A Book of Memories (7 page)

Of course it wasn't coarse sensuality or an inclination to mutually shared lewdness that I was lacking, and in any case, I don't really believe in a refinement that can forgo physicality and still remain healthy; but beyond the simpleminded fear every young man must feel before leading his bride to the altar, I was fearful and anxious for another reason: our relationship, at least outwardly, reminded me very much of the unbalanced and unresolvable tensions between my parents; in every sign of physical coarseness I detected Father's gestures, and in the longing for them I saw Mother's needs; if I hadn't possessed the gift of self-knowledge that enables us to carefully separate the overlapping planes of cause and effect, thereby discovering the endless circular stairways of our emotions which, dissatisfied with mere form and appearance, lead us downward and inward to ultimate understanding
—without this gift, even our engagement would have become unbearable by the knowledge that my malady was hereditary, that fate condemned me to the humiliating absurdity of having to repeat my parents' lives and misdeeds, of being the same as they, and even of dragging an innocent outsider into this fatal sameness.

The Soft Light of the Sun

The snow was already melting, and though I was afraid of the dogs I decided to walk home from school through the woods.

One had to step carefully here; the trail, beaten into the heavy, clayey soil, wound steeply around the gnarled trunks and coiling roots of ancient mistletoe-laden oaks and plunged through the underbrush, clumps of wild roses, elder, and hawthorn that looked impenetrable even in their barrenness; melting snow had turned the thick layers of leaves sodden and I kept losing my footing on the slippery surface; seeking an outlet, tiny rivulets had cut grooves right through the middle of the trail, creating a regular brook that ran sparkling and gushing in its rusty yellow bed, swelling up where the trail took a sudden turn, then rushing on, engulfing stones and pebbles; imagining dense forests and wild mountain rapids all around, I leaped from one bank of my stream to the other, zigzagging back and forth, trusting my body to the slope's pull, sensing that the more daring my leaps were
—the harder I landed and the longer I stayed in the air, finding the site of my next takeoff with a single glance—the more confident I became and the less likely I was to slip or fall; I was racing downhill, I was flying.

At the bottom of the forest the trail reached flat ground, coming to rest in a clearing with patches of snow, at the opposite end of which I saw someone standing in the bushes.

I could not turn back, couldn't escape, but simply had to slow down my breathing, make sure I didn't pant or wheeze, so he wouldn't think he was making me so excited.

He stepped out from behind the bushes and started toward me.

I wanted to appear cool and calm, as if not the least bothered by this accidental encounter, but my back had got uncomfortably wet from all that running, my ears were burning and must have looked ridiculously red in the cold; my legs suddenly felt awkwardly short and stiff, and it was as if I were seeing myself with his eyes.

The sky above us was clear, a great blue expanse, distant and blank.

Behind the woods, caught in the tangled treetops, the soft light of the sun broke through, but the air remained piercing cold; crows cawed, magpies chattered in the eerie silence, and one could feel that as soon as the sun set everything would be silent and stiff again.

We walked toward each other very slowly.

On his long dark-blue overcoat gold buttons gleamed, and he slung his soft leather briefcase casually over his shoulder, as always, lugging it on his back, which made him twist his long neck and bend over a little; still, his gait was as loose and graceful as if he were swaying to and fro in some oblivious softness; he thrust his head high, he was watching.

It took a very long time to cover the distance between us, because from the moment I had spotted him behind the bushes I had to sort out, and also alert, my most contradictory and secret feelings: "Krisztián!" I would have loved to cry out in my surprise, if only because in his name, which I hadn't the courage to utter even during the abruptly cutoff budding stage of our friendship and kept muttering it only to myself, I sensed the same discriminating elegance I did in his whole being; his name had the same irresistible attraction for me I knew I mustn't yield to in any shape or form; saying his name out loud would be like touching his naked body, which is why I avoided him, always waiting until he began walking home with others so I wouldn't walk with him or his way; even in school I was careful not to wind up next to him, lest I'd have to talk to him or, in a sudden commotion, brush against his body; at the same time I kept watching him, tailed him like a shadow, mimicked his gestures in front of the mirror, and it was painfully pleasurable to know that he was completely unaware of my spying on him, secretly imitating him, trying to evoke in myself those hidden qualities and characteristics that would make me resemble him; he couldn't know, or feel, that I was always with him and he with me; in reality, he didn't even bother to look at me, I was like a neutral, useless object to him, completely superfluous and devoid of interest.

