Parallel Stories: A Novel (122 page)

He was always lugging Mohács around with him.

At best he should try to find the key to his slowness and lagging; he realized that being a slow laggard might have advantages in a foreign setting, but to benefit he had to enjoy the perennial loser in himself. To learn to love Mohács’s destructive decadence. But he felt mainly indifference toward himself, and the same toward the abandoned city. He could not learn to love a place within himself where his last panic-stricken compatriot had been lost centuries before. He could not love the river’s wild maelstroms and great floods, which swallowed and carried away any person just as they would a helpless object. Although, on this last, perhaps very last summer in Mohács, despite the mental anguish and irritating technical dissatisfaction he had managed to deal very economically with historical and personal time, as well as with asceticism and decadence.

He had to create fifteen pieces of furniture during a few stolen weeks.

He stole the time from himself, who else. He shouldn’t be frittering it away; he could have followed Mies van der Rohe to America.
*

But with the saturated sleepers he was very lucky, inexplicably lucky. The mysterious saturant had an unpleasant odor reminiscent of valerian, but it left no visible trace or stain and lent a deep-purple tone and a most exceptionally silky surface to the wood. While masons and roofers were busy inside and out with the Buda building on Dobsinai Road, he could make good progress in Mohács, working on the deep-purple silky-surfaced furniture for Mrs. Szemz
ő
’s clinic. Of course, they had barely delivered the sleepers from Gottlieb’s about-to-be-liberated lumberyard when Madzar discovered that it was going to be harder to take possession of his father’s abandoned workshop than he had thought. During the long years when the workshop was closed, woodbine had crawled into the roof space between the tiles and the gaps in the roof timbers and cracks in the corbels, across the splits in the adobe, looking for openings in the roof beams and planks, and it descended from the ceiling like a curtain. It was lovely, striking, and not hard to remove, but its tendrils had dangerously invaded the walls, the tool shelves, parts of the machines, and with its adhesive pads was grasping objects from all sides. He couldn’t just go at it, yanking it off, with impunity; tools, boxes, and shelves then went flying and crashing in all directions, screws and nails scattered everywhere.

At the same time, he didn’t want to rush anything. Which meant that he had completed only three important pieces by late autumn, virtually minutes before his departure.

After that he had time only to put the objects in their designated locations and call for the photographer.

It was better that way, because he and Mrs. Szemz
ő
had no time for a sentimental farewell.

Which only increased their mutual admiration.

They’d never see each other again, how fortunate, they thought, looking into each other’s eyes, and thus they managed to glide through their relationship unscathed, almost.

But in that early April heat, Madzar began his work on the chairs and armchairs. Soon the weather turned cool again, it rained a lot, and occasionally he had to light a fire in the potbelly stove. For him this was the greatest excitement and pleasure, the chairs. He hardly ever listened to news on the radio or picked up a local newspaper, for he didn’t want disturbing news to interfere with his work. Sometimes, information about what was happening around him reached him days after an event. He thought of the Germans’ strategic ideas as a material form or structure. To stupefy the unsuspecting world with revisionist demands, as if peaceful solutions still had a chance. War was imminent. And he did not need Bellardi to convince him of the dangers in German expansionism.
*
In his aesthetic struggle against decorative decadence, he kept a modicum of indifference about the threatening events. And he went on being annoyed by the nonsense he had heard from Bellardi. He could not get out of his head the childish drivel a spoiled aristocrat like him could come up with. Having seen Bellardi’s childishness, Madzar appreciated all the more the simple yet unusually speculative mechanism of Mrs. Szemz
ő
’s thinking. What disgusted him most was Bellardi’s dramatically conceived patriotic sense of responsibility, which no matter from what angle he looked was nothing but empty self-complacency and self-indulgence, just like Tonio Kröger’s many sentiments. He learned two days after the fact that Prague was next to fall, Vienna having been first, though the Czechs were defending themselves, their army’s motorized units were concentrating on their borders with Hungary and Germany. Or perhaps this too was nothing but provocation. While he worked, the thought that he should start packing was always with him, and he could see himself catching the last ship out of Genoa.

