Parallel Stories: A Novel (74 page)

They both understood themselves; to some extent, they even saw themselves from the outside, but they did not understand each other.

They stared at each other; it would have been good to understand truly and profoundly the subject of their admiration and aversion.

Gyöngyvér instantly tried to lick and with her tongue spoon into her mouth the tears rolling down the man’s face.

To lower her tongue to their source.

At the same time, she saw how distorted, frightening, and coarse the man’s beautiful head had become.

But why are you crying now, really, please tell me.

I don’t know.

Then she began to cry too, she felt so sorry for the man.

At the same time she thought to herself, why did I lie to him, why do I have to lie to him, why must I be such a rotten whore.

I don’t know either, she wailed aloud, maybe because of you, maybe I am lying and I’m really crying for myself, because of me, but I can’t express anything either, nothing, believe me.

Her trembling made it hard for her tongue to find the tears rolling down the man’s distorted face.

Her tongue fluttered, slurped around on his velvety skin pierced with new stubble; she kept on licking, searching for tears.

They were sitting on the wrinkled bedcover, tucked in many layers under their limbs. They yanked at each other but could not budge. Ágost was sitting on his pulled-up legs so as to support the woman with his tight thigh muscles, while his arms were around her shoulders; she had her arms around his neck.

Their torsos did not touch, the woman was trembling and shaking and her breasts with their gigantic nipples shook. Tears and mainly the inner expansion that came with the flow of tears seemed to have loosened up the man a little.

He loosened up enough to try with his tight-skinned full lips to catch the tongue hovering in front of his nose or at least the woman’s trembling lips.

Their bodies slipped over each other; they sought support with their tongues in the hot hollows of each other’s mouth.

The heat, the smoothness, the delicately nuanced aroma of the strange hollow opened another entrance before them.

As the woman kept on trembling and did nothing but tremble, all of her being, everything, trembling with her, evenly and unstoppably.

The man understood the trembling to mean that he could never satisfy this woman; perhaps it was impossible. Parallel to this realization, there appeared to him André Rott’s thin body with its hard long slabs of muscle and sinew, with the dark fountains of hair on his belly and chest. Because Ágost was convinced that with André no woman could ever wind up in such an embarrassing situation. André was the only man Ágost considered better than himself, and therefore wanted to make love to him or at least to find a woman as good as he. No matter how carefully and tenderly he tried to absorb the woman’s frightful trembling with his lips on hers, they could not gain new entrance. Or maybe for once he’ d like to be a woman so he could try out a man like his friend.

They collided painfully; the edges of their teeth clicked comically.

Which would mean that they were trying in vain. They’ll never get to the end of anything.

Maybe if I licked it for her.

André would have done it a long time ago, for sure.

Not in this order either; he would have started with that.

That’s how I’ll do it, I’ll work on her clit. I’d have gotten further if I hadn’t always tried to stick my rotten prick in. André is better because he doesn’t need women at all. He doesn’t need anybody, and every woman is hooked by his indifference.

He doesn’t need to pay attention to himself, André needs no self-discipline, he has no reason to gratify himself.

He held the woman while considering whether he needed the whole circus that would come about with a new relationship, with the proximity of a complete stranger like this.

But no, he could not let the trembling in, just as his musculature would not allow him out anymore. As if he were experiencing the other person’s pains only with his soul.

What does
anymore
mean.

Never, he thought suddenly.

Women, however voracious or hungry they may be, can sometimes be satisfied. I am one of these satisfying machines, but nobody has ever satisfied me. No reason not to confess that the only time I get a little bit of it is when I make these stupid women scream. That’s the truth. I am sitting in my own jail and I can count, at most, on the fingers of one hand. He found this thought very amusing, but it made him feel even sorrier for himself. As if he realized that not the other person but he was the greatest obstacle to his own existence. He was deeply moved by the thought that he was at the mercy of his own body and, as if this had given him a new idea, perhaps he should share this woman with André.

I’d get my satisfaction while he would take care of her.

