Parallel Stories: A Novel (61 page)

You look down at everybody, with no exception, everybody, she bellowed and howled into the brown leather, which was quickly warming under her mouth.
Tu me méprises, tu nous méprises
, with no mercy, you wipe your feet on everybody.

What is it you were going to keep quiet about, if I may ask.

Mrs. Szemz
ő
couldn’t possibly outshout these two females behaving so outrageously, but she kept inquiring.

Again behind my back, right behind my back.

Which also turned into a shrill screech.

She regretted that such selfish sounds, recalling bad memories, were bursting from her throat. But it was no longer possible to withdraw from the air her delusion of persecution, for it needed to be in the light of day, and in that case, she too was nothing more, yes, nothing more than a common hysterical woman.

Like them.

Time to admit it.

In a weak voice Bella tried to intervene. Erna Demén claims, at least she had been so informed, that you were together with her daughter, her big girl whom the Gestapo took away from Kerepesi Cemetery, where the poor things were holding a silent demonstration at Pál Teleki’s grave.
*
We thought there was no need to tell you about such a silly thing.

Yet as you can see it became a matter of contention, whether to tell you or not.

While she was talking, she expected Mária to help her, at least with a few words.

In difficult situations, Mária always remained stubbornly silent.

And Bella did not dare mention the name of the place where they might have been together.

But in fact that’s exactly right, Mrs. Szemz
ő
remarked quietly.

For a few weeks, I was indeed together with her, with her big girl.

Which was something none of the women had expected to hear, though no surprise was visible on their faces. They simply looked at her as they might some idol.

Mária Szapáry was going up the steps of a dim rear stairwell. She did not know why she was reminded of this now. She came home not through the main entrance, from the direction of Via della Lungara, but through a side door, from Via dei Riari.

It must have been the third time they got soaked to their bones that afternoon, and again they were running to get inside, away from the soft warm rain, a man was holding Margit Huber’s hand, and then somewhere between rue Réaumur and rue de Vert bois they ran under the striped awning of a café.

She did not know where exactly they were in their lives then.

These human monsters, having shed their erstwhile stature and character, were standing in pale lamplight and looking back at her with the immeasurable indifference of outsiders. She could expect nothing else, least of all from those closest to her.

Their faces clearly showed they understood, after all, they were not stupid, yet were unable to move a hand or foot or single facial feature. Mrs. Szemz
ő
also realized they couldn’t do otherwise because it follows from the cult of crime that crimes will be committed.

Which nevertheless caused something profoundly childish to burst from her mouth.

And now what am I supposed to do with this bad behavior, she asked loudly, frightened and frightening. What am I to do with you, with your lack of compassion.

They did not know this side of her.

These were the lonely nights.

During the day she had to overcome and rise above things, but at night she could at least count on the body’s fatigue. Or she might have killed herself. That had remained her most ardent wish. She was vigorously nodding at each of her words; her discipline lapsing, her usually cleverly concealed tic was defeating her. Now they could see something of this too, have a taste of it.

What should they do with their own stories and with those of the others.

They were all carrying their own losses, their total, all-encompassing failures. No human on earth could answer their questions, and they found no god to whom they could entrust them. The nocturnal breeze, the heartwarming chirring of crickets, the puffing of tugboats receding in the distance, and the fragrance of sweet petunias barely grazed their silence.

If that’s really so, began Mária Szapáry a moment later, more curious than reproachful, why haven’t you looked her up before. Or, oh, I don’t know, you might have figured something out, after all, it was her child she had lost.

What, what could I have figured out.

And what exactly could I have said, and where, to whom, and why. That’s the main thing, why would I have said anything.

How should I have known she did not know.

Nobody asked me. When would I have told anyone, yes, when. One cannot just tell it at any old time, and one doesn’t think about it all of the time.

They remained silent again, as if contemplating the ways one could get around relating such a story if this entire thing, the situation in which they found themselves, had no time, place, or genre.

But I’d be very happy to tell you, and I shall, said Mrs. Szemz
ő
, who with this frivolous turn tried to restrain her tic. She pulled herself back from the opposite shore, bounced back to her usual passionless vocal range.

And you can simply tell Erna Demén to give me a call, period. You don’t have to bother your heads about this. All evening I’ve been trying to tell you that before coming here, by chance, I don’t know, though I’m sure I didn’t do it on purpose, I opened the door on my subtenant, that woman.

You don’t say, responded Mária, her voice filled with muted resentment.

Really, very interesting.

At the same time Margit Huber rose, somewhat indignant.

What are you saying, she asked, elongating her vowels, what do you mean you opened the door on her, what is that supposed to mean.

The leather squeaked under her body, the sofa’s worn-out springs moaned, and as she sat up her huge crown of white hair became unfastened and fell unattractively to her shoulders.

I assume it’s clear she wasn’t alone. It was like watching copulating caterpillars or something like that.

They spoke of such things very rarely and, when they did, very cautiously.

As if she were saying to them, keep out of my experiences.

She excluded them from their common past, punished the dumb goyim who understood nothing of the creation of the world, whose great compassion was also a fiasco.

Mária Szapáry, as a person interrupted in exercising her hereditary superiority, stepped closer to the table and, to make order out of the chaos of the story, lifted her glass out of the puddle of the drink. But this was no improvement because she did not understand what had happened. Sugary liquid dripped from the bottom of the glass back onto the green felt. In the meantime, she ostentatiously avoided Elisa’s eyes.

She did not want to see her.

If I understand correctly, you mean she was with somebody,
in flagrante
, is that right, asked Margit Huber, and with two quick twists of her fists she rubbed tears from her eyes.

