Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

He smiled as he read this scrupulous recounting of trifles. He liked Ilona’s exactitude; he seemed to smell the pungent rawness of the beechwood shavings around the eggs as if they were clinging to his hands. He saw the table under the window that looked out onto the narrow yard with landings off kitchen stairs; he heard the stairs rumbling under the feet of packs of gleeful children.

The letter in which he had asked for details relating to his friend’s death must have crossed hers in the mail, for she had not written a word about Bela. Perhaps she did not know what had happened to him. She could have telephoned the editorial department. But were any of the old staff there — any of those with whom they both had been friends?

He remembered years when such a question would have brought ambiguous, evasive answers, words carefully screened as if to avoid upsetting someone seriously ill, and the conversation would have concluded with a phrase that was almost ritualistic: I will tell you when we meet; it’s best not to speak on the telephone. In that case, what the devil were telephones for? Just to assure the caller that there was life at the other end of the wire? Or were they only for the ears of eavesdropping authorities?

The letters brought him a feeling of relief. So the worst was over; at last there was calm and a measure of order. He stared at a short sentence: “It has been very difficult lately.” Then immediately the subject changed, as if Ilona were trying to cover her tracks, feeling that she had already said too much, particularly about glaziers and windowpanes, which were in short supply throughout the city.

To all appearances the functions of the embassy were being carried on normally. But close observation revealed that other embassies were avoiding contact with theirs. At receptions, conversations broke off and groups dispersed into the crowd when the ambassador or Ferenc came over. It seemed that the world around them was waiting impatiently for pronouncements, demonstrations — that official connection to any government in Budapest had deprived them of their standing as representatives of Hungary’s true interests. That was not only galling but humiliating.

It was rather different in his own case. At the club, in the press corps, they simply liked him. But the friendliness and tolerance he met with, the advantage he seemed to enjoy, was baffling to his colleagues and aroused their suspicions.

There was genuine excitement when his poem appeared in Bombay’s Illustrated Weekly . He had translated it himself. For a long time he had wanted Margit to become acquainted with his style. She had suggested several improvements; she had been able to select the appropriate English expressions. The poem was about Budapest, about his nostalgia for the beauty of the city.

He was summoned to meet with the ambassador. He passed quickly through Judit’s office, since he found Bajcsy’s door open and saw the boss’s curmudgeonly face beyond the threshold. He was sucking a pipe that had gone out. Judit could only glance at Istvan with fear and sympathy, as neighbors look at an acquaintance with whom they have exchanged words every day and who has suddenly been found to have murdered his wife, set a fire, or at the least indulged a perversion.

The door had not even closed when Kalman Bajcsy pounded the pages of the thick weekly with the back of his hand and growled, “What is the meaning of this, Terey?”

“A poem. They invited submissions. I sent one.”

“Who cleared you to do that?”

“You yourself, comrade ambassador, recommended that we begin to draw the attention of the press to Hungary again.”

“A poem about Budapest? Do you know how this will be read just now?”

“Does the name of the capital have to be left out because there has been an uprising? I wrote this a long time ago.”

Bajcsy fixed him with a stony glare. “And what does this mean, ‘bloodstained leaves,’ ‘banks in shackles’?” He read the words with damning emphasis, turning the stem of his pipe. “Don’t make a fool of me.”

“Metaphors. In the fall, leaves turn red. The suspension bridge on its chains binds both banks of the Danube together,” he explained with impertinent precision. “You remember the Chain Bridge, comrade ambassador?”

“But who knows about it?” the older man thundered. “You will regret this, Terey. Who called my attention to this antic of yours? An ambassador who happens to be a friend of mine.” He jabbed the pipe at Terey’s chest as if it had been a knife. “He congratulated me on having people on my staff who could write poetry. I know very well what he meant. I will not have you making a laughingstock of me.”

“Perhaps he knows something about poetry?” the counselor ventured to remark with a show of disarming naivete.

“He? How? We must be watchful here. There is no time for us to amuse ourselves. And I will tell you something else, Terey: don’t publish anything without my consent. You may be a great poet in our country, but it is different here, where every word has to be held up to the light three times before it is printed. You are with the service; you are an official of my embassy. You will not play politics on your own hook. They put me here for that.”

If he could have, he would have given an order to have me flogged, Terey thought fleetingly. He looked at the burly hands with their curling black hair as they clenched into fists and opened again in powerless rage.

“Well, why are you looking at me like that? Did you understand my order?”

“Yes. I only wanted to put you on notice that another poem of mine will appear in the Bengal literary monthly with my biography and list of credits.”

Bajcsy caught his breath. “And there will be more about bloody leaves and shackles? You will withdraw that poem this minute.”

“I’m afraid that would make a very bad impression. I will have to furnish some explanation, and I will write them that I declined publication at the ambassador’s wish.”

“You will attribute nothing to anyone except yourself.”

“That’s impossible. I want the poem to be published. These are the first pieces of Hungarian poetry to appear in India.”

Bajcsy’s eyes bored into Terey. He breathed as if he had been running. “And what is this other poem about?” he asked more calmly.

“About love.”

A vein throbbed in the ambassador’s neck. He nodded skeptically. “About love? It depends on what you put into it. About love for a woman?” he asked suspiciously.

“Yes.”

“And will that one have metaphors as well?”

“Politicians also use metaphors, not just poets. It will be translated into Bengali.”

“That’s better.” Bajcsy exhaled. “Let them print it, but you will be responsible for the consequences. In the future, however, everything you publish goes through this desk. I want to see every scrap of paper you send to the Indian editors.”

He sat pressing his hand into his beefy cheeks. At last he asked wearily, “Terey, why do you take such delight in upsetting me? I will prick you once and that fame of yours will burst like a balloon.”

“You can shout at me, but that’s all. And send me back to Hungary. But there have been changes in the ministry there. You think that they love you, ambassador — that you can speak a word and they will all be on their knees. Not in these times. You know well that I fill my own balloon, if I may use your figure of speech. I glide under my own power. Your boys may learn about me in school. Well, yes — they will take the qualifying examinations. You know that just as well as I do. No one need inflate my balloon. I have value outside this embassy.”

Bajcsy’s creased face glistened with sweat. Suddenly he croaked, “Get out.”