Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

She went on a few steps and he heard the mournful sizzle of the scattering sand, the glassy music of the desert. They walked side by side, but far apart.

“You shouldn’t speak that way. I really didn’t deserve it. I’m asking you honestly: What shall I do? What do you expect from me? Surely you know—” his voice broke like a child’s, as if he were about to shout at her and threaten her. Only with difficulty did he control himself.

He took her in his arms. He kissed her lips, which were dry and salty and dear, dear, dearer than anything.

“Let me go. They will see us.”

“Let them!”

“Let me go. I’m dirty and sweaty. You can’t even wash properly out here.”

He held her close and rocked her as if she were a small child. “That’s nothing. Nothing. I couldn’t care less. I only want to know: Do you love me?”

She raised her face toward him and moaned with parted lips, “This is terribly hard for me, Istvan.” She kissed him on the neck. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

When he was holding her, now yielding and his once more, the caressing word from his dream returned to him. “My darling, my— cradle ,” he whispered into her ear, “remember, we’re together.”

“You see, Istvan, it was bad of me not to tell you at once. But you came with the professor in that blinding sun, so strong and sure of yourself. You came for me as for something of your own. I must have…so cruelly…I am bad, bad. Istvan,” she whispered with her lips on his chest so that he had to strain to hear the words, “for almost two months I have been living with this: that I will have a child. Only for three days…I still tremble at the very thought that…I could not kill your child. I knew that. I ran away. You might have thought that I wanted to use the child to bind you to me, and that that was why I told you.”

“But what was the reason?”

“I don’t know, though I have a dozen explanations by now, all plausible: change of climate, a different type of work, full of tension, and you. Well, yes: you. Inhibition caused by the fear of passing time, for that affects one: fear paralyzes. Days passed and I was frightened when I counted them.

“I was in torment. I ordered the pregnancy test to be done. I gave another name, a Hindu name. They were not careful in the laboratory. They bungled it. It takes six weeks to be sure.” She gripped his hand. “And I had to go away without knowing the result. I wanted to preserve appearances, to act as if nothing were happening. Nothing. Istvan, forgive me. A few hours have been enough for you, and I lived through two months of this. So many days and nights. Now you understand me better.”

“This has happened for the best,” he said, looking into the frenzy of color that was deepening in the sky, tinting the waving sands cherry-red that languished to violet. “It is a reminder that we ought to decide what we really want. We are not Hindus.”

In the distance they heard the professor calling, then the blare of the Land Rover’s horn. “Coming!” Istvan shouted back. “We must be on our way. He is obviously possessive about you.”

“Be serious.” He heard such a happy new lilt in her voice that it moved him.

Two jackals scampered among the dunes, sweeping the sand with their fluffy tails. In the sheds fires winked red and from far away they heard the professor’s radio as it spewed Hindu music full of complaint and resignation. A drum rumbled as if beads of lead were falling on the tightly stretched skin, measuring time.

“I thought you two had gotten lost,” the professor said crossly, “or that the jackals had eaten you. There are plenty of them running around here.”

“Now, now. We were standing on top of the dunes and you saw us all the time.”

“True. I did not let you out of my sight,” he admitted. “Well, you will have something to write about.”

Istvan lowered his head.

“And in the meantime we must load. The bulletin is warning of rain again. Before night we will go along those iron rails, by another and, I promise, nearer road. I called you, however, so we can eat something before our departure. And perhaps have a drop to drink.”

“That won’t hurt,” Terey murmured.

“When I look at these people wearing themselves out here, I cannot fathom why they insist on living in the middle of this frying pan.”

“They were always here,” Margit pointed out. “The desert came to them. It engulfed them.”

The high-walled corridor in the ministry, inlaid with stone, was alive with the soft chiming of bracelets. Slender Hindu women draped in silk moved about with short, restrained steps. Preparations were underway for a convention of the World Women’s Congress. Under orders from Budapest, Istvan had to acquaint himself with the composition of the Congress’s slate of officers and its positions and statements. It was feared that right-wing elements would stage a demonstration; in that case it would be better for Hungary not to send delegates, to limit its involvement to blandly worded telegrams with greetings and wishes for fruitful deliberations, than to be forced into statements of protest and end by having its representatives leave the hall.

A few ladies, however — including the vice-minister’s wife — were insisting on seeing India. That had led to a lively exchange of telegrams with the embassy and a demand for detailed information. The convention was scheduled for the middle of October, only six weeks away. The ladies had asked if it would be appropriate, at least at the opening, to appear in Hungarian folk costume.

Miss Shankar, gently smiling and pressing her heavily braceleted wrists to her bosom, had assured him that she was working with the organizers and had not noticed any efforts to turn the convention into a rally. Of course there might always be an unexpected development; and then someone from the South American delegation might bring forward a troublesome resolution. But it could be suppressed, mired down in procedural disputes, so that the audience would be wearied and the final action on the matter delegated to the officers — with the hearty agreement of those in attendance. The issues to be discussed would be equal rights and higher wages for women. If equally qualified, they should not earn less than men.

“So there will be nothing of a sensational nature?”

“There will be.” She raised her almond-shaped eyelids and fluttered her long lashes. “We are preparing a pronouncement against the traffic in women.”

“They sell themselves, after all. How can you forbid them to do it?” he laughed.

“I am speaking of slaves — little girls kidnapped here and in Pakistan and carried away into harems in Arab countries. And to Africa. Entire criminal organizations work almost openly. It is difficult to ascertain the number of young captives, for if their parents themselves sell them, they certainly do not boast about it. Oh, Rajah Khaterpalia”—she motioned with a hand lithe as a flower—“you know, his brother died, the one who had been miraculously returned to life.”

The rajah had just spied them. The corner of his lapel was wound with crepe once more. He received expressions of sympathy with dignified satisfaction.

“What happened to him?” Istvan asked.

“Nothing. His heart simply weakened as it had previously, and he died. This time we stayed to the end, until his ashes were scattered to the Ganges.” His face had taken on an unhealthy puffiness, and greenish shadows ringed his glittering eyes. “Only then did I truly feel grief for him. That terrible scarred face frightened me, but it was my older brother.”

“You think that he really was your brother? After our conversation I also had begun to have doubts.”