Parallel Stories: A Novel (24 page)

He let it go, let it fall back, showing off its weight and size, let it appear prettier, larger, and stronger than it was.

And while he was obviously offering up himself, or his services, or one really couldn’t tell what he was offering or to whom, it became clearly visible that he did not care about anyone, that he was alone in this entire universe.

His hands in parallel motion, he was working on various parts of his body, demonstrating that pleasure was determined by the sensitive pads of the fingers. He was like a butcher sampling his own flesh who could not have enough of the first-rate merchandise, and was offering it rather nervously because it was very perishable and he should mete it out as soon as possible and as much of it as possible, to anyone. Just then, the crouching white giant shoved something, maybe a camera, back into the red bag already stuffed with all kinds of odds and ends, towels and clothing. He sprang up as if launched by his own feet and at the same time let out a kind of war cry that sounded something like just you wait, you’ll be sorry, which made his friend with the delicate body look back at him from the water.

Döhring couldn’t understand why the people lying on the shore paid no attention to these two.

The shout reverberated a long time over the water.

Why was he the only Peeping Tom.

At the same time, the female athlete turned to her side on the pink towel, showing off her intrusively strong body and fiery red pubic hair. As though she hadn’t done any of this, she calmly closed her book, used both her hands to take off her glasses and place them on the book.

Because she has had enough, time’s come for action. She was obviously preparing to do something. Her eyes captured and held Döhring’s uncurbed glances, without grinning at him unpleasantly.

Döhring was sure she was a shot-putter; he could see her stretching herself long as she threw a discus or javelin. Maybe she’s a coach and the Ethiopian girl is a short-distance runner. It seemed as if he could clearly see the two women’s intertwined lives on the sports field.

Then he was rebuking himself, my God, where have I got to.

His whining stepmother talked like this. Döhring had to call her Mother and he did not hate her less or have less contempt for her than for his father.

No, he couldn’t possibly have anything to do with people like that.

And that sounded like a paternal prohibition.

No matter how much he hated them, he still talked to himself in their voices. But maybe the country boy who had lost his way was talking now, the one who didn’t know what to do with so many strangers around him, could not make sense of so many strange gestures and movements popping up everywhere, could not even understand his own impressions.

Yet it did not occur to him that he should get up and go somewhere else; nobody was forcing him to grumble or be upset.

To soothe his agitated conscience, he told himself that although he was seeing these peculiar beings, and all their terrible doings were clear to him, he was not one of them. He was merely observing them from a respectable distance, did nothing more than peep at them, and therefore his parents had nothing to worry about. He was behaving properly.

But peeping was also forbidden.

And suddenly he realized that his conscience was not his own.

He was enthralled by these naked people who pretended to be indifferent to one another. He was discovering a part of the world he had been familiar with for a long time, yet he did not reckon with its reality and proximity. At last he was being allowed to peek behind a familiar picture that purported to be compulsively innocent and harmless, where every gesture seemed crude, coarse, nay, disgusting; yet for now he had nothing with which to oppose these crude forces except his own pretenses. For the first time in his life, he discovered in himself the eternal, incurable, and hateful deceiver, whom he despised in his parents and because of whom he had harbored so much resentment against them that he could not even talk to them anymore.

Because of whom he had to escape, no matter how much it hurt not ever to have had a home, and not ever to have hoped to have one. And here he was now, sitting inside the painting, forced to face the dread of nothingness.

But this dread could not frighten him away from his indecent gaping; on the contrary, inside, he was jumping with joy.

At last here it was, he had found it, the world does have such an indecent place, and it must be his place too. This is where everybody brings their deceptions and this is where they show them to one another.

Take the white giant, for example, who whooshed down the slope like a storm, and what Döhring saw and experienced from that moment on contained not one whit of deception or pretense.

In a way this giant seemed to be a man from whose every pore oozed kindness, cheerfulness, and goodwill. As though he was in a constant state of embarrassment, would toy with anything he came upon, would feel he had to apologize continuously for his strength, yet being aware of all this wanted to play with this trait of his, make it into a plaything too.

