Parallel Stories: A Novel (22 page)

To scream; he would have liked to scream, but he stifled it; the intended scream turned into a pitiful whimper, barely passing his throat. Which surprised him so much he didn’t know what to do. Suddenly his tears began to flow and something gripped his throat, squeezing from it one last pitiful whimper. His body stiffened, he ceased shaking his feet, and he stood in front of the woman’s table as if he were nailed down. In his misery, he alternately threw his head back and let it drop forward, all the way to his chest. His crying bubbled up in spurts. His face is also cute, thought the ticket taker, without giving any visible indication of her thoughts. But what can one do with such a big crybaby. She was prepared for everything, including the possibility that the new attendant might lose his mind and even attack her. She was fairly immobilized in her corner post next to the entrance; she wouldn’t have a chance to rush out. In a fraction of a second, she took all the necessary preventive measures. And luckily, those strong men were still there at the end of the corridor.

She kept the ball of yarn in a plastic bag, the bag resting in her lap. She now lifted the bag and, along with the completed crocheting, wrapped it around her finger, put it expectantly on the table. She quickly turned the needle outward from between her large thick fingers, so that it protruded from between her blood-red nails like a dangerous weapon. She will defend herself. She leaned forward a little. If the young man attacked, he would first upset the table. She readied her legs. But I’ll poke out those little pig eyes of his if he attacks me.

The men at the end of the corridor must not have noticed anything. Their intimate moment ended quickly when Ágost, not too gently, shoved them away. Which didn’t mean that he managed to break free of their embrace.

Come on, let me go, he said petulantly. And please, stop pawing me. I’m sick of both of you.

Which sounded to the other two men like an unhoped-for confession of love. They burst into laughter, huffing and puffing with delight. A victory that had to be celebrated and enjoyed.

They often pronounced things that were true, only to forestall their true effects. Or, conversely, they would tell a lie in a way that would make it transparently obvious. Hans chuckled haltingly, André roughly and too loudly. They enjoyed it when their words did not express what they meant and strengthened their secret dialogue with its concealed meaning. Ágost’s aim, however, was to stop them from using the language of their little secret dialogue. There was an off-limits area here that neither they nor any strangers were allowed to enter. Ágost too enjoyed the situation, enjoyed the game. He had nothing against Hans’s hesitant chuckles and André’s violent guffaws, these adolescent sounds that might have struck an outsider’s ears as unpleasant. Their irritating exaggeration only meant that they accepted the cards Ágost was dealing them. Or at least pretended to accept them.

Even if he couldn’t get out of the noose immediately, he was moving in the right direction.

To avoid letting their guard down and entering the off-limits area, almost everything conveyed in their own language meant the opposite of what it would normally mean. They had never entered the forbidden area.

No woman was allowed to enter it either.

If he succeeded in getting out of the noose, if even his secret family could not hold him back from doing anything anymore, then he was a free man. At last, he would be alone; he would fall. And although his two friends were high-minded and noble-spirited men who until now had instinctively done everything to prevent this accident, they would not sink so low as to limit anyone in his self-destructive freedom. On the contrary, in their own considered interest they would allow it, and would enjoy it too. They would affix to it the blood-red stamp of
nihil obstat
. So be it. Indeed, existence has no palpable significance. Let him do it. Anything. Everybody should be allowed to do anything.

And because this current situation had arisen so suddenly, Ágost was on the verge of speaking. This would have been the other solution: to give, or at least to lend some meaning to certain things for limited periods of time. His exasperation was credible because it referred to his own genuine helplessness. He did not have the strength, or the humor, to look into his own nihilism, even though he was the only one among them who did not entertain notions about a better future.

To simplify things, he should have freed himself of his inability to speak.

