Parallel Stories: A Novel (191 page)

No matter how hard Kristóf looked, there was no part of the boy that he could have mixed up with someone else’s.

He’d seen him last in Wiesenbad on an ordinary summer morning when, just as he was, in shirt and pants, he’d been taken away from the place under the giant pine trees by a military vehicle with Russian license plates; he resisted and kept pointing to the third floor of the Wolkenstein house, indicating that he wanted to get his things, but he was expertly shoved into the car, with extra care taken not to injure his head; and only the crunching sound of pebbles, the silent peaks of the pines, and the sky with its clouds remained behind him.

Upstairs the boys found all their belongings on the stone floor of the dormitory, the mattresses overturned on the beds, only this boy’s locker was empty, they had taken away all his things along with him.

Left me forever, he shouted. I know it’s forever.

Then Kristóf called him by his name, he no longer had any doubts but wanted to be certain, and he did not feel like swearing anymore.

He would rather be exposed by his blind love.

Pisti, please, he said, pull yourself together, stop making so much noise.

It’s me, knocking on your door, he said, and he was indeed knocking on the boy’s back.

Give me some sensible explanation, what’s happened, who has left you.

And why on earth are you lying on the stairs here.

The drunken figure suddenly swerved, as if to throw his entire stiff body at Kristóf; he probably only now recognized Kristóf by his voice or by the knocking on his back, their old game.

He stared intently, could this really be Kristóf; the strain wrinkled his face.

My dear Pisti, please get up.

You listen to me now, buddy, said the other boy, his voice bullying and almost sober in its sternness, I am not your Pisti.

Kristóf could only stare at him; he said nothing.

And don’t you tell me again that I’m dear to you, he said slowly with a drunkard’s helplessness, and tried to sit up at the same time but only managed to lift his head off the step.

And you know that goddamn well yourself, don’t you, and if I let you have one upside your head, by Jesus, that’d be worse than God’s curse. You know that too, don’t you, little buddy.

He talked as if he had not forgotten that they still had a heavy account to settle.

In fact they had nothing to settle, not then and not now, except perhaps the terrible raw dread with which they had feared that Pisti would be tracked down before he had a chance to leave Wiesenbad.

Fuck it, man, I’m not your dear, I’m telling you, and remember that, goddamn it.

Kristóf, alarmed, could only think that Pisti suspected him of something.

You’re a big shit-head, you know, a ridiculous little fop, Pisti said contemptuously, which reassured Kristóf a bit because the boy could have called him a dirty Jew. A lousy craven shit, that’s what you are, little buddy, he shouted, I’m telling you right here and now, damn it, say it directly, right to your face, I’m not any kind of dear one for a shitty little fop like you.

Until now he must have been pressing his face hard on the grating so as not to throw up, but occasionally he just had to vomit and he did so now, into the elevator shaft.

And Kristóf was not interested in what the boy said in his drunkenness, not in the least.

But his heart trembled that Pisti might have thought he was the one who had betrayed him to the Russians, and in that case how could he clear his name now. If there existed one human being to whom he had never meant, not even in his thoughts, to do anything mean, dishonest, or immoral, it was this boy.

He had gone to several places in Budapest, had repeatedly returned to them over the years, whenever he had a new idea about where he might find him; he never stopped inquiring about him, but the possibility of betraying him or turning him in had never been in the cards, not even in his darkest hours. He had gone to Csepel many times to find at least the place near the old beach where Pisti’s grandmother lived. Every morning they climbed across the fence, at least in Wiesenbad, where they slept next to each other and sometimes told each other stories all night; at least that’s how he had told the story about his grandmother.

He found the poplars.

But no matter what Pisti suspected him of, Kristóf could not suddenly give up on him now.

All right, I admit, you’re not very dear or kind right now, and he laughed kindly into Pisti’s threatening, laughable face, while his naïve heart trembled at the terrible thought, but please get up.

As if he suspected himself of the kind of betrayal that Pisti, in his mind, might have already suspected of him.

