Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

Suddenly the ambassador stood still, as if the boy’s words had finally penetrated his mind. He turned toward him and asked something. Istvan looked at the little fellow’s uplifted hand as it made circles in the air. He is selling me out — the thought darted through his mind — he will boast about the visits to Krishan. Mihaly was talking; in the end he extended his hands and clapped them together with all his might. He has blurted out everything, the silly little Judas. He has no idea what he is doing. Istvan forgave the child at once. Intuitively he was almost certain that something had happened, and that its sinister effects were unforeseeable. He sat still, stricken with fear and a sense of utter helplessness: nothing could be stopped, salvaged, retracted. It had happened. But what? He heard no words; he could only decipher what was being told from gestures.

Kalman Bajcsy raised his head and looked into the embassy window. Even through the screen he must see me; Terey’s lips tightened. I will not hide. Through the thick wire mesh coated with dust he saw the ambassador’s forehead shining with sweat, saw his bushy eyebrows and his eyes squinting from the painful glare of the sun. For a moment they looked each other up and down. Then Bajcsy waved a hand to summon him.

He ran down quickly. The ambassador stood with legs slightly spread, leaning forward. He was exhaling heavily, as if he were short of breath.

“You go out for chats with Krishan, Terey?” he asked gloomily. “Who told you to do that?”

“You have also been there, ambassador. It is a circus.”

“Be brave enough to tell me to my face.”

“What?” Terey looked at him and recovered the sense of having the upper hand. Bajcsy could do nothing, after all, nothing. In the worst case, they might recall him; the thought came to Istvan like an alien voice, the voice of a coldly calculating person. The thought of losing Margit floated up on a wave of anger.

The other man only wheezed. “Don’t try to jump on my back, Terey,” he said menacingly, raising a finger yellowed from nicotine. “I have halted the careers of better men than you. They have cursed the hour the thought of doing battle with me first lodged in their minds.”

“What do you mean, comrade ambassador?” he said a little too loudly, and reproached himself inwardly for it.

“Don’t be God’s policeman, Terey. You have no proof. None. It is not healthy to know too much. I even liked you, Terey. I spoke to you as to an equal, and I see that it went to your head. Think twice before you do something you would bitterly regret.”

“I don’t understand.” He took a step forward. “What have I done?”

The ambassador moved back a step, rested his hands on the overheated body of his car, then motioned with his head toward Mihaly, who was standing between them. Astonished by the altercation, the boy raised his dark eyes first to one, then to the other.

“If I have stopped you in time, so much the better. You know; keep it to yourself. I am not afraid when I say: Keep quiet. I am not thinking only of your good.” He aimed a piercing stare at the counselor’s composed, suntanned face.

“Is there anything I can do for you, ambassador?”

“No. Go to the devil!” he roared in his deep voice. “I can’t stand a fool.”

Istvan turned, walked the few steps to the Austin, and opened it with his key. He was calm, even gratified that he could leave in time to meet Margit. He will do nothing to me. He will not dare meddle with me. Perhaps it is better that he knows. So I had an enemy in him. Suddenly he heard Bajcsy’s voice almost pleading:

“Terey, what do you suspect me of? It was an accident, really — an ordinary accident. It could happen to anyone.”

He turned around. The ambassador was leaning wearily on his car. His face had lost its bellicose expression; it looked bloated, as if he were unwell. A light breeze ruffled his grizzled hair. The boss — the epithet suited him exactly. Only the dogged, alert eyes seemed to put one on guard. His posture as the toilworn revolutionary grown gray in the fight, prevented only by his character from stepping down from his post of responsibility, won him the indulgence of his Hungarian staff and the young women on whose slender necks he laid a heavy hand, engaging in somewhat insistent caresses which he called “fatherly.”

His merits and faithfulness were much talked of; he himself had put many anecdotes exemplifying them into circulation. He counted on the press of business and the impatience of party activists, for when all was said and done, who had the time and desire to inquire about how it really was under the dictatorship of the admiral? Enemies would, no doubt, but he had pacified them by speaking of his heart ailment, deluding them with the hope that he would soon have an attack that would bring all disputes with him to an end. Why waste energy fighting him when they need do nothing but wait a little? The thick, partly open lips, the shallow breathing suggested that it would not be long. He knew how to awaken the sympathy of those more powerful than himself, that still vague benevolence—“We must be helpful to him, we must accommodate him, for he will not hold out for long”—and he pushed down those weaker by using his connections, by issuing brutal refusals and open threats.

Having struggled to gain an ambassadorship in an important country, in the pound zone, he worked diligently to consolidate his political position. He wanted to be one of those who would not move down in rank, who could only be transferred to other foreign postings. They were conscious of their privileges and aware that to represent communism and the homeland and feather one’s own nest in a wealthy, stable capitalist country constituted true happiness. His sense of advantage gave rise to a gracious superiority with a trace of contempt for the people crowded into buses and tramways or standing in line, running from shop to shop in search of goods. “We must fatigue ourselves a while yet, comrades,” he said indulgently as in his thoughts he escaped with relief to his residence, to his private automobile that was maintained at the nation’s expense, to the cook and the band of submissive sweepers, guards, and gardeners. We are poorly remunerated — he retained an absolving feeling of solidarity with those who labor every day that was in harmony with his most sincere convictions. He could return with equal pleasure to Budapest or to Paris, Rome or London, to say nothing of New Delhi.

Bajcsy seemed to be making a claim on Terey’s pity. He appealed to his sympathy for people who were worn out and prematurely old, for the stigma of illness on the pale forehead. But his eyes harbored malicious flashes like the eyes of a predatory animal in a cage, ready to leap at the throat of the tamer who drove him there.

“I swear that I am innocent,” he panted.

The counselor nodded as a sign that he had heard, that the words of self-justification had reached him. He slammed the car door and started the engine. Before the car moved, the other door opened and Mihaly jumped in.

“I will go with you, uncle,” he said. “I will guard the car.” There was so much guileless affection in his voice that Istvan locked the door and turned the Austin toward the gate. In the mirror he saw a flabby figure leaning heavily against the Mercedes.

“Why were you blabbering?” He was ashamed of the edge of anger in his voice. “Now I’m not going to take you places with me, because you tell everything.”

“You didn’t say it was a secret, uncle.” He raised his arms in fright and curled up, pressing his hands to his chest. “I was only talking about Krishan’s stunts. That’s all.”

“And what were you showing the ambassador?” He took his hands off the wheel, stretched them in front of him and clapped them hard.