He could not claim he had no language for what he wanted to say; the whole damn thing, with all its intricacies, was not so complicated that one couldn’t intelligently relate it. Boys, he could have said lightheartedly, the stinking situation is that for months my life has been completely void of joy. But this he could not say, could not ease his terrible anxieties, because these vultures well knew he wasn’t impotent and he wished to deflect their attention only because his mind was struggling with even greater, more insoluble problems. However, he wanted to say something impressive, weighty, which might even be partially true, only to stop them from involuntarily drifting into the forbidden area where they would glimpse one another’s true faces. Or he could have said something else. Boys, the problem is that I’ve fallen in love again. This sentence could have been easier to say.
Le coup de foudre.
Yet it might have carried them into even more dangerous territory. After all, these vultures well knew that he was not in love, as he had never been and never would be, but again he wanted desperately to solve something; he also knew that he was fleeing. He wished he were at least impotent, if life had to be so utterly dreary and joyless.

At this moment a terrible scream accompanied by a deafening clatter suddenly ended the intimate little story of the three men.

Someone must have fallen headlong on the floor, or was being beaten; loud, heavy sounds of a body hitting or bouncing off some hard surface mingled with, but probably preceded, the clatter of a window that might have smashed or been broken. At the same time, an object tipped over and landed on the stone floor with a resounding thump.

A woman’s voice shouted for help.

Hans jumped up, banging against the bodies of the other two, and, probably in fright, tore the towel from his neck; but by the time all three of them looked toward the source of the din and, overcoming their surprise, were able to see, they found only the ominous tranquillity of the corridor.

An upended table, a body on the wetly glittering yellow tile floor.

The wind rushing through the broken window was literally shrieking.

What happened, Rózsika, Hans shouted to the ticket taker, who stood, leaning over between the legs of the turned-over table, like someone who has just knocked the other person down and has no clue what to do with him.

Maybe she killed him.

True, she had prepared to defend herself, pressing her massive legs against the crossbar, but in the end she didn’t have to. She had toppled the table in surprise and mainly in fright. She wanted to help the hapless boy. She saw him turn pale and when she looked again she saw his eyes turn inward, or rather she saw only the whites of his eyes, which was frightening enough. The eyeballs turned away in some direction. But she did not think, even then she did not think anything of it. Though she noticed that on the young man’s slightly open lips the saliva had become frothy, and he was shouting something awful, as though he had to say or ask something. And then his entire falling body seemed to have stiffened into this one enormous shout because it was so hard, so hard to say what he wanted.

Ágost remained indifferent, as one whose eyes barely acknowledge what is in front of them. André’s sharp features took on a look of childlike surprise, however, and of dread that he might have something to do with what was happening around him.

Hans was the first to gauge and understand the situation.

Verdammt, schon wieder
, he said to himself, annoyed but quietly, damnation, here we go again, and with lightning speed he grabbed the flat pink bottle of André’s body cream from the bench and, pushing the other two men aside, took off at a run. Occasionally they used foreign languages when talking among themselves, but this peculiar little comment was something else, more like something returning from the depths of time. He ran with giant steps, losing a slipper as he did. And he was shouting. Get me something soft, Rózsika. Your pillow or sweater or anything. He demanded these things as one used to coping with similar situations. But his shouting failed to reach the woman’s consciousness, though all she had to do was turn around for these objects. She did not understand what pillow, what kind of sweater, what would they be for since the man was already bleeding to death. She stood there, above the table, like a statue. And the body on the floor, as though wanting to jump up, flexed into an arc. Blood was flowing from under his head. It was spreading slowly over the wet ribbing of the yellow tile floor. The sight of blood was what held the woman captive.

The blood is pouring out, she said softly, almost reverently.

While running, Hans realized he hadn’t taken off his bathing trunks; by the time he reached the scene, with the cream bottle in his hand, he managed to shed his blue bathrobe. The corridor, the shrieking wind, his running steps, all of this seemed to him to have occurred before and more than once.

The blood is pouring out, said the woman for the second time, still in a quiet, soft voice.

Stop talking so much and let me have your pillow, Rózsika, he said quickly, and knelt by the body on the stone floor.