As if he did not take himself quite seriously.

Not because he was bright or wise enough to fathom his own attributes, but because he was not evil. With his constant playfulness he blunted every unpleasant edge, softened every aggressive rigidity. His skin, covered with ruddy blond down, shone brightly on the green lawn. Döhring saw only his back, his enormous shoulders, thick nape, huge skull with reddish hair shorn to mere stubble, and his childlike profile flashing a few times.

It was hard to understand how so much innocence and tenderness had grown to this size, and why those bundles of muscles. It would have been easier to believe all sorts of infamy of his friend, who was vain and touchy.

The way he slapped the soles of his feet on the surface of the water was also like playing a game; he did not wade in, he did something between treading and stamping on the water. And the way he approached his friend from behind, his arms wide open and pouncing on him from behind like a predator, engulfing him and gobbling him up, that too was a game. Döhring would have liked to be the friend of this naked giant so much that he wouldn’t have minded forgetting about the Ethiopian girl. He imagined himself in the place of the brittle dark man as he vanished in his friend’s embrace.

He suddenly realized that the sportswoman had addressed him and was talking to him.

A not too loud female voice somehow reached him after a short delay.

The woman addressed him in a voice filled with empathy, asking him if he had hurt his leg badly.

He didn’t quite understand her question at first, and why or what she could possibly have to do with his injury.

It was as if she were exposing his feelings, his passionate longing for a friend, and deliberately taking his mind off them. He thought the intervention was improper, offensive, as if he were being accused of something. In the water, now, under the weight of a huge white animal, the light body of a shiny black animal was thrashing about. The female athlete spoke quickly, her voice was pleasant, and with her voice she moved closer to Döhring. In a way, she spoke forward in time; she knew why she was doing what she was doing and therefore did not have to bother separately with the words.

Döhring tried to remain courteous; he said it was still bleeding a little. It was all because of his clumsiness.

And to demonstrate how insignificant the whole matter was, he rolled his pants down to cover his ankle.

Of course, the movement could be interpreted as a rejection of the other person’s interest.

In the meantime the enormous arms literally folded, packed up, and tucked in the body of the floundering man, and both men seemed to enjoy their struggle.

He’s had injuries more serious than this one, Döhring said.

The rolled-up body flew quite a distance before it splash-landed like a helpless heavy sack, only to surface immediately like a big fish. Stretched to his full length, the enormous white giant hurled himself after the dark one, who dodged him cleverly and skipped about gracefully. Maybe the giant caught one of his feet, because they both sank below the water surface and their tussle continued there; for long seconds one could see only limbs, splashing hands, tops of heads, mouths gasping for air, and hear calls for help, laughter, and the sound of bubbles.

Then it would probably be better not to go into the water, she replied.

He thought so too, Döhring said politely. It wouldn’t be very smart.

They spoke in slightly raised voices; they had to overcome the distance between them and the riotous noises being made by the two men.

He should be careful, shouted the athlete, the water is not so clean at the end of the summer. A wound like that could easily become infected. Maybe he wasn’t aware of it, but these small lakes did not have proper runoff.

No, he had no intention of going into the water.

Well, that’s what she meant, that’s why she asked him about his injury, shouted the woman quickly and mysteriously.

But pardon me, replied Döhring, what exactly was she objecting to.

If you’ve no intention of going into the water, shouted back the woman cheerfully, what are you planning to do here, that’s what she was asking, nothing else. She would not want to express her personal opinion more directly than that.

Suddenly the splashing, plashing, flapping, shouting, and laughing came to a halt, and although in the ensuing silence Döhring heard well what the sportswoman was saying to him and in what tones, he felt drawn more to the water. Farther out, where the water was too deep for feet to touch bottom, two heads facing each other were floating on the surface. Moving neither toward nor away from each other, only their shoulders rising a little from time to time. They were treading water and holding each other with clasped arms.

