A Book of Memories

by Peter Nadas

  I ran after her.

  Instead of heading for the wide staircase leading to the park, as one might have expected, she ran in the opposite direction, stopping at the door of the Fräulein's suite.

  Candles were burning within, and their lambent light reached our feet.

  The sensation that I was standing on my feet had never been so acute.

  Nor the feeling that not only my eyes but my whole body was there only to absorb the sight before me.

  I cannot honestly say that I didn't know what it all meant, but neither can I claim that I did.

  Because a child doesn't merely have knowledge of what ought to take place at such moments but, shocking though it may be to admit it, may have already experienced it, when squeezing pleasure out of his own flesh; nevertheless, what I was seeing came as such a surprise I am not sure I could comprehend it.

  Here the spectacle was created by two strange bodies.

  Their nakedness gleamed on the bare floor.

  With pieces of white garments strewn all about them, the Fräulein seemed somehow to be lying on her side, her knees drawn up almost to her breasts, her body bending into itself, turning her formidably ample buttocks to Father; seeing them in retrospect, with experienced eyes, those buttocks seem extremely beautiful and "turning to" a most inadequate phrase; she was proffering, tendering, serving up her buttocks to Father, while he more or less squatted, knelt above her, one hand frantically clutching her loose dark hair, as he slammed against her, the convex hollow of his loins thrusting in, clinging to, then retracting from the concave double bulge of her behind; he was inside the perfectly enclosed body, able to ravage it freely, powerfully, yet most exquisitely; today I know how that is—in this position not only can one's member slip to the deepest or, I should say, highest reaches, but the sensitized foreskin, the bulbous glans, the bulging blood vessels, while rubbing against the stiffened clitoris and caressing the vulva, can swab and scrub the tight yet slippery cave of the vagina, making the erection so tumescent, so throbbing, that the organ, having reached the mouth of the womb, the last obstacle, can fill the hollow so fully, so perfectly, that one can no longer tell what is ours and what is hers; in this odd position, therefore, violent entry and tender lovemaking can merge and become one; could anyone wish for pleasure more intense? but on that occasion all I could see was that Father's spine was bending sharply, his buttocks spread almost as if he were about to defecate, and he was supporting himself with his free hand: in the moments of rhythmic disengagement his enormous, slightly updrawn testicles became visible, and then he would lunge again, covering completely the spot that induced such bubbling pleasure in both of them; the Fräulein squealed in a piercing, high-pitched voice while Father's mouth opened—and this frightened me because, as if unable to close it, he let out a deep rattle, the tip of his tongue stuck out, and his wide-open eyes stared into space, but of course I couldn't connect the shriek and the rattle to the carnal delight I was witnessing, because when Father reached the highest point of penetration, when he seemed to find his place at last, he froze, and his whole body, covered with thick patches of black hair, was shaken by an uncontrollable and insatiable trembling; still holding her by the hair, he kept raising and banging her head against the floor, and though this produced in her the most pleasurable shrieks, she also began squirming underneath him, as if trying to escape, so that dropping back from his climax, Father's loins resumed their gentle but firm thrusts, which she greeted with softer, more intimate squeals; then Father yanked her head up and knocked it against the floor with a resounding bang.

  If at this moment my enjoyment proved far greater than my surprise, if, forgetting Mother's presence, I focused all my senses on this spectacle and even considered myself fortunate to be witnessing it, it was not a child's openmouthed curiosity that was responsible, or the undeniable fact that I was already privy to such secrets, thanks to Count Stollberg, my playmate at Heiligendamm, a boy just a few years my senior; the truth is that many different, hitherto buried desires, cruel impulses, and inclinations had to clash together into some harmony, as if exposing me, as if the Fräulein, with her squeals of delight, had caught me in the act! and what I saw became an illumination of the senses, a revelation that had to do not only with me or with an abstract knowledge of the act or even with my playmate, whom I came across in the swampy reed bed one day, spread out on the soft soil, playing with himself, or even that much to do with Father, but directly with the object of my admiration and affection: Fräulein Wohlgast.

