A Book of Memories

by Peter Nadas

  But she took her time answering; we were standing very close, facing each other, the silence was becoming too long, I felt like tearing the veil off her hat, just tearing it off, and tearing off the hat, too, that so annoyingly covered her face; I wanted to see her face, ascertain the reason for her unexpected visit, though I had a fairly good idea; or perhaps what I really wanted was to tear the clothes off her body, to stop her from being so ridiculously alien to me; but as my excitement was aroused further by seeing her whole body tremble, I simply couldn't make a move that might seem common or coarse, didn't dare touch that blasted hat, because I wanted to spare her; "I know, I know very well I shouldn't have done this," she whispered from behind her veil, and in our excitement we nearly brushed against each other, though both she and I made sure we didn't, "still, I couldn't make myself not come, it will take only a moment, my carriage is waiting downstairs, and I'd be so ashamed if I told you my true reason for coming! It's your eyes I wanted to see, Thomas, your eyes, and now that I've said it, I no longer feel ashamed; because last night, after you left, I couldn't remember your eyes; please don't turn away, and don't despise me for asking, do look at me; now I can see your eyes, good; all last night I couldn't remember them."

  "But you seemed to understand what I tried to tell you."

  "Oh, please, don't misunderstand me! I knew you would misunderstand. I don't want to hold you back. Go."

  "But now how could I?"

  "Now you will feel even better about going."

  "Why are you being so cruel to me?"

  "Let's not say anything, then."

  "You are driving me insane. I am madly in love with you, Helene, now more than ever before, which makes me feel I haven't loved you enough, but now, by saying what you've said, by coming here, you are driving me out of my mind, and I can't express myself; I am being ridiculous, but you should know that you are saving my life, though that's not why I love you; and I'd really like to destroy all my notes, rip up all my books."

  "Be quiet."

  "I can't be quiet, but I can't find anything to say, either. With my teeth I'll rip apart all my writing, all my papers."

  "All I wanted was to see your eyes and say your name, Thomas; I must always say your name; now that I have, I can go, and you should, too."

  "Don't go."

  "I must."

  "My dearest."

  "We must be reasonable."

  "I'd like to see your hair. Your neck. I'm going to sink my fingers into your hair, grab you by your hair and pull so hard you'll scream."

  "Do be quiet."

  "I'm going to kill you." And this last sentence, uttered as she whipped off her hat and veil, came out with such conviction that my voice, hoarse with excitement, actually deepened, for those words, said in total ecstasy, seemed to hit upon the secret wish, the well-concealed desire, the very emotion that until then I'd been unaware of yet did not seem so new, after all; it was as if I had felt this wish all along, that and nothing else, as if all my endeavors had been fueled by the desire to kill her, and for this reason the sentence itself, and the emphasis I'd given it, sounded startlingly honest; though coming from me—especially since I who, let's not mince words, was the son of a murderer, a common ravisher—the sentence could not have sounded entirely innocuous, could not have been considered an empty phrase of love, at least not by me, for after a long and troublesome period of my life, I had experienced for the first time, in my own fingers, the urge that would explain to me Father's hitherto inexplicable and abhorrent deed; yes, it was like a new insight, unexpected and none too pleasant, felt for a mere fraction of a second, during which I could almost step outside myself and contemplate my own profoundest desires, which were similar to what Father in his time had acted on; this was like the shattering discovery that a tree's roots exposed to the light of day reflect the impressive shape of its leafy crown; at this moment I was very much in love with the creature standing before me and trembling helplessly; I felt I was quite beyond those carnal desires that entice our loftier sentiments with the promise of temporary gratification, or, I should say, I thought I was beyond them, if only because in the circumstances, until our wedding day, I knew I was not even to think about such things, I was to put them out of my mind, but just the same, I would have loved to wrap my fingers around her neck and tighten them until I squeezed every last breath out of this long-admired neck.

