even imagine that he was unable to read or write. I’d stay with him anyway; I didn’t care if he was illiterate. He must be staring at me now, with his dumb head, his partly open, fleshy lips and his eyes with their metallic luster, but in showing myself to him, I was also showing myself to anybody who was looking.

I knew what I was doing; I knew he understood, or several of them did.

I’ll go as far as the next lamp.

That was the second sentence in the mute language of attraction.

I resolved to speak their secret language. The gas flame imprisoned in its glass globe emitted a strong sharp light that turned from yellow to white and white to blue, but the moment the light left the globe it lost its blue, and its yellow grew tired as the night filled it with various hues of gray.

Between two gas lamps, one blended into the mist-filled dimness of the riverbank.

I could hardly wait to reach the next lamp and pronounce the second sentence of the secret language. If someone didn’t stop at the next lamp, that had a very different meaning. That was where I would cross over to the other side of the promenade, making my intention obvious. Then I’d slowly stroll back, and that would be seen as a confession, an advance on my body offered up in sacrifice.

In his excitement, he’s already stamped out his cigarette and stepped a little way out from the shadow of the trees. This would be his response. He’ll open the fly of his loose pants so I can see it: I’ve opened my fly for you.

I had a feeling it might not be him after all, that I had made a mistake. Just a figure partly concealed behind the budding jasmine. We no longer had doubts about each other; we understood each other. Even though I obviously couldn’t exchange more than two sentences with this marvelous man; what would we talk about anyway. He too should right away gauge the distance between us. So much comfort and reassurance emanated from him, such mute laughter, that I was ready to spend the rest of my life with him, no doubt of it.

Or at least my imagination had a comfortable niche in which this too seemed possible.

Until I return, he won’t whip his prick into an erection for someone else. As I approach, I can see on his shoulders and neck how brutally he is working at it under cover of the bushes. I stop at a respectable distance, turn my back to the water, the jasmine conceals me too, from everyone else. I knew how it would be, I wanted to do it the way they did it; there must be no misunderstanding between us. What we do should mean that we want each other and nobody else; for my sake, he should leave his mustached assistant too. I also open my fly, at last we can stare into each other’s face over the bushes hiding our bodies, I reach into my underwear and lift out my cock, which had shriveled, I felt, in my abject fear.

It happened exactly as I imagined it would, only it was not the older man standing on the other side of the bushes, not the black-haired giant in his ugly gingham shirt two sizes too small. I should have noticed earlier that this was a coarse sailor’s shirt with horizontal stripes. Sometimes one sees simultaneously what one sees and what one would like to see. Two darkly brilliant, frightened, slightly amazed little eyes in a bright face shone on me.

I could not leave, though in my disappointment I wanted to get away instantly.

As if he were still a child, at least his countenance was childish, but sharp dark grooves sat in his features; on his dented forehead two vertical grooves cut across three horizontal ones. His small lips, red and swollen with blood, fitted between two grooves that sliced his stubbly chin in two, and one sole groove ran across his thin face. As if his face were a surface on which two human beings had been drawn. His matted dark hair, divided in long individual curls, clung in waves to his forehead and fell in unkempt batches on the frail, childlike nape of his neck.

He undoubtedly captured me with his exterior, though I knew right away that I’d leave him on the spot for the giant.

He had a long thin nose, a powerful Adam’s apple, and in his excitement he kept swallowing. The long sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to the elbows of his strong, long arms.

It was not attraction but rather pity that I felt for him, but this feeling filled me completely.

I was still shivering a little with the animal excitement I felt for this older man, with my attraction for him, with fear of what he might do to me and whether he would accept me for a whole long life, but the boy on the other side of the bushes could notice none of this because I kept my agitation under control. The trembling did not get out of hand or become as vehement as it had been before. Stealthily I looked around again to see whether my man wasn’t nearby after all. I was actually glad that the trembling, which had to do with his size and beauty, no longer hindered me in what I was now ready to do.

With anyone and at any time.

If he wasn’t here, well, he wasn’t. He didn’t seem to be around anywhere. Either he willfully deceived me or my imagination had played a dirty trick on me. I felt my body drying out; when I blinked or swallowed, my eyelids and my esophagus literally clicked. My trembling for him was coursing through my flesh; though not strong, it was becoming permanent.

I could not see behind the bushes but I could discern that with his milk-white, thickly veined arm he was working more slowly now. His prick must have filled and become distended. With his arm movements he deliberately showed, or even exaggerated, the proportions of his member to make it seem even more imposing. Every man tried to show himself in the most favorable position so the one watching would imagine him as strong and mighty as possible. Actually, they hoped to captivate one another not as real humans but as parts of secretly nurtured fantasies, which is what ritualized their encounters. They knew what fantasies the others were nurturing.