Like caterpillars, as I’ve said, earthworms, but there was enough light for me to have no serious doubt about what I was seeing.

But what did you do, for God’s sake.

What could I do, that’s what was so interesting, that’s why I want to tell you about it. I pretended I didn’t see it.

I see.

It couldn’t have gone better.

Izabella Dobrovan decided she had to step in before the battling fronts froze into immovable positions.

She had been a dancer in her younger years but her burgeoning career ended with a serious onstage accident. She probably owed her imperceptible, modest decisiveness to her dance training. With her barely graying black hair brushed straight back and gathered in a bun, with her thin limbs, dry white skin, and ramrod-straight carriage, she was the most impressive-looking among the four women to this day, even though her looks were not particularly striking.

Her dark silk dress rustled across the room.

They had been observing one another for decades; they could see even when they closed their eyes.

Certain things they would talk over, occasionally, briefly, and preferably in private, but they would refrain from making the kind of judgment that only a little while earlier Margit Huber had allowed herself to make. Although in a weak moment she had entrusted Mrs. Szemz
ő
with the great secret of her life, of which even Izabella Dobrovan had no knowledge. Although Izabella had followed the lines of the secret story as sensitively as she was now helping Mária return from her temporary embarrassment to the bastions of her superiority.

But the reason Mrs. Szemz
ő
’s news affected Margit Huber as it did was that Gyöngyvér Mózes was her pupil.

She had helped her obtain the maid’s room in Mrs. Szemz
ő
’s apartment, though Irma did not really need the rent of a subtenant.

Any way one cared to look at it, their lives were well intertwined.

In addition, Margit Huber loved to organize other people’s lives and to hold all the strings in her hands, as it were. Since Irma had a concert piano in her hallway, she might, who could tell, occasionally feel like accompanying Gyöngyvér, or so Margit had thought. Irma was not a brilliant pianist, but she would do. There was nothing affected about her playing. And she wouldn’t be so alone all the time.

Kick her out, she said.

I wouldn’t think of it.

Don’t misunderstand, I gave up on her a long time ago. As far as I’m concerned, you can kick her out.

Give me that glass, said Dobrovan, and she took the dripping glass from Mária Szapáry’s hand. I’ll get a rag to clean up this mess, if I may.

I’m rather annoyed with myself, replied Mrs. Szemz
ő
. A pretty young woman, why shouldn’t she live her life.

A hopeless slut, take my word for it. Hopeless, despite all our efforts.

Why is she hopeless, and what does hopeless mean, anyway.

You can’t be the judge of that.

I never claimed I could.

It’s not her voice, it’s that she has no psychological reserves. She herself is hopeless. And luckily she doesn’t know it.

The moment she starts singing, she is very convincing, especially with her concentration and her passion.

If someone’s foundation is shaky, then it’s all in vain.

She has presence, she can fill the space with herself.

Regrettably, passion is more of a danger, it carries her away, regrettably, and that’s when you can see she has no background, no depth. And when you consider that for someone who is almost too old to be a beginner, she is lazy and uneducated.

Lazy.

Elisa was whining in the armchair, but she was really begging for forgiveness.

Mária could not see how upset she was.

And Bella, in her imperceptible and passionless way, started off with the glass toward the door.

Wait, Mária called after her, I’ll do it myself.

No, no, my dear Médi, this is a suppressed, concealed, strictly controlled passion. Take no offense, but I’ve more experience in this. The situation is that she is blocked by something very strong, and whatever it is, it should be eliminated first.

Irma was talking as if secretly she feared for Gyöngyvér and wanted to save her for herself.

And this, in turn, could not escape Margit Huber’s attention because she feared for Gyöngyvér even more passionately, and she also dreaded her own failure, which Irma clearly recognized; she inveighed against her so she could then take her under her protection.

She is blocked, you say, all right, but what can I do with that. These are empty psychological commonplaces. I need to know
what
is blocking her. I wouldn’t say it’s her low origin, some people can overcome that, some can’t, and it’s not a question of talent. She has no more time for preparation, she’s the one who hasn’t got another five years, not I.

They all felt again that what was happening went on being something other than what they were actually talking about, which stretched every moment dangerously beyond acceptable limits.

What’s the point of behaving in a certain way, even normally, if what they’re trying to conceal with their behavior is visible, and each one of them can sense that they all see through these efforts.

They aren’t in protective trenches anymore.

Dobrovan chose to wait a moment, and Mária hadn’t left the room either. They were tarrying not only because they had to split their attention in so many directions at once, not wanting to be left out of anything or to miss anything, not a single word, but also because Margit Huber’s emotional tactics were becoming clear to them. Not only did she not want Mrs. Szemz
ő
to throw out this unknown Gyöngyvér, but she was obviously fighting for her, hoping ardently that Irma would take her under her wing.

Which was something Mrs. Szemz
ő
would no longer do for anyone, not for anything. After she’d given up her practice, she’d found work in the district clinic as a medical clerk.

For ten years, until her retirement, she insisted on being a medical clerk and nothing else.

But now she was wavering.

Similarly, Mária Szapáry felt it would be better to keep silent about all this, that it was too perilous, but she would not prevent them from talking. Yet she could not tear herself away from them. All she wanted was not to confuse things more with her own words, and she could not have said what they should clarify or how that could be done. In the meantime, the two other women were not only talking but also watching Bella help Mária, who had fallen out of her role, and trying to figure out how all this was connected to Elisa’s whining.

Which Mária cannot bear, which is the reason she must leave the room. As if they are raking through her nerves.

They all led different and less personal lives; still, there were moments when the air filled up to the point where nothing more could be accommodated.