Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

“Sahib”—he put his hands to his mouth, but alerted Istvan in a whisper—“there. Two fat ducks.”

In the shadow of overhanging branches, hardly rippling the olive-colored water, a pair of teals swam close together. Istvan shook his head and waved, then took down the gun he had hung from his neck and leveled it as if to shoot into the air. The other man nodded and bolted into the bushes. He raised a hand, then threw a piece of rotting root into the undergrowth so that it splashed. The ducks flailed in the water, which seemed to cling to their wings, before sputtering into the air over the thicket. Istvan let them fly up so the ricochet from his shot would not graze the Hindu; they struggled to rise high above the clumps of reeds. The shot swished through the air. One duck fell like a stone, rattling dully on the ground. The other flew on, quacking in mortal terror. Whitish down stripped away by the lead pellets lingered behind her in the air.

Suddenly, as if her beak had struck a windowpane, she whirled and, hammering with her wings, burrowed into the dense mesh of grasses.

“Beautiful shot.” He heard a husky voice behind him and saw Major Stowne in washed-out denim standing motionless in the reeds. With the dark barrel of his shotgun protruding, he reminded Istvan of a heron.

“I’m sorry,” Terey faltered, embarrassed. “I didn’t see you, sir. I wouldn’t have barged in.”

“That was just the point: for me not to be seen. You will pass on; I will stay. You all scare the birds and they move over here, where it’s calm — just under my barrel. Have a look.” He pushed aside a shock of overhanging grasses with his boot and showed Istvan several birds that he had killed. “I have no complaints. See, there on the wing. Shoot.”

From the direction of the camp, where the chatter of gunfire never stopped, flew a little flock of ducks — five, seven, Terey counted, moving his barrel into position. He had no qualms now as he drew a bead on the first three. He fired and one began its fall, finally striking a shrub amid a shower of yellowed leaves.

Stowne did not even bend over to collect his birds. He only whispered to summon the villager. The Hindu was caked with mud to his thighs; the sash on his hips was soaking. He held the upturned lower edge of his shirt in his teeth and shook the spoils of the shooting. He stood in the sun, trembling from the chill and perhaps with excitement, for he grinned broadly.

The shooting by the river never let up. It was as if someone were throwing stones at the bottom of a barrel.

“Monsieur Nagar is crazy.” Stowne’s florid face creased in a frown. “You were a soldier, so you instinctively avoid him. Sometimes I’ve gone out with him for quail, and I had to crawl because he was shooting like a tank in all directions. I was never under such fire on any front in the war.”

“He wants to be king of the hunt,” Terey said mockingly.

“And you’ll see: he will be. I know him. A real fox. He told the lads who retrieve the ducks for us that for each one they brought him they would get half a rupee. Well, didn’t I tell you? And where is yours?”

Istvan looked around the bushes. The Hindu disappeared; the tufts of reeds swayed almost imperceptibly. He lifted the bird he had just brought down. It had lain with wings outspread, its blue patch dazzling, its neck iridescent. He fastened it to a strap on his belt.

“Eh, what? Did I get it right?” the gray-haired major said triumphantly. “You can stay here as long as you don’t disturb the ducks or, above all, me. It’s a good place. It will do for us both.”

But Istvan only tipped his hat, pushed the tangled reeds apart and moved wordlessly away.

He dodged and wove for a long time, wrestling with the undergrowth that clutched at his feet like a snare. Time after time he heard the flapping of ducks’ wings in the air and their quacking, but reeds and shrubs twice his height covered his field of vision. He came upon a swampy depression — a tiny stream was trickling somewhere under the layers of colorless grasses — and he had to get around it; he had no wish to emerge drenched and plastered with mud. He had gone so far away that he could hear no shots. He was tired and the sun, though invisible, was broiling. He decided to go back — to make his way to the high bank, circle through the fields, and approach the camp from the road by which they had come.

I am at the hunt, as Margit requested. But she would not be satisfied, because I am alone. After all, she wanted me to enjoy myself, to break out of my solitude.

As he came onto the dry meadows he shot one more bird, which had flown recklessly near his barrel. It was not a clean shot; the cluster of pellets had been too large and had ripped apart the belly. When he picked up the duck, warm blood ran over his hand. He wiped it on the grass but it stuck to the butt of his gun. Swarms of flies swirled around his face and settled around the open beaks of the birds strapped to his belt.

“Hello, Mr. Terey!” He heard an elated voice behind him. From the direction of the bare, rocky fields and patches of corn stripped of its ripe ears, from among the stalks whitened by the sun, Bradley heaved into view. He looked like an overgrown peasant with chubby cheeks and bristling, tousled blond hair. “Look what I bagged! Not just any silly duck.”

Above the American’s fist a small head was sticking up amid a comb of pertly waving royal blue feathers. A long sheaf of shifting, fiery colors — the tail — swept the dust.

It was a peacock.

“Hide that this minute!” Istvan commanded.

“Why? This is a tasty bird.”

“But sacred.”

“I never dreamed—”

“There will be trouble. We all could be stoned. These people are not so docile.”

Bradley let go of the peacock and stood over it, hesitating.

“Tear off the tail. Cut away the wings and legs. Wrap the rest in anything you have and put it in your car right away.”

“Damn! It was the tail I wanted most.” He nudged the bird with his shoe. “Curse this country! They won’t eat these things themselves and they won’t give them to anybody else.”

Terey did not wait but walked rapidly on. Bradley caught up with him.

“Are you afraid or what?”

“No. I’m just hungry.”

“And my throat’s burning. God! I’d drink three cans of beer as long as there was ice. Surely they have it.”

“Of course they do. Nagar does — I’ll vouch for it.”

“For beer on ice I’d give him the Suez. But the French got hit where it hurts there, though they took no losses. A defeat with worse repercussions than Dien Bien Phu: they have all the Arabs against them. They’ve taken a kick.”

“Don’t bother me about politics,” Terey snapped.

They walked along the path side by side. Shadows lay on the decaying grass from which whitish stones, worn smooth by the river, protruded like bones. Lizards warmed themselves on them — darting little skeletons sheathed in greenish skins.

“You know, Fanny’s not so bad,” Bradley began. “But that other one — some fellow made a move on Fanny and she invited him home. They did some drinking and went to bed, and when the guy had finished, Fanny called, ‘Come ’ere, Moufi. Come, sis, and I’ll show you a real man. That’s a rarity today.’ Well, and what was a fellow to do? He saved his honor. He took the poor little dear in her quilted housecoat with forget-me-nots, and Fanny perched on the couch and watched to see that everything happened as it ought—” he burst into a loud laugh.

“He told you that himself?”

“No,” he admitted, frowning. “Fanny was bragging. She’s a lot of fun.”

“That’s just publicity.”

“Probably. Everybody likes her, but as a friend, not as a woman. Sure, she told it to make an impression. But Miss Shankar could be in a Coca-Cola ad. Oh, the delightful smell of roast duck!” He rubbed his big palms together. “Istvan”—he clapped him on the back with a heavy hand—“we’ll knock back a few.”