He felt like laughing; the urge began as a strange laughter but ended up showing his entire situation in yet a different light.
As if he were being whispered to by that other self he had not destroyed in himself — at different times it had taken on the shapes of his aunt, the detective, or the salesgirl, while sometimes it had no physical shape at all, no existence, only an essence; but when that happened he had to think of either the savior or the steamboat tilted on its side; in short, this other self whispered to him to relax, not to ruin things by being hasty, there was plenty of time for everything. At any rate, he gave up the struggle in his pants because he was thinking of the savior whom he had not known until then, and in the brief time of their acquaintance he’d failed to learn what he was like. He kept staring at the reflection of undulating bare tree branches in the glass. The street was still deserted. His three minutes reached comfortably into infinity, and he kept on taking more time from it. He no longer saw the telephone number he had etched into the soft yellow cover of the telephone book.
This was more like a memory; he remembered this too, as he simultaneously remembered everything. The police station was busy, and then he was switched to an automatic call center. He waited a little longer; the number remained busy with a bit of Brahms playing for him in the background.
He leaned his shoulder against the glass of the phone booth, to keep an eye on the corner where his aunt had to appear.
The wind was howling, lashing at everything.
When he tried to call again, a female voice answered, and that surprised him so much that instead of saying hello he said who he was, Döhring. Which the woman did not understand and he had to repeat. He knew this was going to be recorded, and that would determine his fate for good. While he was saying who he was looking for, and the woman replied that Dr. Kienast was unavailable at the moment, across the street a garage door began slowly to rise. Döhring wanted to say thank you for the information so he could hang up as quickly as possible, but the woman was quicker than he; she wanted to keep him talking. She was after a generous pool of voice patterns and wanted to identify the location of the caller’s phone booth. She had a soft, experienced voice; she was practically singing with kindness. By all means, she said, she’d be more than happy to help Döhring in any matter whatsoever.
The maw of the garage yawned darkly for a moment.
No, thank you, Döhring replied impatiently, he’d call back.
Then the shiny, silvery front of the car appeared in the deep, dark gullet of the garage and sped out onto the street as if indifferent to whether there was any traffic. Döhring realized what was happening only when among the lights of the windbreak he recognized Isolde’s black turban and severe features. As if she were ready to drive to the park, dragging the whole phone booth with her.
Maybe he just stepped out for a few minutes, said the woman on the telephone; unfortunately she could not tell when Dr. Kienast would be available, but if Mr. Döhring wanted to leave a message or had a number where he could be reached, she’d be happy to convey that to Dr. Kienast, who would return his call shortly.
And if he was speaking from a telephone booth, said the woman, who by then must have known that this was the case, he could in all confidence give her that number as well.
It was like the palest beam of hope; he no longer dared count on it.
Through the Entrance to His Secret Life
For a moment she thought Ágost had gone mad. That he’d really lost his mind. What are you doing here, she shouted, coming in from the bathroom. Not even in the taxi could she dismiss this image from the night before.
She couldn’t because for weeks she had been yearning for him more and more strongly, more and more hopelessly, and especially in the last few days. But her yearning filled her with dread. She was trying to tell herself it was not his naked body she desired so much. She felt ashamed of that. Then what did she desire so much. Could it be his soul. Which he did not possess; he did not. Just look at him, standing in front of her. She could not cling to him enough, take him inside her enough, kiss him, caress him, sink into his flesh deeply enough, tear at him, plow his skin with her nails enough, to assuage her yearning. She would seize it, hold it, stare into it as it spurted upward. Ágost wouldn’t let her swallow it, because he wanted to see it himself. What will become of her without him. This also occurred to her in the tobacco-smelling taxi.
She would moan and whimper, but not aloud, because the faintest sensual expression aroused aversion in the man. Not only would he suffer no passion but he would also reject as exaggeration the slightest manifestation of emotion. And she would have loved to love — no, worship — his ankles, his wrists, his every part, his cock, and every little bone in his body, even impalpable things like the curve of the arches of his feet. She adored him. More precisely, she convinced herself that she did, that she could not live without him, because she dreaded losing him. She had lost him already. She gave more than she had, showed more than she felt so as not to admit the latest defeat. Of course, when thinking about it sensibly, she saw that this was not a problem of right proportion or right quantity; their characters were no longer compatible. And who could think about this sensibly. Sometimes she tried to satisfy herself as she hoped to be satisfied by him, but she failed. She expected more of her body than it could provide, and it was precisely this something which could never take on bodily form that she failed to figure out; she did not know what it was. But to take a long knife from the kitchen and thrust it deep into the man’s chest, for that she did not have the courage. What was carrying her along, she wanted to know, what was pursuing her. Even though she knew nothing else would help. Except killing him. Now her helplessness, now her emotional outbursts tortured her. When she watched him, and when she recalled the scene in the taxi the next day, she saw him even farther from her than ever. This was something Ágost had never done, at least not while she was looking on.
She saw her own loneliness reflected in the naked male body. The hopelessness of her own secret attempts at gratification. She was disgusted by this, or by herself; it aroused her self-contempt. But nor could she turn away, her curiosity wouldn’t let her; she wanted to see how men do it. She suspected that he might have done it in front of others. But not in front of me. Because he doesn’t trust me that much. Instantly she became jealous of others. The shouting was muted enough not to be heard in the other room.
Luckily she could somewhat restrain herself. She would gladly have shared all her joys with Kristóf, but she’d have been reluctant to tell him about her torments.
There was hardly an hour, a minute, in which she gave free rein to her emotions or feelings. She could never find out in advance from Kristóf whether he would be sleeping at home or staying away again for days. She envied him too; he probably had a good life. She envied everyone; her entire soul, all her goodness, was consumed by envy, behind which lurked amorous greed. I’m the only one who feels bad. It made a difference whether she could shout and yell freely or whether she had to restrain herself when in the throes of pleasure. Something of her pleasure always remained stuck in her. Ágost could not, probably did not want to crash through the barrier. One of them wanted to give too much, the other held it back. That is why they were not compatible, and this was impossible to understand.