by Peter Nadas
Then again, Maja didn't seem too eager for me to tell her anything.
But what? What did he tell you?
Our own forbidden games, the mere mention of the woods, the scene of Szidónia's adventures, was enough to give weight to my warning.
No, not that; don't! she seemed not so much to beg as shout at me; her eyes narrowed protectively, full of suspicion, hatred retreating into their brown depths.
Love wants no knowledge; her mouth opened.
And I did not answer, lest her glance stray between my legs; I tried to hold on to her eyes with mine, in case my pants showed what I was feeling.
What I was going to tell her about was Kálmán and me lying on that flat rock shielded by the bushes above and Kálmán doing what I, too, wanted to do, but didn't dare touch his until he touched mine; when my arm crossed his, reciprocating his move, and we were holding each other's—oddly enough my fingers did not feel his to be as hard as I felt mine in his hand, though they both seemed equally erect—that's when Kálmán said in a hoarse voice, and that's what I should have said out loud before, that one day he was going to screw Maja for sure.
That's what he said.
Then, trying to stall for time and to distract her from my own shame, I said that one day I would tell her, because I told her everything, but not now; and I was afraid she'd notice how red I was with shame.
But I knew I could never ever tell her about that.
It wasn't fear of disgrace that held me back; to push him out and take his place I'd have felt myself capable of any disgraceful act.
If somehow I had been able to lift that sentence from the situation in which it was uttered, if only Kálmán's hand hadn't been clinging to my member, if only I hadn't felt in it the heat of that white rock; but by revealing Kálmán's secret intention to her, I would have exposed my own falseness.
I could not remove myself from the context of that sentence, could not tear myself away from him, because his sentence referred not so much to Maja as to him and me.
And I couldn't tell her about that, because our physical contact was not the overture but rather the concluding movement, the closure, last stop, in our relationship, the furthermost point two boys might dare to venture in a realm off limits to girls, indeed a forbidden zone within that realm beyond which even boys must not go; and it is a credit to Kálmán's wonderful and accurately functioning instincts that at this terminal point of this perilous zone not only did he dare hold on to his innermost desire, which was to ascertain that another boy's body felt as his own body did and felt it the same way, but also, with his characteristic bravado, he linked the act of touching another boy with the ungratifiable desire he felt for a girl, turning the unsatisfiable into satisfiable, another's pleasure into his own; it was his way of placing side by side two secret realms revolving within each other that could never really unite.
What he said he might do to Maja was more like an apology for what the two of us were doing at that moment.
And also an obvious allusion to what Szidónia had tried to do with him, which he had already told me about.
We should not be appalled at this; we all know from other, more mundane aspects of our lives that to endure the terrible solitude of being different we seek solace and support in what makes us the same as others.
Girls also have their own separate realm we can only spy on, sniff around, circle the borders of, or, as secret agents, penetrate and even learn about some of its important areas, but the inner sanctum, that secret zone, must forever remain hidden.
The only way I could have told her everything was, of course, if I had been a girl, if as a girl, I could have spied on myself and that other boy, watching "them" with the unknowing, trusting eyes of a girl; and since I wanted so very much to be a girl, it seemed that only a thin, translucent membrane separated me from being a girl, or rather from being also a girl; I had an overwhelming desire to break through, work my way through, this thin membrane, for I hoped that then I'd reach the light of a world without shadows or falseness, find myself in an idyllic clearing; consequently, the way I wanted to identify with Maja—to turn into a girl, in other words—was by betraying my boyness; but since I could not tell her that story about me and Kálmán, I could not become the spy of that other realm—and she wouldn't want me to be one—my silence and my shame thrust me back among the boys.
A not insignificant detail of our emotional life was the fact that, as a result of our parents' political trustworthiness, we were privileged to live adjacent to the immense, heavily guarded area that contained the residence of Mátyás Rákosi.
When coming home from Maja's house, I often chose not to walk along the wire fence of the huge tract of land where everything was ominously silent—nobody used this street, which, nicely shaded by foliage spilling over the fence, actually cut the forest in half—and the air itself stood still and the only thing you heard was the crunch of your own footsteps; the armed guards were nowhere to be seen, although we knew well they could see everything from their underground bunkers or observation points camouflaged by trees and shrubs; none of our movements went undetected; with their periscopes and telescopes they could follow me, bring me up close, or accompany me on the street; if to shorten the trek home I did take this street instead of walking through the woods, I felt these watching eyes very strongly; more precisely, it was not their watchfulness I felt, I'm not sure one can actually feel that, but somehow my own watchfulness was redoubled because of their presumed presence; I saw myself unsuspectingly walking along the street, taking in what my unsuspecting eyes were taking in, and at the same time I was watching suspiciously, along with the unseen guards, my own suspiciousness wrapped in an unsuspecting nonchalance; this was similar to what I felt when something disappeared in school and in the awful atmosphere of general suspicion I felt that I was the thief! but on this street the unseen guards made me feel as if I were an assassin or a spy unable to conceal his real intent, and I felt how this strain, this exercise of historical proportions in watching oneself being watched, made my skin crawl every time, I felt it distinctly on my back, my arms, my neck; I walked on this street as if expecting a shot to ring out at any moment, I knew I mustn't get too close to the fence, this ordinary-looking, somewhat rusty wire fence, and I was terribly afraid of the dogs, which I dreaded even more than the gimlet-eyed guards.
