Parallel Stories: A Novel (172 page)

She clasped her arms above her head to protect her hair. The long fur coat opened and as she took off its two wings fluttered lazily behind her. Much as I disliked furs, I had to admit I was enthralled by how the soft, uniform longitudinal patterns rippled down her back. That’s how her own body became the image of an animal’s body. Then suddenly she stopped at the curb, turned to face me, I almost bumped into her, and we found ourselves only inches apart in the lashing wind. I had the feeling she was completely naked. I hadn’t counted on taking the car; I thought she’d lock it and we’d get on the bus. Her full, powerful, yet somehow still little-girlish body was straining toward me as from an opened shell.

It was straining forth from the opened shell of animality. I couldn’t tell how many transformations she had gone through that night.

The wind blew her fragrance into me with renewed strength, her new indecipherable fragrance.

Almost nothing kept me from slipping my arms under the shiny lining of the shiny fur coat and pulling her body against mine. Now she was flirting with me, inviting me, luring me, opening herself up like a seashell, like a deep-brown chestnut.

We were shouting and screaming in the wind, which felt especially good because it was as if we were throwing sounds into each other’s laughing mouth.

Not to let the wind blow them away.

She asked, actually she screamed whether I’d dare trust her with my life.

Not willingly, but without hesitation, I screamed back at her.

Because she didn’t have much experience in driving, which is to say she had no experience at all, she screamed, and for the first time in my life I could smell the scent of her mouth—lipstick, her sweet saliva, and the cleanliness of her flesh.

But I hoped she had a driver’s license.

She laughed, she’d managed to get one, but just barely. She had seduced at least three policemen for it.

I screamed congratulations, I screamed that I’d be happy to die with her.

The street around us took wing and was swimming. The shining arc of the roadway spread over our heads, the worn facades of old buildings fluttered and rose, the heavy sky slipped under our feet.

She turned the words back toward me, yelling them into my open mouth; yes, she too would be happy to die, in bed, among pillows, but not on the street.
*

Her fragrance I caught not with my nose, her screaming not with my ears; they assaulted my groin directly. I had nothing to defend myself with. Because now it turned limp, now it hardened a little, sperm kept dripping from the constant pulsing.

Don’t, please don’t talk like that, I beg you, and my screams no longer vibrated in my vocal cords or touched my throat but burst straight from the rising and falling depth of my chest, from the throbbing flesh of my heart.

How shouldn’t she talk. She laughed, she laughed at me and screamed, in what way not talk.

I am scared, I screamed.

And that put an end to the laughter; she nodded that of course she was scared also. The brilliance of her eyes shone through every darkness for a long moment. She could see everything, both my future and my past. The wind had whistled, howled, pushed and lashed at everything while we were still in the stairwell; it had besieged the city with renewed force. There was before me a face clouding over and a body thrust toward me. I saw everything too; it made me dizzy. I saw how forlorn I had been for close to twenty years without her, and now this would end. I felt immensely sorry for myself, for my passing forlornness, as a child would, heartrendingly, pitifully, tearfully, helplessly. As if not daring to leave my desolation; this was odd, quite odd. And the dizziness vividly reminded me of that long-ago moment when, not far from here, on the balcony of the apartment on Damjanich Street, everything began to go around, slip away, become distorted, and heaven and earth slipped into each other. I didn’t want to, I did not understand why I was remembering an experience that did not belong here at all. And why is it interfering now. Why did I go limp because of it. She too needed to lean on something, and that made everything even more improbable. What I felt inside I could see on her. She was no longer protecting her hair with her arms; she leaned lightly against the car and I thought that in response to that positively inviting movement I would swoon at the sight of her.

To keep this from happening, as if grasping at words to rescue myself, I said, screaming, that I’d like to tell her something. I was actually breathing into her because I felt I could not wait any longer and I was ready to own up. I’d tell her about my earlier lie right then.

