And if up to that time even the moments of tension between us had been pleasant, this drawn-out telephone conversation excluding me in more ways than one managed to render them unpleasant; for a few more minutes I let my face be warmed by the feeble winter sun — it had been receding since midmorning and was now only a thin strip of light on Melchior's eyes and hair and on the wall over his head — then I withdrew into the study, took out the blanket from under the pillow, lay down on the sofa, turned to the wall, and, like someone who has finally found rest and solace, wrapped myself in the soft blanket, for perhaps he was right: I didn't take his story quite seriously, and considered his undying hatred for Germans a form of self-hatred stemming from very different causes, just as he shut himself off from the heartrending story of my life, at times shedding real tears over it but in the end making the cold remark that he saw in it nothing but merely the personal, and of course in that sense moving, consequence of the final collapse of anarchistic, communistic, socialistic mass movements caught in the struggle between two superpowers, we were both unfortunate products of that same collapse, two odd mutants, he said, and laughed.
Slightly offended, I reminded him of the special aspects of Hungarian history, offended because of course nobody likes his entire existence to be seen as the symptom of a disease, even an aberration of European proportions, but all my arguments proved futile, he stuck to his guns and launched into a comprehensive geopolitical analysis in which he elaborated on his theory that the 1956 Hungarian uprising — he said uprising, not revolution — was the first and most substantial symptom, one might even call it a turning point in contemporary European history, signaling the collapse and liquidation, the practical demise, of all traditionally motivated struggles, and while at the time the Hungarians appealed very heroically but just as foolishly to a traditional European ideal, that ideal, as it turned out, no longer existed, all that was left of it were a few slogans and a few Hungarian corpses.
Several thousand dead and executed people, I put in reproachfully, my own friend among them.
These ideals and principles, he continued as if he hadn't even heard me, had ceased to be viable with the end of World War II, except that Europe, ashamed at having been unable to defend itself but also euphoric in victory, failed to notice that at the Elbe River the soldiers of the two great powers were already representatives of two superpowers, embracing over the charred corpse of Hitler.
Whatever the aim of the struggle — national self-determination or social equality — to the new world powers it was all the same, he said, because in their respective spheres of influence, reshaped in their own image, they both strove to thwart independent development.
What on the one side meant a return to pre-democratic conditions, suppressing all attempts at democratization or national independence, and to which, I should please note, the other superpower, espousing principles of freedom and self-determination, gave its ready blessing, that very same thing meant on the other side keeping in check all practical achievements stemming from and spread by the movement of bourgeois emancipation, denying them room to grow and flourish, forcing all radical initiatives inspired by the principles of equality before the law, of social justice, into the Procrustean bed of conservatism, to which the superpower on the other side, championing the cause of social justice, gave equally ready blessing, because, for one thing, it too was basically conservative, and also because it felt that any social transformation based on ideals of equality would threaten its own hierarchical practices.
That's how it is, he said, somewhat amused by his own political philosophizing; taking advantage of a momentary, hesitant pause in which he seemed to gather further strength from his own thinking and self-mockery, I expressed my doubts about so crudely equating the two superpowers, whether in intention or practice.
And I shouldn't think, he went on, ignoring me again, that he hadn't heard our little debate as we were walking up the stairs in the theater; he was listening to Thea but heard it just the same, and thought that in our little verbal duel the breakdown of traditional European aspirations was even more evident than it was in the so-called political arena, where crude rhetoric and overcautious diplomatic phraseology tended to blunt the edge of real conflict or push it to absurd extremes; we were being ridiculous, we didn't need a Wall, we kept snarling like mad dogs, not interested in guessing or inquiring what really was happening on the other side, forgetting completely that the Wall was erected to make us bark at each other.
At least three times they said goodbye and then started talking again, so engrossed in each other they couldn't let go; they must have talked for at least forty minutes, and I not only sensed but understood that having retreated behind the protective screen of another language, Melchior was talking about me, gossiping, or, in the squabble going on between the two of them, using me to his advantage — they were jabbering, arguing, fighting, and gabbing like old hags — fuming silently, I huddled under my blanket, hoping that on the waves of his annoying, nasal singsong I might drift off into a light sleep, for I wanted everything to fade away into the distance; if I had to be alone, then let me be really alone.
His arguments seemed persuasive enough, even more so because, unlike me, he never got worked up, never exploded or flew into a rage, not even when his analyses touched on the most sensitive subjects, as if he were short on excitability but long on being cool and reserved, with an uncanny analytical ability, highlighted with ironic overtones, sticking to his own self-chosen matter at hand; but for all that I almost always remained distrustful of his showy theories, for he gave me the impression of a man who talked this way because at each crucial point in his life he had avoided, and still continued to avoid, himself, so that all he did was analyze the evasions with an unerring, seamless logic which he used to conceal his open, bleeding emotional wounds.