  Except that in that sentence she could not discern her fate—just as Mother could not discern hers on that certain afternoon long ago—and therefore did not think she ought to take seriously what was in fact serious; if anything, the earnest resolve Helene may have sensed in my voice only served to intensify her fervor: "Here I am, take me," she whispered in reply, and laughed; and it was like seeing her for the first time, her lips were so full and moist and ripe; "You dirty little slut," I whispered back into her mouth, before touching it with my tongue; I was somewhat bothered by not having performed my morning toilette, I hadn't even rinsed my mouth, but I kept it up: "You little bitch, you whore, you dare talk like this before our wedding?" and I laughed with her, too, for these words, uttered not quite involuntarily, did not seem to surprise or scandalize her, and though my breath may have been unpleasant, it proved to be another source of pleasure, she now fully opened her mouth into mine, and I derived not just physical pleasure but a terrific mental satisfaction from hearing these coarse words, as if I were stepping over my father's body, daring to say out loud what he had so tragically suppressed.

  It was such a joy, certainly one of the greatest joys I have ever experienced, for though I was grasping her neck with both hands (when and how they got there I couldn't tell), the fear, feeding on uncanny resemblances and echoes, as well as hate and anger implicit in our relationship, which induced so much shame and guilt and prevented me from enjoying the moment at hand, always reminding me of something old and familiar—all these feelings simply vanished, disappeared without a trace; I wanted simply to devour that lovely mouth and have that mouth engulf my body with its kisses. I did not dare hold her tight, because my light robe and silk pajamas would not keep down my powerful erection; my hands became an instrument of tenderness whose sole aim was to nestle her head in the gentlest, most comfortable position possible; her mouth transformed the force of my hatred into that of possession; fingers no longer wanted to squeeze and choke but to raise up, to make it easy for her to kiss and to explore with her tongue; though my consciousness tried to maintain control over itself, I couldn't say just when I closed my eyes or when she wrapped her arms around my neck, as if two dark orbs were flowing, sliding wetly into each other; still, a vestige of fear ran through me, attributable perhaps more to jealousy, since I didn't understand how she could kiss like an experienced lover, and at the same time I sensed that this was not experience at all but what she was giving me was the purest of instincts, and her purity affected me more than any experience possibly could; I was the one who, relying on my experience in love, wouldn't allow myself to yield to her fully; cunningly, and with a certain superiority, I merely tolerated her explorations and advances without really kissing her back; by unexpectedly and deliberately delaying my responses, by surprising her lips and her teeth with the tip of my tongue, or by actually obstructing the path of her tongue, I was enjoying her confusion and arousing further her desire for us to merge into one; what I really wanted was for her to abandon the last retreats of her modesty and shame and be totally at my mercy, which we both needed then—all the more so because the sober part of my consciousness had to realize that neither of us could stop or delay the chain of events without some risk; we would have to cope with the lengthy, intricate act of undressing, which would require all the reserves of skill and delicacy I still possessed, and the embarrassment of fumbling with buttons and strings and hooks would become a delicious new source of pleasure, a titillating memory only later, after the two naked bodies had already become one.

  I may have planned out my every move, skillfully, sensibly, bu
t there came a moment when I lost all my good sense, and now that I'm long past such matters and try to recall the events of that sunny morning with the detachment of an analyst observing his own activities, I realize that at this very juncture I run into the impassable barriers to free expression and have to crack that stone wall with my skull; and it's by no means modesty alone, obligatory and thus in many ways quite laughable, that makes my undertaking questionable: though it's not easy to call by their name the things that in daily life have their overused and hackneyed appellations, these words, denoting certain organs, functions, and motions, for all their spicy, down-to-earth vitality and expressiveness, cannot be used to describe my experiences, and not because I'd be afraid to transgress against bourgeois propriety—I couldn't care less about that; my task here is to give an account of my life, and middle-class decorum can be only the framework for such a life; if for this final reckoning I wish to chart as precisely as possible the map of my life's emotional events, then I should be able to spread out before me my own body, and no amount of squeamishness should hold me back from scrutinizing it in all its nakedness, just as it would be ludicrous to tell the coroner not to remove the sheet covering the body on his table; in other words, I should be able to remove my robe and pajamas and her fussily beautiful dress here and now, just as I did then and there, while naming every gesture and emotion in the process; but after some reflection, I must say that to use common words to describe the so-called immodest parts of the body—and, since we are talking about a living body and its quite natural functions—would be as ridiculous and false as it would be to change the subject politely; to demonstrate the true dimensions of the problem and the difficulty of finding a solution, if I were to ask myself the question as a kind of test: "So tell me, my dear, on that sunny morning, did you finally fuck your fiancée?" I could answer in the affirmative, but that would be no less a deceptive oversimplification or generalization as it would be to say nothing, because this word of affirmation would help to gloss over crucial details, just as silence would; yet narcissistic curiosity, interested only in details concealed and deemed unworthy of attention, finds it difficult to form a clear picture of its object, which is itself, because the body loses self-awareness precisely at those moments when it could be most revealing; consequently, memory cannot retain what the body had not been aware of, allowing crucial gestures to slip away, though it also endows them with a very special air, as the memory of a fainting spell can preserve only the curious sensations of losing and then regaining consciousness while the fainting itself, most intriguing to us, for it's a state like no other, remains inaccessible, unknowable.

