Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

“I would not involve myself in this. I would leave vengeance to God. It will find them when the time is ripe,” Daniel said softly. They had reached the line of cottages on piles; they were dark and quiet as hives of hibernating bees.

“First thing in the morning you will send a telegram. Perhaps his brother will show better judgment and convince him to file a deposition.”

“Very well, sahib.”

“Until tomorrow, Daniel. Give me your flashlight.”

He ran up the steps, covering the stream of light with his fingers. He pushed aside the mosquito netting and leaned over the sleeping woman. Margit lay with her fists against her half-open mouth, from which trickles of sweat and threads of saliva gleamed. Her breathing was choked as if she had been sobbing not long before.

Something crumbled under his foot — something like a grain of sand. He uncovered the flashlight and saw white pills scattered on the floorboards. He was terrified that she might have poisoned herself accidentally, dizzy with fever and reaching for another bag in the dark. He raised one of the pills and was relieved to see that it was stamped Bayer. Like an echo her words returned: If I died, everything would be simpler. Since you cannot make the decision yourself, cannot make the final choice, you will leave it to fate. You will call in the arbiter.

No. No. Trust me; give me a little more time. I will resolve my issues myself. With his hands resting helplessly on his lap, he saw the swarm of stars framed in the rectangle of the open door.

As if she sensed in her sleep that he was near her, she rolled onto her side and groped for him with her hand. The blind, trusting motion of her body moved him. He put out his hand and she took it in her fingers; they were weak, hot and sticky. Let her be angry; I’m going to get the doctor in the morning. This may be something serious. Margit is not versed in tropical diseases.

He remembered that there was ice water in the thermos; it only remained to squeeze in a couple of lemons. Above the monotonous noises from the bay he seemed to hear the dull, labored beating of her heart. He looked at the dark swirl of her hair and the faint outline of her body under the sheet. His ankles were smarting with mosquito bites; they stung like sparks from a fire. He scratched them with the sole of his sandal. The last tugboat heaved a long groan, reminding him of twilight over the Danube.

He bent over her and then fell into a short doze. He did not lose the sense that she was by him, that he must help her. When he was younger he had not experienced such oneness in love — a love not impelled by the cry of the body, but deeper, quieter. And then he spied the lancet he had forgotten lying on the threshold like a silver fish thrown up on the shore, but it was the threshold of another cottage, not this one. He must bring it back in the morning or children would find it and take it away.

He woke with a feeling that something terrible had happened. The light of the lamp was barely visible under the ceiling, irrelevant in the brightness of the rising day. Margit lay beside him with her eyes open, watching him as if she were ready to burst into tears. A white sky without a single cloud hung over a quiet sea. Only a flock of gulls rocking on a wave screamed with voices full of amazement.

“Have you been awake long?” he asked.

She shook her head and whispered, “Merry Christmas. I’ve spoiled your holiday.”

“Don’t talk that way.” He touched her forehead. Her temperature had not gone down. “Do you want something to drink?”

“Give me another nightgown. This one is all wet. And move away. I’m disgusting.”

“We have to call a doctor.” He kissed her dry, coarse lips.

“Don’t kiss me. I don’t know what I have, and you might get sick, too.”

“We would lie here together,” he said, trying to joke as he pulled garments smooth and transparent as water from a cabinet. He helped her change her nightgown; for an instant he saw her small breasts, naked and defenseless.

“What could a doctor tell me? I’m not in pain. There is no rash. We have to wait. The disease will have to manifest itself.”

They spoke very low. She looked through the open door toward the sea.

“Such a beautiful day! Go for a swim before breakfast.”

Her eyelids closed. She looked like a tired child; the glare of the sunny day dazzled her. She took the thermometer from the corner of her mouth and tried to shake it quickly, but he managed to read: 39.2. She tried to smile but only distorted her mouth. “Go on,” she urged tenderly. “You’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“You’re weak. I’ll help you.”

“I can get to the bathroom myself.” She lowered her narrow feet and stood up, leaning on the bed. He saw the outline of her tanned body through filmy fabric; the deep cut of her nightshirt exposed arms bronze from the sun. I must remember her this way, he thought — dependent on me, yielding, undefended. I supported her and she accepted that with relief. She let herself be led.

“Let me be,” she whispered. He kissed her temple. He wanted to encourage her, to assure her that he was there.

He undressed quickly, throwing his pants on the chair. He turned off the useless lamp. As he stepped down onto the cool sand, a tremor ran through him. Dampness, chill, and diffuse light — the luminous blur of dawn — mingled in the air. He ran, breathing deeply the smell of the sea, delighting in the dexterity of his muscles, the responsiveness of his body. He stopped before the last cottage and was astonished to see that the lancet was not lying on the step where he had left it. He saw no footprints; the morning wind had erased them. He knelt to see if it had fallen into the sand. A brown rat lurked among the pilings, polished by the flagellating wind, that supported the floor. It looked out fearlessly with yellow-ringed eyes. He ran on and splashed into water that tilted gently with an invisible wave. It parted reluctantly, sleepily. The gulls swam as if they had grown tired of the unpeopled shore and abandoned it.

Just before his eyes, on a smooth expanse of water, he saw a fine dust carried from the land — light particles of soot from the tugboats. Beside it loomed, like a globe of violet glass, the circular form of a great jellyfish that was making its fateful way to the beach. On that dark belt of sand, the sun would kill it.

His brown arms cut the water. He did not swim so much as loll in the surf, roll, fall into the trough, then beat the water and rear up to the waist like a bird rising into flight. He was filled with the joy of a new day, of the love of a woman, fulfilling desire and transcending it, drawing the soul aloft as if on wings; he felt an immeasurable tenderness and gratitude that she wanted to be with him, to share the day. In the distance, like children’s laughter, the cries of gulls were borne on a slow wave. A ship in the port bellowed in a bass key.

The doctor, wearing a painstakingly pleated turban, left his stethoscopes hanging from his neck and moved a hirsute ear over Margit’s back. He pressed it with his cheek and she bent under the weight of his head. Because her temperature had not fallen — and this was the third day — he suspected that it was a paratyphoid fever, which was usual enough on the coast. Memsab’s system would soon get the better of it. Wishing to show that he was conversant with modern medicines, he suggested penicillin, for he had just received a fresh supply. But Margit only shrugged. She was weak; her hair had lost its coppery sheen. She tried to comb it, but there was no strength in her hands. She sat as if eaten up with fever, perspiring, her eyes flashing with an unhealthy brightness.

“I’ve grown awfully ugly.” She put down her mirror. “You are truly in love if you can look at me without loathing.”