Slowly, the water around them became smooth as a mirror. The cool water makes skin contract on the bones.

Their faces grew somber; they paid attention to nothing but each other.

They concentrated on keeping themselves afloat by treading evenly and looking for a chance to push the other under the water.

They both waited patiently, undisturbed, motionless, for the right moment.

Or perhaps this too was nothing more than that eternal pretending. And he still did not understand exactly what this athlete woman wanted from him. Yet he became frightened more by what he sensed and felt at the sight of the heads on the water’s surface; if this is what people do in public, maybe he would not want friends like this.

Above the floating heads, the sky was a saturated blue.

At this moment, Döhring indeed sensed his situation more correctly than he could think about it. He had to escape.

And while time was ticking by, because he could not tear himself away from them and he did not respond to the woman, the two heads moved closer together. With imperceptible slowness, they were approaching along each other’s arms. The two bare bodies would soon touch under the water. They kept treading steadily and evenly, but while earlier they had clasped only wrists, now they were grasping arms, making gradual progress to each other’s body, grabbing elbows and then the muscles of the upper arms, and the closer they moved to each other the harder they had to tread water. Then the dark man grasped the giant’s shoulder, while the giant caught his friend by the waist underwater; they both kept treading.

The giant said something, just a few words, and his friend answered him probably with the same words.

Döhring could delay no longer. He had to turn back because the woman was talking to him, somehow pronouncing the words
young man
very disparagingly.

The young man probably does not know, she shouted, that whether he goes into the water or not, here he shouldn’t be sitting around all dressed up.

That’s the kind of place this is. Besides, it’s posted too.

From the water, evenly receding strokes were heard because the friends must have begun to swim toward the other shore.

No, he really hadn’t seen the sign, answered Döhring, who made no move either to leave or to undress. He begged her pardon, he said; he was speaking to her but his features remained impassive.

No problem, the athlete shouted back; she said, as if rushing to his help with placating excuses, how could he have, when he had taken such a fall with his bicycle. It’s a good thing his injury wasn’t serious. But now it’s time to decide whether to stay or go, because he probably wouldn’t want to expose himself to the unpleasantness of being considered an intruding Peeping Tom.

While the two of them were shouting to each other, the Ethiopian girl awoke with a start.

If he were accused of something like that, Döhring called back to the woman, almost cheerfully, he would most vigorously protest.

They were so steeped in their altercation, each of them enjoying the dual militancy, that Döhring could not move from his spot and could not resist stealing stealthy glances at the awakening girl. As if to prove that though he knew he should be leaving, he was handing the sportswoman a touchy defeat. At first it seemed that an electric shock, a current, was coursing through the brown body; the sharp elbows trembled, as did the closed knees pulled up to the breasts, and small spasms traveled along each thin limb.

She sincerely hoped, shouted the sportswoman, they would not have to go that far.

From the water, even strokes could be heard; the two friends were swimming side by side in all likelihood.

He hoped so too, Döhring shouted back, grinning.

As if he were shouting, I’m through looking at your ugly red cunt, and now one last time, shamelessly, indecently, despite all your warnings, I shall take a good look at this girl’s, I don’t even know what, her everything, so that I won’t ever forget it.

And this was very important, because he was fond of images. Images followed him or, more correctly, he followed and cherished images within himself. His memory had a large secret archive in which he indiscriminately stored everything that touched him. The waking of the Ethiopian girl: no matter how much he would have liked to conjure up this image, however hard he insisted it reappear, within a few hours the image faded so much that regardless of where he might begin or on what he might concentrate, neither from her thin limbs nor from her sharp features could he make the total image come together again. Even though he could have described her every move individually and in detail. The way she withdrew her clasped hands from under her head, or slowly raised her eyes to take in the world, spread her arms and straightened her long legs, yawned so contentedly that for long seconds her limbs froze into motionlessness within the movement. Like a swelling coxcomb, the pitch-black, curly pubic hair slowly became erect. Her body was like an overstretched shiny bow. Even a natural shout issued from her yawn.