Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

“I believe I know you, and I know how much you’re worth. Sometimes I pray: God, let her be happy. To do that, after all, is to pray against you and me. For since I can’t bury the past, I can’t say: Istvan died, a father died, Hungary died, and someone was born who — apart from pain and self-loathing — has nothing to offer. After all, the one you would take with you would not be me. Do you understand? I would despise myself. Could you be happy with me?”

“Istvan! I shouldn’t have said that,” she sobbed.

“You should have. We’ve avoided this conversation for too long. You thought: it’s his decision. I don’t want it to seem that I am trapping him. I won’t urge him; it will happen of itself. And I steered around the questions that needed to be asked, for honesty demands that they be asked. We must both answer them in good faith, supporting each other. You must help me in this, and I must help you.”

“That is just how I have always thought about this moment,” she gasped out, wiping her tears. “Nothing is final yet. Everything can still change.” There was a ring of resilient hope in her voice. “After all, you still haven’t given me anything to be despondent about. I see how happy I can be. I want the deep peace I find in you. Will that be taken from me? To mock me? He could not play with us so cruelly.”

She breathed fitfully. Her words were tremulous and broken from her crying a moment before. He knew that she was not making her argument to him, but bargaining for him with the One they both, though they knew He existed, wanted to leave out of their considerations. He stroked her head, which shifted heavily on his chest as if it had become severed from her body. There was nothing sensual in these caresses, only tenderness and the hope of quieting the sobbing that was going away like a storm driven by the wind — the sobbing that tore at his heart.

They lay side by side, breathing on each other. Her fragrant hair was spread lightly against his temple. The shadows deepened above them and pressed down so heavily that breathing was difficult. He thought he heard the rustle of flying flakes of invisible soot, but perhaps it was only her eyelids brushing his chest. It seemed to him that they were like a pair of freshly hatched chicks whom the brooding hen has not taken under her wing, who are put into a pot full of gray down and feathers and, terrified by their unknown fate, cuddle together, searching for courage in their own warmth.

He heard the brisk ticking of his watch on the table; the metal face emitted a low tinkle as if the squeaks of a greedy insect were tirelessly cutting into the congealing dark. Margit’s breathing grew even; she must have closed her eyes, for one last tear, pressed from under an eyelid, flowed onto his chest, tickling him. His arms were growing numb, but he avoided the slightest movement so as not to rouse her. He thought she was sleeping when she said softly, taking him by surprise with her cool, wakeful tone, “Let’s not talk now, Istvan. We’ve wounded each other enough.”

“Yes.”

“I want you to sleep. You’re showing the strain of the last two weeks. You must rest. You must sleep.”

“I can’t.”

She moved her hand over his forehead as if to wipe away the disturbing thoughts that repeated themselves in his mind. “Think of the boys. They love you, though they may not even know it. They have you, even if they don’t appreciate it. Think of them. They are alive. They need you.”

“I’m thinking of you.”

“You’ll have plenty of time for that. Until the end of your life, when I won’t be with you.”

They were silent, listening to the rapid beating of their hearts, terrified by the words she had spoken. The sleepless nights of the lonely, separated from each other, when pictures bleed from the memory to torture the heart, and insistent questions return. Why? Could it have turned out differently?

He kissed her warmly as if she were a child, covered her carefully with the blankets, and, lying on his back, listened to her breathing in the darkness that teemed around them, rose and then subsided into black atoms. It seemed to him that the gnawing insect in his watch was working faster, boring into time, cutting indefatigably. Its tiny rasping bit Istvan to the heart.

“You must go away.” Margit was handing him a cup of morning coffee.

“That’s what the ambassador recommended. But I can’t just now. I don’t know if things have really quieted down there.”

“What did you say to him? When he lets you, go.”

“I told him I would go to Cochin.”

“Where is that?”

“In the south. The very tip of India.”

“But why there?”

“Out of cheek, to take him by surprise. Soon after I arrived in India I saw a color film: the ocean, palm trees, white beaches. Little houses, the water, and sails like kites on the horizon. I said to myself, I must go there. The winter is a good season, not too hot.”

“Well — go.”

“I don’t know yet.”

“I’ll be free the fifteenth of December,” she said thoughtfully. “I didn’t extend my contract.”

“Would you go?”

“Yes. Though I know it would be senseless, trailing after you to the end.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“Cochin. Cochin,” she whispered. “Surely that’s far enough from the embassy. Do they pester you very much about me?”

“They don’t know much about us, fortunately. I’ve stopped spending time at the club.”

“That must seem strange in itself. It will be harder and harder for you to hide me. You must be seen among people. You can’t avoid them like this. They really should see you. That’s only common sense. Promise?”

“When I’d rather wait for you. I think…I’m at no loss for company.”

“You’re dreaming,” she said sorrowfully.

“Do you forbid me to dream?”

“When you dream, you are preoccupied with what you are creating. I, a living person, am less important to you. Istvan, you are much happier than I am. When you are suffering, you can tell the whole world in your writing. And I…I only have you, and still I hesitate before I say a word.” She took his hand and put it on her heart. “We will go to Cochin together. If you like.”

“We’ll steal away and be out of sight. We’ll have no one but each other.”

“You don’t even know what you’re saying.” She was defending herself against the vision of that joyous solitude on the sparsely peopled beaches of the south. “That’s terrible.”

“We’ll be happy.”

“So that afterward we can push each other away into despair?”

He kissed her hair and whispered pleadingly, “Don’t talk that way. Please.”

She was quiet. She only held him desperately, as if the future were going to tear her away and carry her to a place from which there was no return.

“Listen,” she said in a peremptory tone. “Salminen is arriving Saturday. He’s giving a lecture on Sunday. He asked me to assemble some material for him and develop some statistical summaries. I’ll be busy.”

“Two whole days?” he burst out, annoyed that the old doctor with whom he felt little connection was taking away what was his.

“He’s coming by car. I must wait for him at the hotel. I certainly won’t tell him I’m staying with you. It’s only decent for me to be with him on Sunday. Imagine how affronted he would feel if I weren’t in the hall! On Saturday you can entertain your colleagues. On Sunday, go to the club. Surely you don’t want their attention to be drawn to us.”

“I don’t want to see anyone. I’m not up to talking to people.”

“I’m not asking you if you want to do this. You must,” she said with emphasis, “for our sakes. I really want to go to Cochin with you. All the holidays; just the two of us.”