Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

He is right, Terey thought. We have more knowledge, wit, and resourcefulness than character. That is why he speaks so freely: because he does not have to take me seriously. He feels that he has the upper hand. He knows that I write, but only poetry, not notes on private conversations, not confidential reports.

“What do you say about the nuclear weapons tests announced by TASS?” Ferenc threw out.

“Well, they have made it clear that they are ready to stop if the United States signs a treaty. Many Americans cannot get it through their heads yet that someone else holds the atomic dragon on a leash, and sometimes pulls its tail to force it to growl. They were accustomed to think that all the superlatives — the largest, the best, the deadliest — always belonged to them. Now a rival appears and not only goes neck and neck with them, but in rocket technology surpasses them.”

“The experimental explosions are a warning. So they are taken by the Pentagon, at any rate.” Ferenz waved a hand. “You are right: they did not believe the seismographs. They sent a plane to take samples from the stratosphere, to see if there was dust. Well — there was. Perhaps they are beginning to think and to include this in their calculations.”

“Enough of this discussion of the global picture.” The counselor clapped a hand on his thigh. “No guessing games. What brought you here? Are you giving a lecture to the locals? Doing a review of international politics?”

Ferenc looked closely at him. A little smile of approbation flitted over his lips.

“No. No. Now you are not such a poet.” He sighed approvingly. “You do have your feet on the ground. But you would rather we took you for a poet, for you are more comfortable that way. You have greater leeway. You see, Istvan, there is an official communiqué about the removal of the minister of internal affairs. They have thrown Farkas in prison. He bullied our people. The Central Committee surrounded him on tiptoe; I know something about it because…” he hesitated, looked Terey in the eye again and waved weakly, as if he were brushing away an untimely impulse to make disclosures.

“Because you went from them to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

“How did you know that?”

“Are you afraid? Or do you envy him, because in the end — before the procurator, at least — he may talk about what pains him, may spew it up and feel relief?”

Ferenc trembled like a man caught in the act of committing a crime. He leaned over the desk and cried, “No one has a right to accuse me! I believed. I was under orders. Moreover, they explained to me that it was necessary, that it was essential for the good of the party.”

“Believe, listen, don’t think, and we will meet there.” Terey pointed to the wall outside the window.

“And what do you have to do with this?”

“The information came and I did not believe it. I did not want to believe. Those being led to their deaths screamed in the hope that I and others like me would hear. I heard; the secrets leaked out. But I said, it is impossible, at least among us, in Hungary. I thought I knew Hungary.”

Ferenc stopped playing with his glasses and hitting them against his pursed lips. He put them back on as if to camouflage himself. In their green lenses Terey saw only a curved likeness of himself, like the abdomen of a carrion-eating fly, and something like a star belching fire: the reflection of the glare-filled window.

“You know, Terey, I’m glad they sent me here. Budapest is seething; I feel it in my bones. If I could do anything there, I would want to prove myself different — better. I would jump like that grasshopper and any hen would peck me up. I tell you, it is better for us to wait out the hottest time here.”

The counselor was almost lying in his chair with his hands under his head, watching with profound concentration as a blade on the large fan turned slowly under the white desert of the ceiling.

“I tell you, Ferenc, neither God nor the world likes the lukewarm. I’m afraid we will not attain the grace of absolution. And you will have no opportunity to know what gifts you have. Who you really are.”

They sat for a moment in silence. The secretary turned abruptly and moved toward the door. As he gripped the handle, he thrust out his lips and said sarcastically:

“Likewise, you had better beware lest God send a test beyond a man’s strength. So why raise a clamor, why be keen to volunteer?”

“You have caught the Indian disease. That’s a comfortable philosophy, especially for a Marxist.”

The secretary did not reciprocate but quietly closed the door behind him.

He writhes like a fish on a reel, Istvan sighed. Conscience. A fearful premonition of the truth about oneself, which He Who knows us reveals. Ferenc came here hoping that we would exchange secrets as hostages used to be exchanged, to be certain the conditions of peace would be observed. He thought I had heard more about him than he wanted to disclose to me. He does not know, and I will not tell him, that I am weary in my harness, I am struggling. No — it is not even the matter of that peasant they ran down. How to find his family and help them without casting suspicion on the embassy? Krishan will not agree to take that on himself a second time. Margit. The problem of Margit. If Ferenc knew about that, how much calmer he would be.

I am robbing her, he accused himself. I am a miserable little — I am taking advantage of her weakness for me, her defenseless yielding. When it seemed that she had freed herself from me, I went, I abandoned the embassy, I lied — anything to be sure she was still mine. She comes to me, simple and trusting. She makes no stipulations. She has no plans. But I had already had a warning. I whisper: I love you. I love you. But that justifies nothing. She surely knows that. It is better that she knows. Until now she has not asked what would happen with us. She entrusts the matter to me to decide, with the calm reliance of one who deposits money in an armored bank vault. What is she counting on? Only on my love for her? Or on this — that we will be together. Together. Two joined in one; a shared life. And only death can part us.

More than once in the night, after all, I felt for her in my sleep. I wanted her to be there — always, always. And that wretched fear when she told me she was expecting a child! Did I love her less then? No. So what alarmed me? Would I have been afraid to tell the world that I had chosen this woman, that she was the one I loved? Was that a feeling that could not bear the light of day and witnesses? That flees in the face of “complications?” Even those who have not lived with their wives for a long time, who have mistresses, will be eager to play the role of accusers; they will judge and condemn me. Well, what of it? Can’t I withstand pressure? A year will pass and the world will forget. Love that does not outlast such a time is not worthy of the name.

If she really had a child, I would get a divorce, he thought, wishing to soothe his conscience. Now that it has happened — a child — if only I truly want it, I can have it. A little red-haired girl with dark eyes, a little Margit.

He did not think of a son, perhaps because he had sons already, only of a daughter. She would love me; in his dreams he felt the tiny hands on his neck, the touch of the cool nose and the warm breath on his cheek. He even seemed to hear words of playful irritation: “Daddy, you’re poking me!” He caught himself thinking in English. But she would have to know her father’s language. Would he allow her to grow up far from Hungary? In Australia?

Divorce: it was easy to say. From here, from New Delhi, from India I would write, forewarn Ilona, prepare her somehow. “You see, I have fallen in love”—that hardly sounded serious. Better to go to her, to put his hands on her shoulders, step back so their eyes would meet, and lay out the whole truth. “I have found the woman with whom…” “And what about what we had together?” Ilona would ask. “And what about me, and the boys?”