  Could it be that those nocturnal escapades had had consequences, after all? those many nights when on our shared terrace I wanted to be alone but was nevertheless happy to find her and have her draw me to her body redolent with the warmth of her bed and of her restlessness?

  Beauty radiated from her body, even though this beauty lay not in the shapeliness of her form and not in the regularity of her features but in her flesh, one might say, in the hot exhalation of her skin, even though in purely aesthetic terms she obviously did not measure up to an abstract ideal; her attraction proved stronger than that exercised by so-called perfect beauties: how lucky it is that we trust our fingers more than we do some insipid aesthetics; I hasten to add that even Mother had not escaped the Fräulein's confusingly profound influence and though always willing to accept tiresome rules, in this case Mother also chose to trust her own judgment; she was quite enamored of the Fräulein, indeed idolized her, even fantasized about being as intimate friends with her as Father was with Frick, and was affected by many of the Fräulein's physical features— the sparkling, impertinent brown eyes, the gleaming, darkly Mediterranean, almost Gypsy-like complexion, with skin taut over wide cheekbones, the tiny quivering nostrils, and the full cherry lips that looked as if a ritual sword had split them in half not just horizontally but vertically as well— was stimulated, galvanized in her company, and in spite of Father's frequent and somewhat teasing warning, "The Fräulein is quite common, really," she put up with her loudness, closed her eyes to her uncouth lack of refinement, and did not seem bothered by the limited intellect whose physical manifestation may have been the low, flat brow which the Fräulein not only failed to offset with a measure of self-discipline but added to with her licentiousness; the body lying on the floor I also knew well— the small, hard, pointed breasts and the waist, which her cleverly cut dresses made seem much slenderer than it was, and the voluptuous hips, which those same dresses tended to overemphasize—I knew this body well, because on those nights, when driven by insomnia and restlessness she appeared on the terrace and embraced me maternally, with an exaggerated tenderness I now know was meant for Father, I came to be familiar with it, precisely in its disproportionate and unconcealed perfection; she didn't bother with a robe then, and the sheer silk of her nightgown conveyed everything unhindered, I could even feel her soft bush below whenever my hand strayed there, as if by accident, and I could inhale the heavy fragrance in which I sank and sank.

  Thus far, and no farther!

  Propriety and good taste demand that we pause now in our recollections.

  Because Mother, emitting what sounded like a moan, collapsed in a faint.

  Girls

  The garden was huge, like a park, shady, mildly fragrant in the warm summer air; pungent smell of pines, their resin dripping from green cones that snap quietly as they grow; firm rosebuds resplendent in red, yellow, white, and pink hues; and yes, a single, ruffled, and slightly singed petal that could open no further, now almost ready to fall; and the tall, rearing lilies with their wasp-enticing nectar; violet, maroon, and blue cups of petunias fluttering in the slightest breeze; long-stemmed snapdragons swaying more indolently in the wind; and along the footpaths, great patches of foxgloves luxuriating in the flaming brilliance of their own colors; opalescent shimmer of dewy grass in the morning sun; clusters of thick shrubbery arranged in rows—elder- and spindleberry bushes, lilacs, intoxicatingly sweet hyacinths, and, in the deepening shadows, under the forsythias, hawthorn a
nd hazel bushes, the damp rot in which green ivy runs riot, exuding a sour-sweet odor, tendrils and shoots creeping over fences and walls, wrapping around tree trunks, fine clinging roots covering everything in sight in the effort to protect and propagate the mildewy decay on which ivy feeds and which it keeps producing; it's easy to see this plant as a symbol of life: in its dank profusion it consumes twigs, branches, grass, everything, then every autumn lets itself be buried in a red grave of fallen leaves, only to revive again in the spring, rearing its waxen head, navigating atop long, hardy stems; green lizards and pale brown snakes once used to enjoy the cool shade here, and fat black slugs traced their convoluted paths with their ooze, which turns white when dry and cracks when touched; when I think of this garden today, I know there is nothing left of it, they cleared the shrubbery, cut down most of the trees, tore down the gazebo with its green trellis and pink rambling roses, carried off the rock garden, putting the stones to some other use and destroying the vegetation in it: the ferns, the stonecrop, the blue and yellow irises; the lawn went to seed and is now burned out in spots; the white garden chairs probably rotted away and fell apart; the stone statue of Pan blowing his pipe, porous with age, that stayed lying on its side in the grass after a storm knocked it off its pedestal may have been thrown into somebody's basement, and even the pedestal disappeared; the plaster ornaments on the façade of the main house, the openmouthed goddesses rising out of seashells over the windows and the decorative scrolls of the fake Grecian columns were all knocked down and the glass veranda walled in; and during one of the reconstructions they even tore the creeping vine off the walls, the favored haunt of ants, beetles, and other insects; but no matter how much I know about all these changes, and know this garden now lives only in my memory, I can still sense every leaf stirring in it, every smell, every ray of light, the direction of every breeze, know them as well as I did then, long ago, and if I wish, it's summer again, a silent summer afternoon.

