Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

The big cooling machine gave out a measured drone. Terey was sitting behind his desk, which was swamped with stacks of weekly magazines and documents. The clutter reminded him of the editorial office in Budapest, where he could hardly make room on the table for his typewriter as he plowed through heaps of offscourings from the presses while the clatter of the linotype machines flew up from below like hail on an iron balcony. Men in aprons shiny with grime dropped in and tossed damp strips of galley proof with a sharp smell of ink on his desk. Furious that they hindered his writing, he pushed them onto the floor. Then, distracted from his train of thought, he sprang up, smoked a cigarette, and paced around the crumpled proofs. A moment later he picked them up, spread them out, and read them with an editor’s alert, expert eye.

He was irritated when the cleaning woman tidied up. He was exquisitely conscious of where he had put articles that had to be critiqued, of whose photograph he had hidden in the fat dictionary. In Delhi he tried to carry these habits over. In this respect his conception of his work was quite to the liking of the ambassador, who asserted that he alone could allow himself a clear desk.

No one knocked, but the door opened a crack, and the gentle face of Judit Kele appeared. He pretended that he did not see her, that he was lost in admiration of the bald head of the dignitary in the portrait, so she tapped on the door frame with a pencil.

“Wake up, Istvan.”

“You fly around as quietly as if you were on a broom. Come in. What’s happened?”

“I’m sorry for you. You will surely die young, in obscurity. The envoy extraordinaire, the plenipotentiary, has summoned you.”

He rose lethargically.

“Perhaps you should wait a little. I let an Indian visitor in to see him.”

Istvan liked the ambassador’s secretary. She was warm and genial. Her job as keeper of the ambassador’s threshold gave her certain prerogatives. People attached weight to her remarks; it was whispered in corners that she had confidential assignments now and then, that she threw light on issues and gave opinions about the staff. When Istvan had asked her straight out about these things, she had replied:

“Have I done anything to you? No? Be quiet and don’t meddle in things that don’t concern you. In any case I will not rebut these rumors. It is better for them to be afraid of me.”

She gave him a comradely pat, the kind one gives a horse before it runs toward a hurdle. “Keep your chin up.”

“Is it that bad?” He inclined his head in astonishment.

He stood up and raked two documents into a paper portfolio, for he wanted to take the occasion to secure Kalman Bajcsy’s approval for the screening of a film about rice communes by the Danube. Anyway, the boss liked to be asked for advice. It made him feel important, even indispensable.

The ambassador greeted the counselor with an upward tilt of his heavy chin. Tall, stocky, with small eyes and thin, graying hair that bristled slightly where it was parted, he gave the impression of being a strong man. Once in a rush of candor he had explained to Terey why he had left the management of great institutions named for Stalin and gone into diplomacy.

“I am a man with a heavy hand,” he confessed, “and there were other heavy hands there than my own, so it became necessary to get out of people’s way for a while. You know yourself that with us it is not enough to shout to make the horses go. One must reach for the whip.”

At the embassy he made an effort to win the good will of the staff, to show a fatherly interest in them now and then. He inquired as to the health of wives and children. A few times he promised Terey to have his family brought over, but the issuance of passports was somehow delayed. Ilona had not insisted. Both boys had begun their studies, and there was of course no Hungarian school in New Delhi. They did not know English; before they acquired the rudiments, it would be time to go back, especially with the constant hints of changes to come, the couriers who were awaited with a sense of something like disaster.

“Sit down, comrade.” The ambassador motioned Terey to a seat at a small table, where a lean Hindu was sitting hunched over. He wore glasses; his comb had left ridges in his greasy sheaf of hair. “This is our counselor for cultural affairs. You will arrange the rest with him.”

Terey pressed the chilly palm; its long fingers were stained with violet ink spots. Neither man let it be known that they had already talked. The counselor had not considered it necessary to inform the ministry or even the ambassador of the man’s intention, it seemed so senseless to him.

“Mr. Jay Motal is a well-known man of letters and wants to write a book about us, to give Indian readers a view of the new Hungary of the people — our achievements, our social gains. In fact, he has already acquainted himself with our brochures, but that is not enough for him; he wishes to conduct interviews with dignitaries, to observe our life at close range. You will take his information. A coded message must be sent to the ministry to determine the conditions under which they can accept him.”

He spoke grandiloquently, inclining his head toward the visitor, who nodded in turn, sensing victory at hand.

“How do you envision your stay in our country, sir? What would you like to see?”

“I would like to write a full-length book, so I would have to travel around Hungary for about three months. Surely you would pay for the sightseeing, hotels, necessary expenditures.”

“And your journey?”

“The most direct route would be by Air India to Prague. If it proved too costly, I could return by way of Poland and East Germany. I have made inquiries at those embassies and help was promised.”

“Do you want to write a full-length book about them as well?” Terey asked blandly.

“If I take such a long excursion, it seems to me that I could do it all while I am about it.” The man twirled his palm in a dancer’s gesture. “They are ready to accept me, but they make it conditional upon the payment for a ticket.”

“In what language do you write?”

“In Malayalam. I fled from Ceylon. I was for its incorporation into India.”

“How many books have you written?” the counselor queried.

“Three, not long…”

“With press runs of what size?”

“They did not appear in print. It is hard to find a publisher in our country, and in any case I had to flee. I was being hunted. The English wanted to put me in prison.”

The ambassador, who was listening closely, asked, “How do you support yourself, sir? Not by literature, surely.”

“My father-in-law owns a rice mill. Apart from that, we have been putting out money at a respectable rate of interest.”

“Your clients didn’t repay it?”

“They had to.” The man smiled at the counselor’s naivete. “We took jewelry as security. Strongboxes stood in the office with the deposits.”

“So in fact you have published nothing?” Insistently the counselor returned to the subject.

“I have published a great deal.” He pointed to yellowed newspaper clippings painstakingly glued to cardboard, worn from often being shown, smudged by greasy fingers, like sheets of paper card sharks use at fairs. “Here is an article about Poland, this one is about Czechoslovakia, and this is about you, printed in English. You can see for yourself that I write with warm feelings about Hungary.”

The counselor inclined his head and at a glance recognized whole phrases lifted from a brochure about Hungary’s new education system that had been distributed at a UNESCO convention.

“How do you think information about Hungary might gain a large audience in India? Who will publish this book?”