Gyöngyvér thrust him away with her tongue, as if she understood every one of his insidious thoughts; she shoved him out while at the same time clinging hard to him.

Something important, I want to tell you something important, she whispered between the man’s lips, articulating clearly in synchrony with her trembles, while their lips and tongues touched again, went on the defense, tried to calm the other, and slurped about.

At times like this, one depends on one’s pores and nerve endings to help understand the other person. And the voice of the other person reaches one more slowly than usual.

It was occurring to him that he was only playing a role, only pretending to be impersonal while André really was impersonal. Soaping each other in the shower, he felt through his fingers no emotions emanating from that hard, stringy male body.

The uric acid poisoned me, Gyöngyvér whispered, I’m sure that’s why I’m shaking, you understand, because the uric acid simply poisoned me.

Where do you get such asinine, idiotic ideas.

I should pee too, you know, take a leak, she added and laughed. Don’t get scared, I’m letting it out now.

Her laughter was ugly, though she retained a warm timbre in her voice.

No, don’t, you’ve gone mad, the man shouted, alarmed.

He shouted as if he were unable to decide whether to give voice to admiration or to dread.

But, but, the woman replied in her deepest register, why shouldn’t I, and the voice she used now needed no support at all.

Don’t, the man protested, but he hadn’t finished saying the one word before he felt it on his thigh, spreading and warming his skin.

You do it too, do it for me. She moaned with pleasure, I’m letting mine out already.

They heard its strong trickle and flow, now hitting the hard floor, now piddling on the wrinkled bedcover tucked under them. With her spread loins on his thighs, she kept trembling and trembling. The man felt somewhat relieved; if it were this easy for him, he too would have let it out, but it was not that simple: nothing was coming.

The bladder would have allowed this but the urine was stopped up because of the enduring mild erection in the urethra.

Gyöngyvér reached in and got hold of his member.

That’s how you do it for the little boys, eh, Ágost asked.

Indeed, Gyöngyvér saw a strange boy whom she did not know, and Ágost saw his dead sister.

When I want them to make peepee, Gyöngyvér replied, exactly like this, you’re right. Boys have to be taught.

Every day.

No. Several times a day.

You take out their little weenies and give them instructions.

I help them.

With your nails you seduce them, ruin them for life.

Their open, hot lips touched.

Her lips were of the same temperature as her amply dribbling urine.

You’re jealous of them, I can hear it in your voice.

On the contrary, I’m happy to share you with them. You don’t yet know this side of me. I’d be happy to share you, he thought. I swear I’ll do it, he said out loud. As he thought to himself, the three of us might be able to satisfy you.

Above their kiss, they did not let go of each other’s eyes.

While they do it, I whisper to them, she whispered later into the man’s ear, when the dribbling continued intermittently, growing now weaker, now stronger; psh, psh, psh, my little one, that’s what I whisper to the little boys.

Again, their lips had to make contact, this time more strongly and for a little longer.

And what do you whisper into the ears of little girls, Ágost asked, excited by the sound of the dribbling urine.

Just a few words.

But what, how, what exactly.

Well, that right now we’re tinkling, little one, tinkle, tinkle, that’s what I say, that’s all. That’s enough for little girls.

I’m jealous of them, said the man and moaned deeply.

There you are, shouted the woman.

The urine spouted up as if from a fountain.

And since with their foreheads touching they were gazing, bewitched, at what might be happening down below, it almost reached their faces.

Instinctively they yanked their heads away.

The yellow stream fell back into itself, flooded the penis’s bare bulb, as if an invisible hand had turned off a faucet.

When in a short while it gushed forth again, bursting through the widened urethra, it reached the woman’s chin. She thrust her torso toward it; she wanted to feel it on her breasts. And she opened her mouth wide to swallow it, but this wish was frustrated. Let it soil the area between her breasts; she wanted to enjoy the warmth of the soiling, as if encountering something very precious.

Whimpering, she turned him over her.

Now it was coming in a big thick stream, steadily, and now it wouldn’t stop.