  And there stands the boy I once was, slight, fragile, not ill-proportioned, even if he feels clumsy and ugly and is therefore reluctant to undress completely even in the summer heat; if he can help it, he won't take off even his shirt and will certainly keep on his undershirt, and prefers to wear long pants even in summer, would rather sweat though he finds the strong smell of perspiration repellent; today, of course, we smile at all this and note sadly that we are never fully aware of our own beauty, which can be appreciated only by others, and we can do so only nostalgically, in retrospect.

  There I am, then, standing on the sloping garden path, and it's one of those rare moments when I'm not preoccupied with myself or, more precisely, am so taken up with anticipation that I myself have become an actor in a scene that follows an unknown script, and for a change, I don't even mind not having my shirt and trousers on, and stand here in only my blue shorts so faded from repeated washings they are almost white; I disregard all that, even though I know she'll soon be here.

  I am simply there, along with the garden, the street, and the woods beyond the street; I am holding a large slice of bread smeared thick with lard and covered with slices of green pepper. I cut up the pepper myself, careful to leave the veins that make the pepper hot attached to the stem. When I lift the bread to my mouth, ready to bite, I have to press down on the strips of pepper to make sure they don't slip off—of course they always do—but not too hard, or else I squeeze the fat off the bread and get it all over my face.

  The sky has turned hazy gray from the heat, the sun is beating down, it may be the hottest hour of the day, not even insects bother to stir, yet on my skin, still moist from sleep, I seem to sense a breeze, very gentle and cool, that blows nowhere else but on this steep footpath.

  The lizards have disappeared, the birds are silent.

  The garden path leads to an ornate wrought-iron gate leaning against carved stone pillars, past which, on the street, fine shadows are quivering, and beyond them begins the dense woods where the cooler breeze seems to be coming from; I stand there in a daze, enjoying the breeze playfully tickling my skin, but I am also attentive and, let's be honest, aware that it is my self-esteem making me pretend I'm in a dazed, dreamlike state.

  If I weren't pretending, I'd have to admit that I have been waiting for her, just as I was waiting for her when in my comfortably darkened room I pretended to be deeply engrossed in my reading; waiting for her even as I fell asleep and waiting when startled out of sleep, waiting for hours, days, weeks, even in the kitchen when I was spreading lard on my slice of rye bread, cutting the pepper, and looking again and again at the loudly ticking alarm clock—I lost count of how many times I looked, as if by chance, glancing casually at the dial, hoping she would also look at her watch just then, at that very second, and get up and leave; she comes this way every day at this hour, at two-thirty, so it cannot be mere coincidence, but all the same, I cannot erase from my mind the terrifying thought that it's all a mistake, that she's not coming this way because of me, that it is only a coincidence, and that she passes by here only because she feels like it.