He saw the flashing of tightly clenched teeth from behind the frothy, slightly open lips. Whether he had bitten his tongue in half or not, it was no longer possible to pry open his teeth. There was not a second to lose. He simply dropped the cream bottle, which was now superfluous, and with both hands, as if gently embracing the boy, shoved, stuffed, pressed, and pushed his blue bathrobe under the arching body. The last time he had done something like this was in the main-floor shower room of the boarding school in Wiesenbad. He was now waiting for the pillow. The tonic convulsion began to ease up. As if the body were relaxing on the soft bathrobe, but this did not mean the fit was over.

The blood is pouring from his head, repeated the woman for the third time.

Hans was concentrating on the young man’s outturned eyes, white frothy lips, the rhythm of the spasms, but he also sensed the possibility of being swept away by a terrible flood of hysterics about to gush forth from the motionless body of this woman by the table. He felt its imminence, and he was right.

Oh, my god, she squealed, beside herself, do something already. Blood’s pouring from his head. Can’t you see how it’s flowing out, there, right there, it’s pouring out, she screeched. Blood is pouring from his head.

Hans turned around slowly, looked up at her, and replied wearily. Of course I see it, I see everything, Rózsika. And then he bellowed so loudly that the woman’s enormous body trembled like a leaf. Get back to your work. And give me that fucking pillow.

At least she now knew what to do.

She handed over the pillow from her chair and then gave him her thick hand-knitted cardigan too, but simultaneously protested that no matter what happened she wouldn’t let Hans talk to her like this. She assumed he had said fucking in some sort of connection with her.

Well
, said André at the far end of the corridor, laughing with relief, if I’m not mistaken it’s an honest-to-goodness epileptic fit.

And before turning to go, André and Ágost looked at each other as experienced diplomats assessing the damage caused by warfare and taking measures to prevent its consequences. André had to acknowledge his defeat very quickly. And Ágost had to overcome the easy joy he felt about his unexpected good luck. It was there, glittering in his deep-set eyes.

And because he did overcome it without effort, because it was not hard to refrain from gloating, he felt happier and the old sparkle returned to his eyes. That could only make André happy too. Because, owing to an unexpected incident, they had gotten away with it: they wouldn’t have to cope with a three-week depression. He added a little nod that meant appreciation and acknowledgment on the one hand, and on the other a warning that the matter was only postponed and ultimately Ágost would not get away with it without a detailed confession.

And with that, they broke eye contact. André retired to his cabin to get dressed at last. If Kovách could take care of everything, why should he, André, bother with the epileptic fit of a complete stranger. Ágost went into the cabin attendant’s dark booth because he thought he should tell the bathhouse to call for a physician. He was not especially shaken by the attendant’s seizure, but he always liked to help Hans, to see him selflessly and instinctively offer his services to others. Ágost lacked this ability. He found a tattered sheet fastened to the wall by a thumbtack, listing the internal telephone numbers; it had been corrected many times. He saw the entry for the physician on duty but could not make out the number. He wished the whole country to hell with its idiotic lists stuck all over the place.

There was no dial tone; he kept tapping the receiver’s cradle.

In the meantime, the empty main-floor corridor came to life, filling up with people attracted by the frightening screams, everybody running. Half-dressed customers and desperate but helpless staff members. An older cabin attendant, with a horrible war wound, two shiny dents on his skull, two younger women from the cloakroom who would have gladly taken care of the young man, if only to irritate Rózsika, and of course the wavy-haired swimming instructor, that slightly decrepit nervous dandy who at this hour had no students. Everybody was talking at once; questions and irrelevant comments flew everywhere, as if they couldn’t see what had happened, while Rózsika continued with her ever louder indignation. The seizure moved from the tonic phase to the clonic one, with the body on the stone floor rapidly alternating between contraction and relaxation; the face looked as though a terrible hand had crumpled it. And blood kept spreading in the ribbing of the yellow tiles, and only Hans noticed it was becoming more watery.