No, I shouldn’t tell her anything now, she didn’t want to hear anything, she shouted into the wind very rapidly and sharply. She was in fact scared that something irrevocable might happen.

And with that, either out of giddiness or because she was tearing herself away from my effective range, she thrust herself from the car, knocking against me slightly, her knee flicked mine, her breast brushed my chest, she spun, went around the car, and tore open the door on the driver’s side.

She must have anticipated something very different from what I wanted to tell her.

All I wanted was to confess that I was going to a teachers’ college and not to the School of Physical Education; I had lied to her and didn’t know why and she should despise me for it, guard herself against me and forgive me. I wanted to throw myself on the ground before her. But probably she didn’t feel like listening just now to an idiotic confession of love.

She misunderstood my confusion, my determination, and the fervor of my words.

If I had wanted to confess my love to her, that would indeed have been out of place now. I don’t know why. The only proper thing to do was to stay with my lie.

I too tore open a car door, plopped down next to her, but saw on her face that now I couldn’t say anything, because everything had changed again.

Just the two of us, at last, locked in the car, having managed to lock out the insane whistling and clapping of the wind, and this felt meaningful, promising. Yet our misunderstanding had created a new situation; it was as if we’d both stumbled and fallen over each other. Which put me in an uncontrollably good mood; I laughed. And not least because I’d spared myself, or at least deferred, the unpleasant admission, and that gave me a satisfying advantage she couldn’t possibly understand. She must have dreaded something else entirely, expected something entirely different. Somehow all this was there, in her, all at once, in her bewildered wide-open eyes—an unexpected heavenly gift for me. It meant that I had not misunderstood anything; yes, she loves me, she is waiting for my confession of love, though the moment I open my mouth to make it she’ll reject it.

Well, she shouldn’t hold her breath waiting, nor did she know what to make of my laughter.

She looked away abruptly, hurt, turned on the light, and began to fix her hair in the rearview mirror, to smooth out her lipstick with the tip of her tongue. She had to balance somehow the advantage my baffling laughter gave me. It was strange to see how quickly she became busy with herself as a means of escape. As if she were saying, no, she would not surrender her independence even if she’d wavered a bit, not to me, not even for a moment.

Which did not mean she didn’t love me; it just meant not now.

Still, she couldn’t keep quiet; the tension was too high and somehow she had to find a way to reduce it.

Would I mind telling her what I found so funny.

I could assure her it was not her hair, or her, but the situation.

It wasn’t necessary to reassure her, because she was not upset, but what situation did I have in mind, or whose situation.

I said she was probably expecting something entirely different from what I actually wanted to tell her.

She asked what it was I wanted to say.

You mean I can tell you now, I asked.

Why not.

You weren’t so agreeable just a little while ago.

Out with it, I had her permission.

But now I couldn’t tell her. First, she should tell me about this great transformation, and then I’d think about it.

That’s really a very generous offer on my part. It means that what I’d wanted to say was, after all, exactly what she’d thought it was when she’d kept me from saying it.

No, that wasn’t it. I wanted to tell her something she could not possibly expect to hear.

A surprise.

Most likely.

And now we’re going to play twenty questions.

No, I don’t think so.

Because she wasn’t in the mood to play dumb games. She sees that I like to take life easy. I could do anything I want with my own life, but I’d have to do it without her, not with her.

I said it would be better if we stopped talking for a while because I was afraid we were only hurting each other for no good reason.

Then at last we once again agree on something, she said.

What I don’t understand, I said, is why she has to quarrel with everyone in this kind of tone.

First, she isn’t quarreling. Second, what do I mean everyone.

I don’t mean to interfere with her life, but I do have ears and eyes, I can hear and see that she talks to her husband the same way, and she doesn’t speak differently to the men in the shop either.

How touching it would be if I was going to protect her husband or the men in the shop from her.