Pisti wanted to say something, to answer, but he could hardly steady his heavy head on his neck. He had such a big head, a hard head. On his drenched face, imprinted with the pattern of the grating, and on his twisted nose there was mucus and pap of undigested food mixed with tears.

May the big black dog fuck you, buddy, that’s what should fuck you, pal, if you understand what I mean. He still had enough strength to drag this much out of his own dark malice.

Kristóf did not understand this, but with every word the disgusting sourness of the undigested contents of Pisti’s stomach hit him in the face.

His head was wobbling dangerously and Kristóf grabbed him by his shoulders to keep his head from knocking against the stone stairs. Even now the boy was still dear to him, together with his stench and his vomit stuck on the grating. He could not but rejoice and be cheerful about having found him, being able to see him again. He could not take seriously the possibility that now, in this condition, or during the time that had elapsed before, Pisti had come to suspect him. Because, in fact, Pisti had told him everything. And even if he took everything seriously, what of it, Pisti was here, not hanged as so many others had been. He failed to make him sit up; the obstinate animal would not sit up but flopped exhaustedly on the stone stairs.

Kristóf reached for his handkerchief to clean off some of the boy’s filth; he would take care of him.

He raised Pisti’s rather disgusting, smelly head by the chin, kneeling next to him on the steps.

Left me, whispered Pisti, sunk in his angelically drunken innocence, I don’t have a lover anymore.

Kristóf turned the head toward him a little to wipe off the muck, a move that Pisti could have felt as maternal.

Fucked me first, though, he whispered, blubbering and whimpering idiotically, did nothing with me except use me, goddamn it, he yelped, d’you understand, buddy, used me for nothing else, ever, fucked me and left me, that’s all.

Kristóf somehow heard this, this surprising confession. Which, according to language rules, he could understand only as meaning that another man had made use of Pisti, some selfish character; but still, it was as if he hadn’t heard it. As if he hadn’t heard it while wiping the dear one’s face with one of the immaculately white batiste handkerchiefs, rinsed, washed, gently starched, and ironed to perfection by Ilona.

Somehow he did not dare allow the things the drunken boy was talking about to reach his consciousness.

Even if they had, he would not have understood them. All his irregular experiences of long years notwithstanding, his heart and soul remained completely innocent. He believed he had to become familiar with the world and had little choice as to which parts of it he would know; and when he did come to know them, he thought no, this could not have happened to Pisti.

He must be misunderstanding or misinterpreting something, since his own experiences had been impossible.

And to stifle his shame, he swore loudly, blaspheming God, taunting him to fuck him.

What’s this circus for, he began to revile Pisti, as if becoming drunk with his own urge to swear, why is he such a drunken animal and why can’t he behave decently. Should be a little bit of a gentleman. He reached under Pisti’s armpits to lift him up, laughed at him, rebuked him, for the sake of God’s cunt, don’t let yourself go like that.

Come on, stand up already.

But the drunken boy, with a drunkard’s hideous delight, kept resisting, he will not get up, no, he won’t, he will stay where he is till the end of his life.

Well, I’ll be dipped, shouted Kristóf with no less delight, making the stairwell echo loudly again.

Who the hell is Kristóf to tell him what to do, Kristóf of all people. A little jism jockey like him telling him what to do, eh.

Hold me back, somebody.

Can’t you see, little buddy, what a filthy drunken animal I am, and if you don’t watch it I’ll start swearing at your mother in a minute.

Great, so that’s what you’ll do next.

Because he had told everything to Pisti.

Stop the acting, pal. The little boy would like to play good boy from the Red Cross. But fuck it, man, I will tell the whole fucking Red Cross who you are.

Right now, dumbbell, the question is, where did you leave your coat.

The truth is you’re a big jism jockey and not the genuine goody-goody you’d like to pretend you are. I checked you out, boy. I got your number. I’ll tell the Red Cross the truth about you, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

He felt like yanking him up, to avoid inflammation of the pelvis, sit up already, but the drunken boy tore himself away from Kristóf’s hands with such a fury that it seemed he might hit him.