  A few more minutes and then I might start walking toward the fence as if I had some important business there; I give her a few more minutes, a half hour at most, long enough for her to feign indifference and decide to be late, just as I sometimes, to preserve the appearance of my independence, pretend I'm not standing behind the bushes, waiting; I try to ascertain how much time has elapsed, it could be little or much, although I always hope it's little and passing quickly, ever since that one time when she didn't show up at all and I waited until evening, I couldn't help it, kept waiting by the fence way past dark, but she didn't come, and since then I know how fathomless time can be when one is waiting, when one absolutely must wait.

  And then she appears.

  Like every moment we want to be significant, this one, too, turns out to be insignificant; we have to remind ourselves afterward that what we have been waiting for so eagerly is actually here, has finally come, and nothing has changed, everything is the same, it's simply here, the waiting is over.

  By then I found myself standing among the bushes close to the fence, not far from the gate; this was the place, my post, directly opposite the trail that curved gently, almost surreptitiously, out of the woods and onto the open road, concealed by dense shrubbery and the sagging branches of a giant linden tree, a road that was always empty at this hour, so if I stood guard here at the fence, I couldn't possibly miss her, and I did watch every second, my body cutting a passage in the bushes where I got to know every single twig and branch that kept snapping in my face, where I could follow her until I'd bump into the fence of the neighboring garden, and my gaze could follow her even farther, until the red and blue of her comically swaying skirt disappeared in the green woods, but that took a good long time; the only way she could surprise me was by not coming on the wood trail—and she did make sure that our silent game did not become too regular or predictable: sometimes she made a detour and came up the street, appearing on the left where the street suddenly begins to climb and then, just as sharply, dips, a roadway that had once been paved but by now formed an almost continuous crevice because of cracks and potholes caused by sudden freezes, but her trickery was to no avail, I heard her every time, for in that infinite silence, where beneath such irregular and accidental noises as the rustling of leaves, the twittering of birds, a barking dog, or an indefinable human cry, even the keenest, most sensitive ear had trouble making out the uniform murmur and buzz of the distant city, I was familiar with every last detail of both sound and silence, even with the subtle interplay of the two, a highly developed sensitivity to sound that in no small measure was due to my waiting for her; she might decide to come up the street, but she could not fool me, the crunch of her footsteps gave her away, it could be no one else, I knew those steps too well.

  That day she chose the wooded path after all. She stepped out onto the road and stopped. If my memory captures her image precisely, and I think it has, she was wearing a red skirt with
white polka dots and a white blouse, both of them heavily starched and ironed to a shine, so that the rigid fullness of the blouse concealed the mounds of her small breasts and the stiff cotton skirt swished against her skinny knees. Each piece of her meager wardrobe displayed or concealed different parts of her body, and for this reason I had to keep track of each item—skirts, dresses, blouses, everything that she herself, while dressing and possibly even thinking of me, must have considered extremely important; craning her uncovered neck, she looked around, slowly, carefully, the only movement she allowed herself; peering out from under the mask of her coy reserve, first she looked to the left, then to the right, and while turning her head, her glance would come to rest on me as if by accident, very often for no more than a fraction of a second, and then I tried in vain to catch her eye; at other times she looked at me more boldly for quite a few seconds, and once in a great while for an absurdly long time, but of this I'll have more to say later—in any case, I knew her eyes were looking for me, because if it happened that I wasn't standing at my usual place, if, say, I dropped down on my stomach or stood behind a tree so she would not notice me right away and I could extract some small advantage thereby, then her gaze grew uncertain, her face showed the deep disappointment which I hoped to wheedle out of her with my little game of hide-and-seek, and which, given her reserve and aloofness, could be considered blatant flirtatiousness; one single glance a day was my due, nothing more, while I stood helpless behind the fence, in the stifling shade of the bushes.