Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

A dry wind blew in the hollows. Invisible dust floated on the air; its vapid taste was in their mouths and it soaked into Istvan’s sweat-stained shirt, turning it red. Air streaming through the lowered car windows, heated as if by a stove, rippled through Margit’s light dress. She responded by removing one by one, with a little struggle, her underthings. Sighing, she lounged against the hot back of the seat and pulled her dress open at the top. Her hair, stiff with dust, swathed her forehead in a lusterless sheath.

They stopped beside a little brook and threw off their sandals. The water flashed cheerfully. A school of small fish scattered like shadows. Istvan raised the hood of the Austin and put water into the radiator. The steep wall of the gorge gave no shade; lizards scurried over it, shriveled as if the red clay had parched them. They panted with open mouths, looking stupefied.

Margit took a stick and picked out incrusted wasps and grasshoppers that the wind had blown into the cells of the radiator. Lost in thought, she turned the shimmering wings of a butterfly over in her fingers. Istvan poured gasoline into the tank; its vapors formed a trembling mist in the heat.

They hardly spoke to each other. They sat dazed by the noon heat, holding their bare feet in the briskly flowing stream. They smoked cigarettes that tasted bitter and gave no pleasure. They gazed blankly at the swarm of little fish that came swimming up until the water seemed to boil with them. The fish beat against their feet, fluttering as if there were an electric current in the water.

“We have to push on”—he threw a cigarette butt into the water—“and get to Hyderabad if we’re going to stay the night in a decent hotel.”

“Good. Only let me have a dip.”

She threw off her dress, knelt, and shattered the glare that lay on the water, splashing her skin with sparkling droplets. Her slender body took on the golden gleam of the late afternoon. She sank down softly with a deep sigh, half reclining on the sandy bottom of the shallow river. Around her the water was stained rose from the dust that washed off her skin.

“Margit!” he shouted. She opened her eyes reluctantly; the sun hurt them. “Sit up!” He gave her his hand and lifted her. She clung to him; he felt her weight and the coolness of her skin.

“Look! There, around the white stone. It looks like a root with the current breaking over it like glass, but it moves on its own and is ready to spring.”

Startled, she pulled in her legs. The moisture on her breasts, her bare, paler belly and her brown thighs dissolved in the hot breath of the red rocks as if she had rubbed her skin with oil. Istvan reached for a stone.

As if sensing his intention, the snake vanished under the water. The surface, veined with the current, pained the eye with its bright silver sheen and the crimson reflections of the mountainsides.

“It disappeared,” he said without anger, skipping a pebble that threw up glittering droplets.

“Do you think it was poisonous?” Margit hastily pulled on her dress; the hot fabric clung obstinately to her wet back.

“Shall I find it and check?”

“Let’s go. You’ve spoiled it for me.”

Istvan soaked his shirt in the water, wrung it out, and slipped it on. In the opposite lane garishly painted, overloaded trucks were rolling up and stopping in the center of the riverbed like oxen at a watering place. Disheveled drivers climbed down into the water and drank from cupped hands; snorting, they rinsed their noses and mouths. All the gorge rang with their shouts. They watched curiously when the Austin moved out onto the broken rocks, but the engine, after its rest, carried them out effortlessly. The truck drivers began to splatter water on each other like romping children. They had already forgotten about the foreigners.

The smell of mildew and dry grass rose from the superheated marl. On the trees by the road, which were red with dust, the throbbing chime of cicadas drilled the air. The road twisted, sinking between the hills, rising, falling again into large valleys, forcing him to be alert. He concentrated; he kept a hand on the horn. It was hard to tell if, beyond the next clump of trees, they might not meet a truck charging along, piled high with cargo.

He slowed down. Women with round vessels on their heads were coming down a steep path toward the road. They wore only skirts; their suckled-out breasts dangled like drying socks on their sun-charred torsos. Three-layered necklaces of silver flashed in the sun. They pointed to Margit’s coppery hair and spoke to each other rapidly, shielding their eyes with their hands and immersing their faces in the deep shade. The curve of the road carried them behind a sparse clump of bushes.

“You’d have liked to photograph them.” He turned toward Margit. “They had beautiful adornments that you don’t get at the goldsmiths’, but you still see them in the villages, in places far from the cities.”

“No.” She peeped drowsily into his eyes. “I won’t buy anything. I don’t need cheering up.”

“They had ugly breasts,” he added a moment later, as if it had just occurred to him.

“You managed to notice?”

“I was thinking of you.” He drove on casually, holding the wheel with one hand. With the other he touched her thigh and the hand that lay limp on it. His dry shirt puffed out and fluttered in the hot wind. He withdrew his fingers, fearing that their sticky weight would be hot and tiresome.

In Bangalore they found themselves stuck in a crowd of automobiles invaded by swarms of bicycles. Gardens seemed to doze; dust tarnished the lacquered surfaces of leaves. Only the white walls of villas glared in the sun. They wanted nothing to eat. They drank strong, sweetened coffee boiled with milk. The seller cooled it by pouring it in a long, narrow stream, as if he were juggling the copper vessels and spinning out viscous threads.

It was still too early to settle in for the night. They checked their route on the map. The racket in the city was wearing; the air carried the odors of fermenting rubbish heaps, the smell of grease from frying, the sweetish reek of excrement. They decided to travel on toward Hyderabad. Istvan knew night would overtake them in the mountains; he thought they would stay in some village inn. When he went to fill the gasoline tank and the spare canister, Margit, wanting to stretch her legs, walked across the street, which was crowded with dark-skinned figures in blue and white shirts hanging over carelessly fastened dhotis. Young men accosted her gently but persistently, offering to help her, to accompany her, to advise her. They gazed at her, remarking on her gestures, her clothes, the color of her hair. The narrow shops exuded a strong, spicy fragrance. Dust and streaks of smoke from little stoves hung in the air, and the sour stench of heated cow dung.

In a kiosk she found local newspapers in English and old illustrated weeklies from abroad. She bought cigarettes and matches; undecided, she spread yellowed pages of print and her eyes fell on the headline “Demonstrations continue in Budapest.” She checked the date; the information was ten days old. The correspondent reported that a crowd of workers had gathered before Parliament demanding that those arrested be freed. She was happy to read the commentator’s opinion that protest rallies were still going on, and that Kádár would face many difficulties before he gained the confidence of a society outraged and embittered by recent events.

She began rifling through the files of newspapers, perusing page after page, searching for news from Hungary. She bought several papers, rolled them tightly and pushed them into her travel bag.

They drove for a long time through a thirsty valley. The sun reddened; when once they let it out of their sight, it retreated among the shaggy ridges of a jungle faded from drought. Among the huts — clay nests clinging to rocks — they looked for water. A half-naked old man with a face of ebony led them to a well, or rather a deep stone cistern. The water was drawn with a leather bag. The rope scraped as it wound; water spattered heavily into the stone throat, jangling and singing, and the sounds of its generous pouring whetted their thirst. They pushed the spokes of the winch impatiently with the full weight of their arms.