For a few days he followed the news persistently and even bought the miserable local papers.

He tried not to think about Mrs. Szemz
ő
while he worked, because he wanted to forget he was making these objects for her. Interestingly enough, the chairs were going to be heavier than they looked. He had to be careful not to make this work into a confession of love. He would have found that ridiculous. He was making the furniture out of military sleepers that were supposed to have been used in the war effort. He tried to be amused by this devilish twist of fate but couldn’t be; the coincidence that had brought the wood to him seemed too ominous. Secretly he hoped that Bellardi would stand by his promise and show up unexpectedly for the answer to his question.

It was a matter of just millimeters; there was practically nothing more to simplify in the chairs. Compared to Rietveld, he could at best change some of the proportions, giving greater emphasis to the texture of the material, but the material itself produced that. The emphasis was even stronger than Rietveld’s, and only Madzar knew it was nothing but pure luck.

He was particularly proud of this success of his, which seemed so improbable.

But he did torture himself with waiting for the unexpected.

Or was tortured by the rediscovery that Bellardi existed, that he still loved him, that he loved him despite all his ridiculousness.

But think how well you’ve been getting along without him.

It was not only the obligation he felt toward Mrs. Szemz
ő
that held him back from packing and leaving. This was a dangerous place. Dangerous things came to mind concerning Bellardi or, rather, because of Bellardi he mulled over sweet, desirable old issues that in no circumstance did he want to recall. At least while he was thinking about Bellardi he didn’t have to think about Mrs. Szemz
ő
; he could not help waiting for him. Or he wanted to forget the things he couldn’t help thinking about without connecting them to Bellardi. When he went to Buda to check up on the work on Orbán Mountain and to look in on the cabinetmaker on Szív Street who was working on the interior furnishings, he took the train to be sure not to meet him. He contacted Mrs. Szemz
ő
exclusively by telephone, emphasizing that he had to return to his workshop because after all he was laboring diligently on furniture for her clinic. But he did not dare tell himself that the work was more important than she was, and in addition Mrs. Szemz
ő
spoke to him very reservedly.

Which caused him immeasurable pain.

It was always because of Bellardi that he hastened to return to Mohács, and he had neither reason for nor the right to such pain.

He worried that Bellardi might be looking for him in Mohács and that they might miss each other, perhaps for life. He wanted to avoid the woman, and used the furniture as his excuse, but he also didn’t want to miss Bellardi.

Sometimes, when he was listening to the news, he caught himself not paying attention. How can he hear what they’re saying on the damned radio when his mother is so passionately chopping parsley.

Stop for a moment, Mother.

Can’t you see I’m trying to listen to the radio.

After a while, he could not but notice that his irritation was unreasonable. Every incidental noise bothered him. One can’t say that noise bothered him in his work but, rather, in that intimate process, that inner monologue of his open to both past and future that had become integral to his work. And the sharp shrieking of the riverside swallows brought Mrs. Szemz
ő
so close that, no matter how hard he tried to distract himself with thoughts of Bellardi, he was always thinking about her to a small degree. As if in his imagination Mrs. Szemz
ő
had to be the one to strike Bellardi dead and, if this was impossible because of the swallows, then the other way around.

Slowly, summer came into full bloom, and soon he realized that the birds were indeed swallows and that the days were becoming hotter.

Because of a third person, not to think of the person he was thinking about. How lovely it would be to go for a walk with Mrs. Szemz
ő
along the river, among the shrieking swallows. And he decided—in order to bring about some quiet within himself after being buffeted by these two—to bow to Bellardi’s request and not oppose him. And he will not yield to Mrs. Szemz
ő
’s attraction, that won’t do, it’s quiet just working for her. After all, the reason he imagines there might be something between him and Mrs. Szemz
ő
is so as to forget that poor woman in Rotterdam who stayed with her husband, or rather, to forget the husband, about whom he knew everything, which proved to be too much. He did not want more knowledge now, especially not of another man. And, being human, he did forget the husband, though the woman would not leave his limbs, his hair, the taste buds of his tongue and palate. He had no time to get mixed up in new adventures just to forget her.

