Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

He passed the speckled setter, who beat her tail on the floor to greet him. Irritated that he did not pet her, she got up and ambled along behind him.

“You’re here at last.” Nagar ran up to him with short steps, seized him by the arm and shook him with his left hand, shouting excitedly and holding coils of tape torn from the teletype tightly in his right.

“You’ve done a good deal of mischief there, haven’t you? Your Hungarians have gone mad! They may shoot each other, but why be so quick to burn the museum? I remember what a splendid Breughel was there — The Crucifixion — and what Dutch paintings! The devil knows what was left…They could have shot at people through the windows — there are plenty of them — but not burned the pictures.”

“Tell me: what happened?”

“Not ‘happened’; it is happening,” he cried, nearly beside himself, tottering in place like a child who needs to relieve himself but does not want to leave his play. Terey would have caught him by the nape of his neck and shaken him like a rabbit if it would have gotten the full story out of him.

For Nagar this was only information. He was in his element, basking in his role as a journalist. He was one of the first in Delhi to be informed of important developments; he could impress others, arouse their admiration.

“A big rally today at the Bem monument. Who the devil is Bem? Why a rally there?”

“A general of the revolution. A Pole.”

“Of what revolution?”

“In ’48.”

“In ’48 I was in Hungary, and I never heard of any revolution.”

“Have a heart. In 1848. A hundred years ago.”

“Whom did he fight?”

“The Austrians and the army of the czar,” Istvan explained in an agony of suspense, trying to snatch the teletype tapes away from Nagar, who was hiding them behind his back.

“The Russians!” Nagar exulted. “At last I understand. After a hundred years you still remember that.”

“Maurice, I have a family in Budapest!”

“All right. Listen.” He grew serious, but he wanted the pleasure of recounting everything himself too much to let the tapes go. “They tried to disperse the crowd. The police fired. Gerő had to appear and speak, unfortunately, and then the disturbances began.”

“Did he make threats? What did he say?”

“Rational things: that they should sit calmly and make no noise, for he would lock them up. But as he could not do that, why talk that way? Button it, keep mum. Since it was not possible, it should have been he who sat quietly and did not exasperate the people. When they got weapons, they attacked the radio station. Then their call went out not only to the street, but to the whole country. They took control of the Capital City National Committee; the secret police defended themselves, but they killed them to the last man. A mob is a raging beast. It doesn’t pick and choose. The blood goes to its head. It is merciless.”

“And the army?”

“The soldiers put down their arms or joined the people on the street. Gerő threatened to bring in the Russians; he called them in to help.”

“Was the government in control of the situation?” In an agony of suspense, Istvan seized a fistful of communiqués as if he did not believe Nagar.

“Here — read the slogans they are writing on the walls: Court-martial Farkas stop Free all political prisoners stop Expel Rakosi from the party stop Call a plenary assembly of the Central Committee stop Disclose the contents of the trade agreements stop Examine the investment plan stop. Modest enough demands,” he added mockingly.

“Monsieur Nagar”—the Hindu assistant leaned in—“the manager of the Hindustan Standard asks that you come to the telephone.”

“They all flock to me as if I were a rabbi. Nagar ought to know, and Nagar knows,” he exclaimed excitedly. “Here. Read. Read.” He raked the rest of the dispatches off the table and pushed them at Istvan. “All the world pricks up its ears at the news from Budapest.”

A huge weight fell onto Terey’s shoulders; he had a terrible sense of impending danger. He knew what these developments would bring. If the West seized the opportunity, they would have speedy access through Austria. Civil war…he felt a tremor as if tanks were rumbling by. Civil war. But perhaps everything would take its course as it had in Poland. Gerő and Rakosi would have to back down. The machine would cleanse itself and punish those who had committed abuses and unlawful acts. Perhaps everything would still turn out for the best. Shooting on the streets of Budapest. At whom? Children, a wife, two streets away from the city committee headquarters.

“Yes.” He heard Nagar squealing. “Yes, skirmishes broke out almost simultaneously in Győr and Miskolc. All Hungary is in the grip of revolution. Yes! I have confirmation.”

The journalist’s exuberance drove Terey to fury. He is enjoying this. There, people are dying. Our blood is being spilled.

He sat with his hands dangling between his knees, holding the ribbons of paper with bulletins in short, dry sentences. By now he had almost memorized them. Trompette sauntered up drowsily, her claws thumping, and put her heavy head on his lap. She raised an expectant yellow eye, waiting for him to scratch her ears.

“Go away!” The sound of his own voice made him tremble; he was speaking to the dog in Hungarian. No. Nothing will happen to them. He clenched his fists. Geza and Sandor are sensible boys. Ilona will not let them out on the street at a time like this. But it will be hard to keep them in. Boys are carried away by the music of gunfire; it is alluring to them. That wild, devouring curiosity to see where the shooting is. The rattle from machine guns. He could hear the whistles, the cat’s meow of a projectile deflecting from the pavement, vanishing into a cloud that spread from above the Danube. And the trees in the park are full of red and yellow. The earth, sprinkled with leaves, exudes scents: an acrid fermenting smell mixed with the sour odor of explosions and the stifling smoke of distant fires. How well he knew it from there, from the front on the Dnieper, and later from the winter battles when the ring of the Soviet offensive had closed in around the isolated capital. They would not sit at home.

“Sandor…Geza,” he whispered, his throat tight with fear. The bitch looked at him with mournful eyes and, disappointed in her hope of being scooped up by a friendly hand, sighed like a human being. She walked away, quite offended, to warm herself by the waning hearthfire.

“Too bad, Terey.” He heard a voice behind him; he turned to see Trojanowski standing in the doorway and a stout, balding blond man from Tass.

They shook hands without a word. There was sympathy and comfort in their masculine grip; he was assured that they shared his anxiety and wanted to see him through. Yet he turned his face from them because he was afraid of their searching looks. He knelt, threw a pungent-smelling log on the fire, and raked up the ashes. The wrought iron tongs rang on the stone, startling him. He blew patiently, as if the revival of the earlier fire were of great concern to him.

“Do you have family there?” Misha Kondratiuk was bending over him.

“Very close family.”

“Istvan, this had to come. You know yourself, this is the storm that cleanses,” Trojanowski said by way of consolation. “A few days ago it seemed that there would be bloodshed in our country as well. There were those who shoved guns into the hands of the workers and baited the Russians, but the instinct of loyalty to the nation triumphed. You will see; everything will happen as it should. Be calm. Those you love will be in no danger. This is not a war against women and children.”

“I understand you, Comrade Terey.” Kondratiuk spoke soberly. “For injustice, for criminal actions, it would have been sufficient to bring the guilty before the courts. Stalin did not like distinguished party activists; he preferred provosts. It is time to drive those people away, but if you begin to beat the big drum and declare holy war against socialism…”