  Helene simply enclosed my lips with a bite, and this final decisive act, the only possible response to my little game of studied aloofness, luckily blurred the last sober bit of my consciousness, or so I believe now, after the fact, yes, I believe that the pain caused by this bite was the last sensation whose meaning and significance I could still register with some clarity, and which later enabled me to slip into a now barely remembered state of oblivion, for not only had her mouth abandoned all shyness and reticence by then, it also let me know in no uncertain terms that she wanted me, all of me, and would stand for no more delay or fuss, so it made no sense for me to play the seducer highly skilled in the techniques of love; she wanted me just as I was, she clung to me and would have me forget how I thought I should behave, all she wanted was to press her hips to mine, and not even the formidable layers of lace and silk undergarments could prevent us from feeling each other's body heat— although that, while making me very happy, strangely enough also aroused in me a feeling of humiliation, for by seeming to take control of our fate and by proving that my tongue's predictably unpredictable games were clumsy experiments compared to the eloquent testimony of her teeth, she may have cast doubt on my manhood or anyway deliberately offended my male vanity; as if exchanging roles, she became manfully aggressive, which of course I enjoyed very much, though in light of her decisiveness I appeared to myself as girlishly teasing and flirtatious and thus had to overpower her; my instincts, my conditioning refused to accept the exchange, and perhaps the deeply unconscious motive behind that bite was to arouse in me this wish to reassert myself; even my hatred returned, I felt like snatching her off me as one tears leeches off one's body; I grabbed her hair, the soft material of her dress, maybe even grazed her skin, and with a single jerk of my head I withdrew my mouth from hers; reaching lower with my hand, I grasped her buttocks and thrust her groin brutally against mine, letting her know in the most indelicate possible manner what I had been concealing in my pajama pants, under my robe; with lips and teeth, with bites of my own, I was now ready to take possession of her mouth, pushing in my tongue unimpeded, to which she responded, already on the floor, most tenderly, with even hand strokes and caresses of her tongue—I have no idea how we ended up on the floor, for by then I seemed to have lost the thread of our story, and perhaps this is the juncture after which only her gestures, features, the taste of her saliva, the smell of her perspiration, and the look of her fluttering eyelids allow me to surmise what might have happened to me.

  She was lying on her back on the bare floor and I, propped on one elbow and bent over her, watched her closed eyelids, her almost motionless face, while my body was racked by deep, inexplicable, tearless sobs.

  I sank my free hand into the red hair spread out before me, and almost as if the hand wanted to remind itself of that old, that very old promise, I began to pull her hair, actually pulling her closer to me by the hair; her face slid almost lifelessly on the floor.

  This sobbing was like the memory of a childhood sickness, torrid, shivery, blurred, and it was as if we had been in the deepest of deep darkness and then stumbled upon a sunlit clearing, this room, where familiar yet strange-looking furniture stood silently about, and the heavy rug bunched up by our feet made a high mountain, and every wrinkle and pattern on the wallpaper remained unbearably still; this glaring, empty sight irritated me so much that I had to lay my head on her chest, carefully of course, it was the first time I'd touched her body; I had to close my eyes so that, feeling my own hot breath in the white ruffles of her dress already burning with her body heat, my tremulous sobs could take me back to the darkness from which I had been torn by this silence.