And it wasn't just we children who were terrified of these huge watchdogs but the grownups, too, and regular, civilian dogs like Vitéz, Kálmán's otherwise formidably aggressive black dog, whom we simply couldn't sweet-talk into coming out of the woods and onto that road; if we tied a rope around his neck and tried dragging him along, hoping they'd go at each other and we'd see a horrific, bloody fight to the death, he would crouch, flatten himself against the ground, stricken with terror, the hair on his spine would stand on edge, he'd whimper, yelp, and no amount of yanking, pushing, dragging, teasing, or coaxing could arouse his fighting spirit; in the meantime, from the other side of the fence, those enormous beasts would regard our clumsy efforts with stony indifference.
And because of this—though my mind did comprehend the need for these dogs—the whole protected area became something like a focal point, the living nucleus of all my fears.
The untouched forest on that side of the fence seemed exactly like the peacefully silent oak forest on this side, the real, free forest, our forest; it seemed exactly what a forest ought to be, with dried and broken branches, wind-torn treetops adorned with clumps of mistletoe, toppled tree trunks, broken roots sticking out of the gritty soil, nearly ossified giant lips of tinder fungus thriving on decay, deep dark hollows everywhere, shimmering cushions of moss, tender saplings, slender and delicate, burgeoning under the protection of ruffled groups of ancient but healthy oaks; horsetail and fern spinning out from beneath soft, century-old layers of fallen leaves; ephemeral green undergrowth in spots warmed by sun rays slashing through the foliage; the purple crest of corydalis fluttering in the breeze along with blu
e bunches of fragrant grape hyacinths; the white umbrellas of the poison hemlock rocking on high, jagged petals wide-open now; yellow blades of meadow grass and bluish-green wild quick grass; the shiny-leafed marsh marigolds in damp crevices; in the shadow of craggy rocks the waxy-green cyclamen that never bloom in these parts; in the sunny spots, fuzzy leaves of wild strawberry, and tiny bell-shaped flowers on the thick stalks of Solomon's seals, peeking and nodding between the ribbed leaves; oh, and the shrubs around the big oak trees, the hawthorn that can thicken into a tree when it has enough room to grow, the hearty spindleberry bushes, and, most of all, sprouting and climbing in the impenetrable prickly thicket, lots of dewberry vines producing by autumn their pleasantly tart fruit—and still! in spite of all this, the practiced eye could tell immediately that on the other side of the street, behind the wire fence, it was not the same forest; no twisted and toppled tree trunks there, torn and fallen branches were carefully removed by busy hands, perhaps after dusk, when one can still see a little in the afterglow of the opaque sky, or stealthily at early dawn, because I never saw anyone work there, in fact I never saw a human figure there at all; the bushes grew more sparsely and had been thinned out, and since fewer leaves fell at summer's end, the grass could grow taller and in wider patches; in short, this was a carefully tended forest designed to appear wild to unsuspecting observers; I never understood why, since the deception was obvious, given the two-meter-wide strip of land along the fence cleared of all living growth, with overturned soil covered with fine white sand, and on the surface of the sand traces of the same secret gardeners' handiwork, grooves left by the teeth of rakes, and it was also in this strip that the watchdogs made their appearance.
When I turned off Istenhegyi Road and started up the gently rising slope of Adonisz Road, it didn't matter if I crossed over to the other side and never took my eyes off the silent bushes behind the fence, I could never be alert enough to see them appear; they materialized out of nowhere, silently and unnoticed, one at a time; I knew they rotated the dogs on and off duty as they did the unseen guards, powerfully built, well-fed German shepherds with darkly spotted, sand-colored, sometimes grayish fur, and tapered shaggy tails, the eyes in their projecting muzzles appearing benign and wise, pointed, acutely sensitive ears registering the slightest vibrations of hostility, mouths nearly always open, with fleshy glistening red tongues sliding up and down to the rhythm of their constant panting, revealing the white cusps of fang-like back teeth; and all they did was follow me, faster when I quickened my steps, slower when I slowed down, of course making not the slightest noise, their huge pads sinking silently into the sand; and I had long ceased to experiment with stopping, because if I did they'd stop, too, turn their snouts toward me and just watch; their look, their eyes, were the most terrifying things about them—excited, keyed-up, yet completely impassive, eyes like two pretty balls, and at the same time you could see that under their thick fur the muscles were wound up like coils, ready to spring; and not only did they not emit a sound—no yelp or growl—they didn't even pant harder; Kálmán learned from Pista, because Pista was a guard on the far side of the restricted area, at the Lóránt Street gate, and he not only talked to Kálmán sometimes but also let him have some of his hollow-filtered Russian cigarettes, which they ended up smoking in the school bathroom during the long morning recess; anyway, it was Pista who said that this was when the dogs were most dangerous, and one should never take one's eyes off them; it didn't matter that they had been trained for any eventuality, in fact, the more rigorous their training, so the trainers had said, the more unpredictable their nervous system would become; they knew and understood everything, Kálmán reported, but were nervous wrecks, the trainers themselves feared them; they had muscles of steel, that's the phrase he used, muscles of steel, and they could hurdle a not-too-high fence like that from a standing