Where in the hell would he get a coat, could somebody from the Red Cross have given him one.

But Kristóf would not let go of him, he did not want to.

He doesn’t have a coat, he shouted, in tears, doesn’t even deserve a coat from the Red Cross.

For a moment Kristóf let go of the shouting person, but only to give in to an even more impossible compulsion.

He took the drunken man’s head between his cool palms and wanted to say something nice, kind, touching and encouraging. That he loves him and his heart is full of love and he would be happy to give some of it to him because he has so much.

Or perhaps to say no more than one would say to a grumpy child.

But this did not come to pass, because Pisti yelled into Kristóf’s face, suffused with love and deep emotion, that never, never would he get up from here, he would not do him such a big favor as to stand up, let his cock stand up for him.

He made the stairwell echo infernally again. Actually he was just a sack chock-full of infernal stuff.

I know more about you, little pal, than you might think.

Kristóf watched, observed how these unknown, humiliating, and painful feelings were being shouted into his face, emotions of which he had known nothing. But now at last he was getting to know them and he couldn’t claim to be disinterested.

Then he let go of the dear one’s head, made rather funny and pitiful by all the shouting.

However, it showed many frightening and shameful aspects too.

Then drop dead on your own. I just ask you to go quietly, without waking up the whole neighborhood.

He was done with him, but he didn’t have the heart to leave him there in that condition.

Though it was futile to plead with him in that condition.

Pisti’s big head dropped down dumbly, as if he could not keep it on top of his neck, there above the steps. And Kristóf, straightening up, ready to follow Klára upstairs, unwilling to waste more time on this drunken idiot, felt dizzy.

He hadn’t eaten for God knows how long. He definitely had had no breakfast and probably no lunch either. He let himself flop against the disgusting wall of the staircase, making tiny scales of paint fall off, and waited either to collapse or for the dizziness to pass, he didn’t care one way or the other, it made no difference.

Nothing made a difference.

Vacillating between the giddiness rising from the cavity of his heart and his inexplicable devotion, he went on watching this repugnant stranger.

What is he clinging to if there is nothing to cling to. To his own feelings or to the strange being’s beauty; but was this beauty, of what quality was this beauty.

He had to close his eyes a bit, not to think continuously about something other than what he could see in front of him; he should rather forget his own thoughts.

By the time he opened his eyes, Pisti had slowly sat up and now he looked very surprised. As if he had managed to understand his friend’s thoughts but with a slight delay; of course he did. He propped up his torso with his bare arms resting on his spread knees and kept relatively steady. His head hung down, though, exhausted and reproving.

His unbuttoned white shirt glowed above the filthy gray steps.

Still, Kristóf wanted to tell him what happiness had come his way today, and brag a little about the great future of his love.

The way he saw it, Pisti’s forehead was already radiant, and he felt that Pisti was waiting for a radiant confession.

He would have told him his story to console him but, to their great luck, he didn’t find a single word to do it with. And he now remembered that this rotten Pisti had stolen those girls from him in Wiesenbad, two girls, one after the other, the ones whom he was too shy to approach, which Pisti had instantly sensed, even though the girls were in love with Kristóf. He gave them to Pisti willingly; let him take them in his stead. Somehow his weakness and timidity were in the air no matter how hard he fought against them. His heart ached a little for the girls because, after all, they loved him and not Pisti, one of them, Bärbel Mengel, boisterously, and the other, Ingrid somebody, penetratingly and bashfully. But now, in his dizziness, the erstwhile ache about the girls felt good, that these girls had gone with Pisti instead of him, with nary a thought.

It was very clear that real life consisted of substitutions.

Without them he would not have found Klára, without his timidity, it was clear as daylight.

And he was very grateful to this beastly Pisti for taking them away from him. He was very curious to know what had happened to them.

For a while longer he watched the phenomenon of Pisti’s radiant forehead, and then without a word he left his newly found old friend, did not want to see him, and started up the stairs.