Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

“The boss is certainly learning it by heart, but go to the cryptographer. He will give you a copy,” said Ferenc. “It shows clearly that we were on the brink of a precipice. The plan of the West was that we would throw our force against the Russians, and that it would incite us, promise help, in the meantime accomplishing its goals with respect to the Suez. This is the logic of these events. I begin to understand Khrushchev’s haste. He had to have peace in Budapest. He seized the trump cards from the opponents who were trying to play the game at their own pace. He did not give them Hungary and he did not allow the Suez to be taken away from Nasser.”

They were sitting in the corridor on the second floor. The light fell on Judit’s luxuriant hair and worried face. Outside the window in the hot Indian autumn, spider webs sailed about. The gardener was raking away crisp leaves. Yellow butterflies flew over the scarlet salvia.

“What did you mean, ‘He did not give them Hungary’?” Terey challenged Ferenc. “Hungary is not a spoon to be tucked into the top of a boot! He didn’t give us away because we didn’t let ourselves be led away by the West, for our people don’t want magnates in the Csepel mills or hereditary owners on land that is parceled out. Socialism, whatever we make of it, is our own affair; it is indivisible from independence.”

Ferenc tilted his head slightly and looked at him with a barely perceptible smile. “You are quite the chess player,” he said, pushing out his lower lip. “So you like a new configuration of things…”

“Player? I’m sorry for you if you look at what is happening to us and see only a game, and our politicians as pawns on a chessboard. Damn it! Aren’t you Hungarians?”

“Perhaps you are going to start in again talking about how many books were published before the war and how many are published now, about the amateur ensembles and museums open to the public. I tell you: write a revolutionary’s notebook, not verse. Write, write and you’ll be running a newspaper — you’ll be the head of Szabad Nep ,” Ferenc snapped.

“Listen, Istvan”—Judit tried to divert his attention—“that painter, your protégé, called me. He wanted assurances that he has a chance to receive a stipend.”

“Hardly the most pressing issue,” Ferenc said sarcastically, “when all Hungary is in convulsions.”

“It is important to Ram Kanval. Surely the paperwork has gone out? The main thing is that he has hope. They are taught to wait patiently.”

Judit looked at Terey with something like pity. She started to explain something but shrugged and sighed, “He will wait until the next incarnation. You are a good fellow, Istvan.” It was as if she had said, You are naive, even a fool.

“I wanted to apprise you that your other protégé,” Ferenc began maliciously, “well, you know, the runaway from Ceylon, the writer…”

“I did not support him at all.”

“But he came to the embassy and you gave him gifts. You loaned him money.”

“He printed two articles for us. You yourself gave him entrée, comrade secretary.”

“He lifted those articles from our brochures. He can do that much. I am not reproaching you, Istvan, but it would be better if you knew whom you were taking under your wing. In a few days he is going to the Bundesrepublik. He will write flattering reportage from there.”

“And you said he couldn’t write!”

“They will write for him. They will write; it will be enough for him to sign the articles.” Ferenc turned the knife. “You are a poet. You look for true art, and you despise the ordinary bullhorn because it is a bullhorn for hire. That is how Jay Motal should be treated. The Germans bought him. They beat us to the punch.”

“They won’t get much for their money.”

“That is our only comfort,” Judit said, and, wishing to end their quarreling, added, “Has either of you been to the cinema?” Seeing their surprise, she explained, “The film was not important. It was the newsreel. Yesterday at the Splendid Palace I saw barricades on the streets of Budapest, and dead insurgents. I tell you, for those few minutes of footage, you have to go. It wrings the heart — the scarred center of the city. Burned-out houses standing amid the rubble.”

“Shall we go, Istvan?” Ferenc suggested, scribbling on the windowpane with a finger.

“What are you drawing there? The gallows?”

“No. Your initial,” Ferenc rejoined. “A capital T, though it may be similar…”

“Go at eight,” Judit begged them. “Must you be eternally sparring?”

“I don’t know if I will have time,” Istvan said evasively. He wanted to take Margit.

“What work do you have that is so urgent?” Ferenc’s interest was aroused. “You are avoiding us, isn’t he, Judit?”

“Yes. He was different before,” she said with a baffled air. “You have changed, Istvan.”

“That’s rubbish!”

“You used to drop in for coffee. We always had something to chat about,” she chided him.

“The counselor no longer trusts us.” Ferenc tightened the screw. “Evidently he has found other confidants.”

“You know yourself that that’s not true.” Istvan turned away and, wishing to break off the conversation, went to his office.

He wrote a letter regarding Ram Kanval, warmly praising his art. When the clattering of the typewriter keys had stopped, he heard voices from the corridor: they were still talking. He sensed that they were speaking of him. His left ear felt hot. His old aunt had always warned, “Left ear burns you, they speak ill of you; right ear — good news.”

An insistent fear reasserted itself: what does Bajcsy know about Margit? Should he believe what Chandra had said? How could he profit by the warning? He could not sit still. He reached for the telephone and when the operator answered, he asked to be connected to the prosecuting magistrate. For some time the Hindu woman searched for the official who was investigating the accident involving the motorcyclist Krishan. At last he had the right man, a man who listened patiently to him and asked for his name letter by letter. When he had finished, the official informed him, to his great surprise, that his intervention was unnecessary, though of course information from a counselor at the embassy would have been highly valued; the woman who had been arrested had been set free the previous day. It had been irrefutably determined that she had nothing to gain by ridding herself of her husband, and she had accused herself as a result of the shock she had experienced.

Feeling relieved and a little disappointed, he hung up. “I acted too slowly,” he half-whispered.

Someone knocked at the door. Before he said distractedly, “Come in,” the balding caretaker had slipped into the room.

“I am here to clear away the papers.” He ran a hand over the desk, on which rose piles of bulletins and newspapers. “Indeed, counselor, you have no room to move. May I straighten up? What is put aside I will take to the archive, what is not needed will go to the stove, and you will have breathing space.”

“Very well. Take the stacks from the floor. From the desk as well. What I need I have cut out and put in my briefcases.”

“I know that an official needs papers, but you were a military man before that, counselor. Why rustle like a mouse in old newspapers? I will take them away. New ones will come.” He waved his hands as if he were about to fly up over the choked shelves. “I also came here on a temporary basis…”

He glanced at the nail on which the portrait of Rakosi had hung and winked knowingly at Terey. “I thought I would be in India for only two years and then back in our country, and in the meantime I have outlasted these great ones,” he said. “They fell off their high pedestals, and I keep my seat. I mind my own business and I have nothing to be ashamed of.”