position, which was the reason there was no barbed wire on top; supposedly the trainers asked that the barbed wire be removed because the dogs' tails might get caught; their commander refused at first, it seems, claiming that without the barbed wire the fence would not conform to regulations, and finally Comrade Rákosi had to intervene personally, because the dogs were extremely valuable; even within the compound they were led about on leashes, and it was impossible to befriend them; they would not accept food or candy from anyone, wouldn't even sniff at it, it was as though you weren't there, they looked right through you; and if anyone tried to provoke them by kicking the fence, something that would make any other dog go crazy, they would simply bare their teeth as a warning; they were trained not to get riled up needlessly; when they made a mistake, however, they were beaten mercilessly with sticks and leather straps; if you did nothing but look into their eyes, without moving, they wouldn't know what was happening or how to react, and that's when you could see they were nervous wrecks; they might be beaten for jumping unnecessarily, but they couldn't always control themselves and they'd jump, catch their victim from behind, go straight for the nape of the neck; so they kept following me—to be more precise, after a few steps abreast of one another, it seemed I was following them; they were trotting on their sandy strip one step ahead of me; at the top of the incline we came to a sudden turn, the fence also followed the curve of the road, and there began a long, straight stretch; with their tails up, the dogs led the way, and if I behaved, that is to say if I didn't hurry or fall behind, if fear did not make me break into a run—that wouldn't have been a good solution, since on that straight stretch past the turn I would have had to race for about three hundred meters accompanied by the dogs' frightful barking—if in spite of all my shame and humiliation, hatred and urge to rebel, I complied with their demands, if I did not stop, run, slow down, or speed up, and was even careful not to breathe too loudly, and if I managed to suppress any gestures and emotions they might construe as obtrusive, just as they tried to curb their nervousness and, as a result, the tension of our mutual suspicion became stabilized, then, after a while, our relationship became more refined, not so threatening: I did what I was expected to do, and the dog, becoming almost indifferent to me, did what it was supposed to-do; but if coming from Maja's place I wasn't in the mood, or wasn't mentally prepared, to play this game—for it was a game after all, a kind of experiment, a not altogether harmless balancing act at the edge of self-control and dependence, self-discipline and independence, a sort of political gymnastics—then I chose the shorter and in many ways more pleasant route, right near the three tall pines, the very landmark Szidónia had mentioned to the streetcar conductor, I would take the forest trail and would peer back at the canine guard on duty from behind the safety of the dense shrubbery, noting with considerable satisfaction the perplexed and disappointed look on its face as it stared after me; I was quickly concealed by the woods, though I knew the guards' binoculars could follow me even here; the trail rose sharply as I moved farther in; at times I chose this path even after dusk, knowing well that there might be darker, not to say more ominous dangers lurking in wait for me there, yet I felt I could cope with these dangers more easily and confidently than I could with those rotten dogs.
At that time this was still a real forest, perhaps the last large, continuous spot of green on the map of hills and mountains ringing the city, the last reminder of the original natural harmony of soil and flora which the expanding city slowly encroached upon, altered, and devoured; today, this area, too, is full of high-rises; of the forest only a few clumps of trees have remained—hardly more than nondescript garden ornaments.
I do not regret the loss; there's nothing in the world with which I have a more intimate relationship than ruination; I am the chronicler of my own ruination; even now, when making public the destruction of the forest, I'm recounting the history of my own destruction, looking back once more, for the last time, and I confess not without emotion, on the seemingly endless yet so very finite time of childhood, a time when nothing appears more unalterable than the richly grooved bark of a luxuriant old tree, the peculiar twists of its
roots, the communicated strength with which the tree accommodates and also clings to the soil; in a way, childhood perceptions have no firmer assurance and support than nature itself, in which everything militates against destruction and destruction itself speaks of permanence, impersonality, continuity.
But I don't wish to weary anyone with too finely drawn reflections on the relationship between a child's arbitrary perceptions and the spontaneous life of nature; I believe it is true that nature is our greatest teacher, but it teaches only the wise among us, never the dullards! so let us continue on that lonely forest trail leading to the clearing, and let us also take a closer look at how the child is walking, relying on the profound knowledge in his feet, familiar with every dip and bump of the ground, even with the stone that in the next second might knock against the tip of his shoe, prompting him to stretch out his next step; familiar with the dense air, and the direction of wayward breezes against his face, his sensitive nose telling him if anyone has passed by recently and whether it was a man or woman; only his ears deceive him once in a while: he hears a muffled sound, a crack, a thud, a cry, something resembling a cough, and he stops; to be able to go on, his eyes must skip over his fears, over frightening presentiments, and, at times, over shadows that seem to be moving; yes, he must step over dire warnings and horrific imaginings.