Of course my sober self cautioned me not to acknowledge these passionate feelings; it was as if two separate beings coexisted in me, totally independent of each other: at times the joys and sufferings his mere existence caused me seemed like nothing but little games, not worth thinking about, because one of my two selves hated and detested him as much as my other self loved and respected him; since I was eager to avoid giving any visible sign of either love or hate, I was the one who acted as though he were but an object
—divulging my love, much too desirous and passionate to let him in on it, would have rendered me totally defenseless, while my hatred drove me to humiliating fantasies that I was too scared to act on—and it was I, not he, who acted as though I was unapproachable, impervious even to his accidental glances.

When he was no more than an arm's length from me and we both stopped, he said, "There's something I'd like to ask of you," calling me by my name, his tone cool and matter-of-fact, "and I'd appreciate it greatly if you could do it for me."

I felt the blood rushing to my face.

Which he, too, would immediately notice.

The affable artlessness with which he uttered my name, though I knew he did it only for the sake of good form, had a devastating effect: now not only were my legs too short but I felt like one large head hovering somewhere close to the ground, an ill-proportioned repulsive insect; and in my embarrassment I blurted out something I shouldn't have: "Krisztián!" I said, pronouncing his name aloud, and because it sounded too tender, frightened almost, anyway humble and out of tune with his own resolve to wait for me and even approach me with a request, he raised his eyebrows as if he had heard wrong or couldn't believe what he had heard, and obligingly leaned closer: "What's that? Come again?" he said, and I, finding some unexpected pleasure in his embarrassment, made myself sound even softer, even more amiable; "Oh nothing, nothing," I said quietly, "I just said it, just said your name, anything wrong with that?"

His thick lips parted, his eyelids flickered, his light brown complexion darkened slightly as if from repressed excitement, his black pupils contracted making the pale green irises seem dilated; but I don't think it was the shape of his face, the wide and easily knitted forehead, the lean cheeks, the dimpled chin and disproportionately small, almost pointed, perhaps still undeveloped nose, that made the most profound and most painfully beautiful impression on me; it was the coloring: in the green of his eyes, beaming out of the savagely sensual brown of his skin, there was something abstractly ethereal, clamoring for heights, while his chapped red lips and the unmanageably curly mass of his black hair were pulling me down into dark depths; the animal boldness of his glance made me recall our intimate moments together when, lost in each other's looks, which always suggested open hostility as well as hidden love, we could accurately sense that our mutual attraction was based simply on uncontrollable curiosity, which was only an illusion of something, though strong enough to draw us close, bind us together, deeper than any so-called dangerous inclination could ever be because it was undirected, insatiable; yet the synchronized narrowing of our pupils and harmoniously dilating irises surely disclosed something in our eyes that made palpably clear that our supposed intimacy had been a sham and that in reality we were irreconcilably different.

Looking into his eyes I seemed to see not another person but two terrifying magic balls.

This time, however, we couldn't hold each other's gaze for long; though neither of us tried to avoid the other or look away, I saw the change: his eyes lost their inherently brilliant openness, they filled with purpose and motive, and their surface became dimmer, glazed over; they took cover.

"I must ask you," he said quietly but sharply, and he stepped closer to keep me from interrupting him again and roughly gripped my arm, "I must ask you not to report me to the principal, or if you already have, go and try to take it back."