He should stop stealing time from himself.

There will be plenty of Jewish women in America.

But to Bellardi he would say yes quickly, this he did decide, he would surprise him with a quick and decisive yes.

He could no longer stay here, if only because of Bellardi’s stupid plans with that secret society.

I’ve thought it over, I’ve changed my mind, he’d tell him.

He wouldn’t let them draw him into anything, of course, that’s out of the question, but this is what he’d say, this is how he’d solve the problem, with a manly yes. Nothing was farther from him than the cause of Hungarians and these childish things, these little conspiracies. But he understood that the undertaking did have a logic to it; it wouldn’t be hard to pretend to accept it. He’d do exactly what Bellardi would in a similar situation: wrap his reservations in inquisitive questions, show enthusiasm and admiration for the cause, then wait and listen, under no circumstance argue with anyone, and thereby hold all the strings in his own hand.

Hungarians never make decisions about anything; instinctively, he too wanted to avoid that.

He didn’t want to lose Bellardi’s goodwill, though he could not tell why he needed it. Or even if there was some mysterious need in their relationship, with ancient history behind it, like having been bound together by something from before their births or possibly by the dazzle of their shared childhood, he still couldn’t tell, though he couldn’t deny it either. But even so what benefit did he derive from it.

As though friendship’s temperature were measured in units of utility.

Why would he need such a wretched man, what have I to do with such a high-class fraud.

First, he had to cut everything down to size, but that made so much noise it was hard to think about certain persons. He made the necessary drawings in an oversize English sketchbook. He enjoyed drawing and while doing it he worked out every detail of all the possible answers he might give to Bellardi. Now and then he caught himself making his sketches unpleasantly violent because of his thoughts. Violence stared back at him. The simplest way to reject Bellardi’s suggestion would be to show enthusiastic interest in it. Sexual violence, said his sketches. Several times he also drew his mother as she stood in the workshop door, leaning on the doorpost, her white kerchief tied behind her head.

She liked standing around, in the noise of chiseling.

When I was in the store today, I heard the Gottliebs went to America.

To where, who, Madzar shouted back across the noise; the news so surprised him he could not comprehend it.

While drawing, he’d chisel smooth for himself the appearances he wished to maintain in Bellardi’s and Mrs. Szemz
ő
’s company, and, for this effort to succeed, he violently tore the violent sketches from his book and crumpled them.

He will take with him to America one sketch of his mother.

And he will transfer his money to another bank.

For that, he will have to go to the capital again.

But he won’t risk it now because if Bellardi hasn’t come for the answer by now, he must surely come any minute. He made a few drawings of him from memory, full-figure drawings, but he tore them up and, finding that inadequate, burned them, though he wanted to turn his image into sketches of attractive nude boys. Each time he burned a drawing, he had to make a new full-figure sketch as a basis for future drawings—until he had another fit and burned them all again.

Consulting the schedule of the
Carolina
, Madzar figured out when Bellardi would be in Mohács.

He had so much figuring to do anyway, and these various calculations persisted in crossing and accompanying one another.

All right, he said, he didn’t come today, but he might come the day after tomorrow. It became almost unbearable to think that every third or fifth day Bellardi sailed by on the Danube, touching Mohács, but didn’t get off. He made his calculations because he did not want Bellardi to surprise him. Today he didn’t come, so now there’s a respite for a few hours. Thank God he’s not coming. He could not endure his former friend’s capriciousness and inconsistency. When every third or fifth day the critical hour arrived and the moment was approaching, the blood jolted in his head and he felt himself blushing in shame.