Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

“Let’s go back,” he agreed. Then, oblivious to his companion, he began to walk faster and faster, as if to escape.

At the Janpath Hotel the porter pointed to a key hanging on the board where the room numbers were displayed.

“Miss Ward returned only for a moment and went out again at once.”

Worried, he caught a taxi and ordered the driver to take him home.

The fusty interior of the cab reeked of sweat and cloying incense. He felt nauseated. The potbellied driver in a ragged sweater was brazenly holding a young boy by his left hand; the boy giggled ingratiatingly. Clattering and grinding, the old Ford moved ahead, permeated by a smell of burning oil. It seemed to Istvan that the two in the front seat were too preoccupied with each other to remember where they were taking him. He got out with relief and noticed a blur of yellow light in his living room. Beside the door the watchman, half awake, was stretching. The girl lay almost hidden in a corner of the veranda, curled up on a blanket.

He could not fit the key into the lock, though he tried to be quick so as not to disturb the lovers. His hands trembled.

Margit came to the door and they fell on each other with desperate eagerness, as if they were about to separate forever. They embraced silently, her forehead resting on his already rough cheek, while under his lips a crisp wave of hair darkened in the deep shadow. He felt the pressure of that dearest flesh now touching his — near, yielding. He felt his own heart. Through the coarse wool of her suit he found her familiar, warm body; he stroked it, clasped it with inexpressible tenderness. All the world lost its meaning. There were only the two of them, predestined for each other.

“Why didn’t you go to bed? You’ll stay here.”

“A telegram came for you,” she whispered, touching his cheek with her lips. He did not let her go.

“What’s in it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You should have opened it. I have no secrets from you.”

“I opened it, but it was in Hungarian,” she breathed, holding him tightly. He quivered. Releasing himself, he went to the desk and shoved a creased slip of paper into the harsh glare of the lamp.

We are well stop do not worry dear stop peace here now stop Ilona.

His lips parted as if in a prayer of gratitude. They were alive. It had passed them by. He looked at the date: it had been sent the day before yesterday. He raised his head and was pained by Margit’s despairing look. He had been distant from her again. He had left her on the far side of a threshold she could not cross.

“All is well.” His smile was shadowed with anxiety. “They are alive.”

It seemed to him that she had expected something else. Her eyes were full of anguish. “Well,” she said. “You are calm.”

He embraced her, but he felt that she had gone stiff in his arms. The oneness between them, the overflowing adoration and surrender without reserve, were missing.

“You will stay?” It was a question, not an order.

She felt the difference keenly; she caught it, not with the ear, but through the pulse of the blood.

“As you like,” she answered sleepily. She went over to a chair, unfastened her tweed jacket, and began to undress. “Turn out the light.” She motioned with her head. “I thought I saw someone standing near the window.”

“The watchman. He wanted to be sure he could lie down and not go on making a show of guarding the house.”

“Take me home later,” she whispered, touching him to feel whether he had undressed. He took her in his arms. He trembled as he touched her firm, cool breasts, her slightly swelling belly. The distance between them dissolved.

“No…No…I want you by me when I wake. Before I open my eyes, I must know that you are here. Margit…”

All at once he wanted to confide his anxieties to her, to tell her about his conversation with Chandra and his premonition that a threat hung over them, but her nearness drove other thoughts away. He ran his fingers through her luxuriant hair as if it were spring grass. His hand traveled over her back as if it were a stone on the bank of a stream, warmed by the sun. He heard the soft murmur of her breath. It seemed to him that he was in a forest with treetops swaying in the wind. Again she was his whole world. What happiness, he thought, choking with gratitude — that I can love so intensely.

At the embassy the telegram from his wife made quite a stir. It was taken as confirmation that a general calm had ensued and that the destruction must not be farreaching, since the postal service was operating efficiently.

“If nothing happened at your house, as I was certain was the case, the Western press has outdone itself in magnifying the disturbances.” Ferenc gazed at the telegram. “All is well with my family, too. My mother and father live around the corner near Lenin Road and a few houses down.”

A trio had gathered: Istvan, Ferenc, and Judit. Istvan tried to penetrate Ferenc’s drawn, dogged look. His eyelids were dark with sleeplessness. He is worried, Istvan thought. For the first time he is showing anxiety about his parents. He has never spoken of them. It was as if he had given birth to himself and had himself to thank for everything.

“The boss is breathing more easily. In the night Kádár’s declaration came; he read as much of it as he wanted and walks around proud that he did not go off in a rush of adulation for Nagy. He repeated the same sentence to me three times, ‘Whoever demands the withdrawal of the Soviet armies knowingly or unknowingly proclaims himself a counterrevolutionary and impels the nation toward the loss of independence.’ I foresaw this. From the beginning this uprising stank of counterrevolution to me.”

“That means that he understood nothing.” Istvan looked Ferenc in the eye. “Either he didn’t hear or he didn’t want to know why the unrest began. He would have had to beat himself as penance.”

“You think that blood was not shed in vain?” Ferenc hesitated. “Certainly there were mistakes, but not such as to necessitate smashing all the machinery of government, disbanding the party. On whom is Kádár leaning now? On those who hid away at the crucial time and were not slaughtered by the crowd? Or on the rebels who shot at the Russians? I know one thing: there are too few of them to make a government.”

“You speak harshly.” Judit turned her head. “Something in that text must have nettled you.”

“Me?” Ferenc frowned. “I have a premonition that there will be an evening of the score, and how that will look you may see in any American newspaper with coverage of Budapest. It only takes a moment to hang someone, and then everyone can commiserate for as long as they like because it was a mistake.” He thrust a finger behind his collar and pushed as if the starched linen were pinching him.

“Don’t work yourself up. We are in India. In the meantime, things will sort themselves out at home,” Judit said.

“Radio Free Europe has thrown out a slogan, ‘Destroy the factories, sabotage the machines, so Russia will have no profit from your workshops.’ Nice, eh?” the secretary said pointedly. “I heard it myself.”

“Well, who is going to pay any attention to them? After all, the workers would be hurting themselves,” Istvan shrugged.

“As they did when they began to shoot,” Judit said dejectedly, “and they had reasons. There is nothing more tragic than for honest outbursts to be exploited by enemies and turned to our undoing. You can’t expect a mob to think; a mob is elemental. It praises, elevates, and destroys with equal ease.”

“Give me that declaration to read,” Istvan requested. “I am arguing when I haven’t seen it in black and white.”