They looked at it, they whimpered, they moaned and gaped along with the spurt, biting each other’s lips. They felt they were experiencing a great, mutual victory.

And then silently.

They kept nibbling, biting each other’s lips and sliding them around on their flowing saliva.

Until it stopped.

This brought them to the other side of a barrier whose existence neither of them had known about before. They literally submerged themselves in the unfamiliar fragrance of fresh urine and, holding on to each other, spread out in it. As if the sweeter scent of the woman’s urine had overcome the man’s more pungent and bitter one.

They remained lolling in it, awed and motionless, for a long time.

Ilona’s Rice Chicken

I felt nothing in the first few seconds, but then it hurt terribly, I was grabbing my leg, wriggling in the dark. The pain of the tibia reached my brain; I was writhing helplessly.

It was blood, of course it was blood.

And in that case, everything was perhaps over after all, and in a way other than I had planned, I’d bleed to death. Blood was smeared on my fingers, I was writhing, with my knee drawn up to my chest, my whole body swaying on the lawn, soaked wet with the night’s dew, as if I were swinging the pain on my spine.

I still had the presence of mind to listen, from behind the pain, for any noise.

Was somebody coming after me, should I continue to flee; I did hear some very strange clattering on the road.

It seemed to be coming from a different direction, not the one from which I’d have expected the sailor if he had picked up my trail and followed me. But judging by the sounds, it had to be a monster. No human could make such noises. His stride was irregular and the footsteps kept unexpectedly breaking off. It sounded as if somebody were flinging pebbles into the night in short, quick, sharp bursts, then stopping for a while, then starting up again unpredictably.

The black-haired giant had turned into a monster.

I might as well give up hope of his following me, of all people.

I had tumbled over the wrought-iron fence that separated the plane-tree-lined promenades from the enormous smooth lawn behind the Grand Hotel of Margit Island. How could I have forgotten it. The neo-Baroque fence imitated the tendrils, the winding, twisting stems, flowers, and huge round buds of plants. I had banged into the flower petals and the bud knobs with my shin. If only I could bleed to death quietly. I’d weaken and gradually lose consciousness, or blood poisoning would unceremoniously finish me off in a few days. This wasn’t a hopeless wish, since scales of rust were wedged into the leg wound; I felt their edges as my fingers groped around in the pain and slipped in blood.

The ground-floor terraces were empty, the striped sunshades were folded above the tables, and all the windows were dark.

Not a single hotel guest seemed to be awake.

What a strange feeling—that it had to happen at this place. It was as if I were observing, with my old views, from behind the dark window of the corner room on the fourth floor, and saw myself writhing on the lawn in the deep shadow of the plane trees.

Every year during the autumn housecleaning my grandparents would move here from Stefánia Boulevard, always renting the same suite.

It was an exceptional place where nothing ever changed over the years. Always the same breeze in the loose foliage of the plane trees, bringing the smell of the river and carrying the wavering light of the gas lamps; and whenever a stronger wind blew, the branches banged and the heavily veined, five-pointed leaves noisily rubbed and slid over one another. Rain pattering on them sounded like drops falling on stretched leather.

In those years, my grandmother’s women friends still thought that everything should be maintained and well preserved until the Americans came, when the Russians would clear out and life would return to its old routine.

The white funnels of petunia blossoms hanging from the carved clay pots were swinging gently on the rain-beaten balustrades.

Slowly the pain began to subside.

The insane reflected light of the city fell from the cloudy sky like a fine yellow drizzle.

With my writhing on the lawn, my black shirt and pants had gotten wet, but the coolness of the dew eased the pain somewhat. I no longer cared how I looked. I must have looked shocking, but that wouldn’t stop me from getting home somehow. If I hadn’t had to urinate and if I hadn’t been so thirsty, I might have lolled around on the lawn for a while. It was pleasant to hear again the city’s familiar noises and thuds, its closer or more distant shrieks. I felt protected by the night, as if lying under the giant shade of the plane trees I was invisible.