  But she seemed to ignore my crying, made no attempt to console me— maybe I killed her, I thought then.

  Among the ruffles and lace my lips eventually found her neck, and then I had to open my eyes again; I treasure even now the color of her skin and the smoothness that my mouth and tongue could also feel, for the silence in us might have been very deep, but my mouth, like a foreign body, like a slowly advancing snail, wanted to taste everything it had been forced to abstain from until then; that's why I had to open my eyes again, for though I could take in the sensation of her skin, it might be of some help if I could also see what I had so fervently desired and yet could not make my own, even if this would not compensate for the lost moments.

  "I'd like to tell you something," I heard her whisper, and with my mouth I began to move toward her lips, to make her not say but breathe her words into me; I was in no hurry—with my teeth I first caught her sweet, pointed chin, so nice to hold, so firm I could easily bite into it and, like a dog offered a finer bone than the one already in its mouth, I was terribly confused by the choices before me, but her mouth was waiting, and that decided my course of action, though by then my eyes must have closed again, because all I remember is that I got a whiff of her breath along with her words: "Please undress me."

  In the meantime, we had left my sobs somewhere behind; again something was lost forever.

  Her voice must have brought me back to my senses, things began to clear, because I remember being amazed, not at what she had asked me to do but at her voice; she uttered those words so naturally—those words being the extent of her consolation—that I couldn't imagine her asking me to do anything else. Still, this voice wasn't the voice of a grown woman; it w
as as if unwittingly she had regressed to a time whose allure I'd also felt while sobbing just moments earlier, and by doing that she seemed to be making me a gift of that unknown time, wrenched from her own past, the same gift I had offered to her with my own, childlike tears. Thus, it wasn't amazement I felt at that moment, or not only amazement but wonderment, and admiration for her little-girl state, for the sublime quality inherent in our nature that enables one human being to bestow on another an experience rooted in times long gone.

  And this odd, childlike, timelessly deep and lightsome state, unique perhaps because we had become vehicles of the tension between an indistinct past and an uncertain future, not only held us in its grace while we rather ceremoniously undressed each other but extended its spell—deepened by the gestures of mutual intimacy and trust—to the time when, half-lying, half-sitting among the ridiculous piles of our scattered clothes, we finally laid eyes on each other's naked body.

  I was looking at her, but at the same time I also stole cautious, stealthy glances at myself, noting with some stupefaction what I had already felt quite clearly, namely that my member, so firm and rigid in its demand for a place of its own only moments before, was now shrunk to its smallest size and was lying on my thigh with infantine disinterest; though I tried hard to steal a glance at my body, she noticed the furtive look, for unlike me, she held her torso and head quite erect and stared at nothing but my eyes, as if trying consciously to avoid having to look at her body or at mine; we were holding each other's hand, and I had the feeling it wasn't her girlish modesty that made her so shy; she was trying, as I had done while undressing her, not to be distracted by details: when I undid the hooks concealed in the lace-trimmed folds in the back of her dress, loosened the strings of her corset, pulled off her pearl-studded, fine leather shoes and pink knickers decorated with tiny bows, and her cleverly fastened long silk stockings, when, in brief, concentrating on those little hooks and buttons and strings and knots, I purposely refrained from taking in piecemeal the hitherto unknown regions of her body unfolding before me, for I wanted it in its entirety, to contemplate her whole body undisturbed; yet now, when all her naked body was revealed to me, it seemed too much for my eyes to encompass, too beautiful to absorb; I had to look everywhere, everywhere at once, and at the same time I would have liked my eyes to rest on one particular part of her, to find a single place on her body that might be unique; and perhaps she was right (if one may speak in terms of right and wrong in such a case) in looking only at my eyes, for as sentimental as this may sound, there was more complete nakedness reflected in her beclouded blue eyes than her skin was able to offer; and that is as it should be, since the shapes and curves of the body, under the even coating of our skin, can communicate to us something of themselves only through the language of the eyes.