I said I was protecting myself, not your husband, I asked whether she could hear her own voice. And how does she know, how could she know, the suppressed shout burst out of me, how I like to take life, easy or otherwise. I can tell you, I am not taking life in any way. And how would she know what kind of life I used to have or what kind I’m having now.

She didn’t know, she answered quietly, almost frightened. But I could no longer restrain my anger.

And why do you insist he’s your husband when he isn’t. Why this lie, why this game of hide-and-seek. In the list of tenants in the lobby and on their apartment door, I saw her maiden name. Anyway, if she had a husband or if he were her husband, she wouldn’t behave like this with me. Couldn’t she see how common she was. She wants to use me to make that miserable man jealous when he’s about to explode with jealousy as it is.

No, that’s not so at all, she said patiently.

I wasn’t listening, I just kept saying what I wanted to say, that she’d lied, telling me he was her husband, so I wouldn’t have high hopes.

No, that’s not so, she kept repeating more and more quietly. One cannot tell everything all at once, it’s impossible, she said, fiddling absentmindedly with something on the dark dashboard.

But it would be much better to tell somebody something instead of constantly evading things or, excuse me for using such strong words, lying.

I am making a mistake, I am wrong. It’s not like that, not like that at all, I am wrong.

Well, how and about what, that’s what I’d like to know, what am I wrong about. And why is it impossible to tell everything at once. If she wanted to, I would tell her everything, all at once. Or twice.

I shouldn’t shout and mainly I shouldn’t mock her.

But I am shouting, why shouldn’t I be shouting in my own voice.

She leaned on the steering wheel with both arms and ran her fingers over the dark dashboard. I didn’t dare look at her straight on, and she wasn’t looking at me. Or maybe she had already forgotten I was there. That wouldn’t surprise me, because I myself had no idea where we were or what was happening.

What one managed to say aloud gained enormous weight, but the things one could not possibly utter became even weightier and more threatening. I felt that now I could tell her, all at once and in a single sentence, my entire life and everything I had ever thought or was thinking now. There was this terrible, insurmountable entirety. There was no place where one could begin and no proper weight for it.

Still, somehow, each of us should have entrusted it to the other. Everything that could not be told.

She moaned that I was torturing her.

It was as though there existed one gigantic emotion and a tiny piece of it had chipped or broken off and I shouted that I wasn’t torturing her, with what would I be torturing her.

At the same time, my conscience was gnawing at me. I wanted to understand her, see her clearly; I was shouting and throwing accusations around because I didn’t have the strength to fight my way out of my miserable lie. What’s more, it felt good that I couldn’t, and instead I kept on with my insistent, domineering huffing and puffing, even though I was deeply ashamed of it all.

Why is it a crime, I shouted, that I want to see things clearly.

Oh, come on, those are nothing but big words, she responded morosely. Who’s talking about crimes here, and what do you mean clearly. She doesn’t know words like that. Anyway, how dare I use such words. She can see very well that what I want to do is get away with something. I want to avoid her. I had taken a deep breath and run after her, but what I really thought was that it would be better if she didn’t exist, that’s what I thought. And why would I think she can’t see through all my little tricks.

Why would she think I don’t see them myself.

That’s why she’d said before that I’d like to take life easy. That’s all she had in mind. I think that one can solve everything with words. And for my information she did not mean to hurt me. She really didn’t know much about my life, though she had heard a thing or two.

Then you could at least tell me how you know my name.

From Terike.

What Terike, I asked, surprised, I don’t know any Terike. And I noticed that we were staring at each other again.

And that again I saw she was phenomenal.

And that I had never seen anything so beautiful.

Terike, her boss.

And her eyes were roaming over my face, she was letting her gaze glide all over it without stopping anywhere.

And how could her boss know my life’s story when I don’t know her.

How could she know, well, from your own dear aunt, that’s how.

This I hadn’t expected, though I could have, because Nínó, always looking for her little girl, asked every woman she met who had a number on her arm.