He kept biting his lips, pulling my arm, and blinking his eyes, and his voice lost its self-confident soft depth; he was thrusting out his words as if he wanted not even the air that carried them to touch his lips, wanted to expel these hated sounds, had to feel he had done all he could, although he must have had as little faith in the effectiveness of his own words as he did in my amenability, and for this reason alone I don't think he was very interested in my answer; besides, he didn't make it clear how he thought the report was to be taken back, so I think he knew all along he was treading on slippery ground; he was looking at me, but it may have been too much of an effort to make his voice sound so thin and humble, and it's very likely he didn't even see my face: in his eyes I must have been a mere blot, dissolving in its own vagueness.

But as far as I was concerned, a wonderful feeling of superiority made me more self-assured than ever.

A request had been put to me which I had the power to grant or refuse; the moment had arrived when I could prove my own importance, when at my own will and pleasure I could either reassure or destroy him, with a single word avenge all my secret injuries
—injuries which ultimately were not even his doing, but which I had inflicted on myself because of him, the bitter pains of being ignored he induced in me, unwittingly and innocently, by simply being alive, by wearing nice clothes, by talking and playing with others, while with me he was unable or unwilling to establish the kind of contact I so yearned for and didn't even know what it should be like; he was almost a head taller than I, but at this moment, in the clearing, I was looking down at him; I found his forced smile distasteful, and as my body regained its normal dimensions, it assumed the lightness of that secure state in which our consciousness stops playing and struggling and, with a careless shrug, surrenders to all its contradictory emotions, rendering outward appearances and shows irrelevant; I didn't care anymore how I looked or whether he liked me or not, and while I felt the chill of cooling perspiration on my back, the dampness in my leaky shoes, the unpleasant prickles of my cheap trousers clinging to my thighs, as well as the burning in my ears, my smallness and my ugliness, there was nothing hurtful or humiliating in all this, because in spite of the unrelieved misery of bodily sensations, I was now free and powerful, felt free within and for myself; I knew I loved him, and no matter what he did I could not stop loving him; I was completely defenseless, and for that I could either take my revenge on him or forgive him, it was all the same; to be sure, he didn't seem just then as beautiful and attractive as he had been in my fantasies or when he'd overwhelm me with his sudden presence—his dark skin had turned sallow; he seemed to have eaten something with garlic in it and I didn't want to inhale the smell of his breath; to boot, the humility in his smile was so twisted, so exaggerated, that it betrayed his fear, which may have been genuine but which he was anxious not to show, preferring proudly to conceal it, to substitute mock humility; he was playing up to me and deceiving me at the same time.

I blushed and yanked away my arm.

But I did not, after all, have a choice; I couldn't simply tell him anything I felt like, since as far as my emotions were concerned every possible response led to a dead end: it hadn't occurred to me to report him, but if I were to, if now I really did, I might alienate him forever and they might even take him away; if, however, I pretended to be swayed by his plea, I'd be letting myself be misled by his clumsy show of humility, in which case his victory would be much too easy for him to love me for it; I wasn't ashamed of blushing
—if anything, I wanted him to notice it, would have liked nothing more than for him to discover my feelings and then not mind them—but feeling myself blush made me realize all too clearly that nothing could help me now, that regardless of what I'd say or do, he'd slip through my fingers again and I'd be left with nothing but another unclarified moment, which he couldn't understand, and with my futile fantasies; but if that's the case, I suddenly thought, then I must be true to my convictions and act sensibly and cruelly, although this alternative would bring me close to my father and mother, even if I didn't actually think of them at the moment, because much as I would have liked to have my own convictions, I knew they weren't all mine; still, at the same time, the situation was much too unique and personal for my parents' faces or bodies to appear in my mind's eye and whisper in my ear specific words that I could then go on confidently repeating, like a parrot, but they were there all right, with the warm persistence of feeling at home, hiding out in my thoughts, ready to jump in; that's how I knew that there was a form of human behavior capable of eliminating emotional considerations and acting purely on the basis of principles known as convictions—except that I didn't have the strength to stifle my emotions.