Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

All the city smelled of candles. The dance of lights, the warm, living flame, transformed buildings, lending charm to the scene. Over the treetops the fires of enormous, vitreous stars trembled. The sky seemed to droop among the houses, shaking flashing particles of light onto doorsills, walls, and paths. The goddess Lakshmi, with a lamp in each hand, was leading good fortune toward those who were waiting, begging, in the twilight.

“I wonder if our house will have lights. I didn’t give the cook any money. I completely forgot,” Istvan said.

But when they drove up onto the grassy square, he saw with relief an unsteady little cockscomb of flame on the low wall. The dusky grotto that was the veranda, covered with its fleece of climbing plants, glittered with golden flames in little lamps. The watchman stood with his legs planted wide apart, leaning on his thick bamboo stick. Three rows of small lights blinked on the grass at his feet, bowing in the barely perceptible breeze. The fiery display lit up his legs, which seemed hewn from bronze. His huge shadow fell on the wall, making him the vigilant envoy of the supreme beings.

“He lit the place.” Istvan sighed with relief. “They deserved a reward. And happiness has a shining path to our house.”

Margit waited in front of the gate until he had parked the Austin in the garage. The cook greeted them with a triumphant air; he was squatting, straightening the tilted wicks with a stick.

“As good as everyone else’s, true, sir?”

“Even handsomer.” Terey clapped him on the shoulder. “You didn’t stint on the candles.”

“We must be generous to Lakshmi so she will come to us,” the man answered ingratiatingly, and discreetly handed him the bill for the little votive lamps.

“Very good. Here you are.”

“This is too much, sir.” The cook cocked his head on his slender neck like a magpie that cannot lift a bone in its beak.

“Take it all. Because you used your head.”

“Ah! Sir, your happiness is our happiness, you know. The watchman is getting married because he has a good job. All my family, sir, blesses you. And the sweeper’s family, and the gardener’s. You are like a strong tree and we are like birds who weave nests in your branches. You have an open hand and do not ration rice as they do in other houses. Sir”—his speech took on the rhythm of an incantation and he raised his hands toward the leafy fringes of the climbing plants—“may the goddess Lakshmi visit this house with gifts for you and madam.”

Long shadows fell on the walls. The air smelled of hot oil and candles, like the interior of a temple. The assembled servants bowed to them.

“And we wish you great success,” he answered. “I leave the house to your care. Manage our home wisely. Tomorrow I go to the south.”

“For how long, sir?”

“For a few weeks.”

When he found himself in the living room, he went up to Margit, amazed and anxious. She sat hunched over, hiding her face in her hands.

“What’s happened?” He opened her hands and saw that her face was damp with tears.

“Nothing.” Under wet lashes that clung together, her eyes were shining brightly. “For the first time you said ‘our home.’”

He bent over her, taken aback. Gradually he began to understand, and to feel compassion. She needed so little — an impulsive word — to build the whole edifice of the future. She loves me — the thought recurred like an accusation — loves me.

“I want to hear that always, until my last day,” she whispered, nestling against him with damp, flushed cheeks.

Swarms of lights on the neighboring villas shone in blurs through the window screens. An acute sadness seemed to have settled over the city, like crepe over the plots in a village cemetery on the day people light candles in memory of the dead.

“We will go tomorrow.” He pushed away painful thoughts. She leaned toward him, rubbing her cheek and blinking with happiness, like a little girl who has no words to express her joy and thankfulness for an unexpected gift.

They lay on fine white sand, close enough to touch each other. A few yards from their feet, turbid waves died on a shore that had been battered and swept smooth as an enormous bowl wreathed with heaps of pungent-smelling seaweed. The ocean swelled gently and tilted, driving water toward the coast. Yellow and reddish sails, appearing almost motionless on the horizon, stood like triangles with their points resting on the gray water.

It was not easy to find a name for the few loosely connected beams, forming something like a beak, that opened like a fan with slits to create a channel for foaming seawater. There were no boats to be seen, only the slowly revolving triangular sails, patched and dimming in the sun, that wandered on the edge of the sky like kites ripped from their strings.

He turned his head and fixed his gaze on Margit’s austere, chiseled profile, veiled by her windblown hair. Her bluish-green eyes, squinting a little, glittered with happiness. Her lips parted slightly with her deep breathing. Her small breasts under her wet bathing suit, barely covered, challenged him.

The choked alleys of Old Delhi dissolved and vanished: the crowd pressing blindly, the mass of bodies one had to rub against to walk along the street, the stifling odor of drains, urine, pastilles, fermenting fruit peelings, incense, the smells of flaming butter in votive lamps and palm oil that permeated hair and lingered on clothing.

Here on this great sweep of beach they were alone, deprived of all resources but each other — joyful castaways. Free of obligation to the world, they rested, not even hearing the groaning of the surf that doggedly spilled onto the shore, raking with it the coarser sand and the pink shells. A damp breeze blew over them, allaying the sweltering heat of noon. The air over this expanse of sand untrodden by anyone’s feet was veined with flashing green. The leaves of battered palms rose, swelling as if in flight, shaking their leathery fringes.

“Don’t sleep.” Her fingertips brushed his side, which was plastered with smooth, fine-grained sand.

“I’m not sleeping. I’m thinking,” he answered, stretching. “Do you know that in two days it will be Christmas Eve?”

“Are you counting the days? Do you know exactly how many have passed?”

“What for? Our time here will be too short that way. I know about Christmas Eve because I got a letter from the hotel management asking what we would like for the holiday dinner.”

“Don’t they believe that Daniel will repeat our order accurately? He’s a clever chap.” Daniel was a young man whose services came with their rented cottage.

“The entire menu was written out. I only had to underline our choices.”

“Why did you do it without me? You should have consulted me.”

“It will be a surprise for you.”

“I’m sure you ordered something awful, as you did in the Chinese restaurant that time. When the chef explained what it was made of, I felt something inside me protesting!”

“But you liked it. As long as you didn’t know, you enjoyed it. I’ve ordered seafood for us.”

“And where is the turkey with dates and chestnuts?”

“It’s still alive, but there is enough of it to order six servings. They have it figured very closely: chicken, two servings; duck, four; turkey, twelve. Apart from us, there are only two old English ladies. Amazing how empty it is. I expected a crowd.”

“Do you wish for other women? Am I not enough?” She scooped up a handful of white sand and watched as it trickled through her fingers.

“Don’t talk nonsense.”

“I’m glad you rested a little. The solitude will do us good.”

“For the time being there aren’t many people here because the Suez Canal is blocked. But they will be here for New Year’s. The beach will be filled with them.”