Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

“I came here to fight against the greatest plague in the country.” The Hindu’s glasses gleamed like ice. “People do not even know about this, and after all, they are being devoured.”

“You hunt tigers?” Terey said in amazement.

“No. I am thinking of cows.”

“Sacred cows?”

“They are all sacred, the ones that go about the cities wearing garlands and the wild herds that roam by night and graze on cultivated land, destroying fields. A fifth of the crop is lost. Think: a cow for every two residents of a teeming nation of four hundred million. A cow, which gives a modicum of milk, eats as it tramples fields and is not permitted to be killed, so its meat will be eaten by dogs and jackals. Its hide can be pulled off only by untouchables, and not until it collapses from old age, at which time the leather is not worth much. These millions of cows are our downfall. They lay waste the fields and starve the people, depriving them of life. These wandering herds in effect devour people.”

His thin hands, like greenish bronze in the moonlight, stretched toward the sleeping village in the valley. His voice had a fanatical ring. Long shadows lay on the white wall of the old chapel.

“Do the peasants understand this? Aren’t you afraid they might stone you?”

“If I told them that extermination — selection of the stunted beasts — is necessary for their good, they would surely beat me to death.” His tone was bitter and sarcastic. “But I say that it is for the good of the cows. I speak of their hunger, of their agonizing deaths when the vultures rend them while they are still alive. And the peasants cry, more than they cry over their own starving children! Indeed, they have seen the cows when they are sick — ill with consumption, poisoned with bhang hanging down on half-decayed plants. They know very well what I am talking about, and they admit that I am right. They want to help the cows more than they want to help themselves.”

“And has your campaign brought results?”

“Yes. They must allot pastures, pave the watering places, set the healthy animals apart — I do not dare say the farm-bred animals — and remove the sick for the time being, for treatment. The veterinarians’ assistants must be Muslims, for their religion counts it no sin for them to kill without hesitation. And everything takes place with all protocols observed, painlessly. The animals must be coddled so that a fanatical crowd armed with sticks, stones, and sickles does not beat us to a pulp. I know that I am acting against the will of the people; any of them would joyfully sacrifice his own life to save a half-dead cow. If they saw my true intent, I would be a demon to them, a destroyer of the source of their sanctification. The cow, mother of goodness, the nourisher. The cow, which cleanses from guilt. It is enough to receive, to swallow— Panchagavya! — five ingredients of magic medicine that come from her: sweet milk, sour milk, butter, dung, and urine.”

“You are an unbeliever?” Istvan leaned toward him, surprised.

The man opened his shirt and showed him a sacred thread that made a loop on his chest. He was a Brahmin — perhaps a rebellious one, but still a member of the highest caste.

“I want to help people, to save their lives,” he said reflectively.

Istvan noticed that he was smoking a cigarette, puffing with his fingers wrapped around the end of it so as not to touch it with his lips, and he smiled almost imperceptibly. Even this iconoclast was afraid the cigarette might have been made by a machine operated by one of the unclean, or packed by one, and he preferred to avoid contamination.

In front of them the moon went its way, foundering in the tops of trees hewn from old silver. Its round face shone, then seemed to dim; it pulsed with radiance like a living thing. Jackals wailed, choking with spasmodic sobs. Yes — this man with his English education, bold, resolved, valued people’s lives above the lives of cows, but those he wanted to save from hunger he preferred to keep within the old divisions of caste — in the place birth, fate, and the gods had appointed for them.

He saw on the Hindu’s slender fingers the red reflection from the burning tip of the concealed cigarette when he pressed it to his lips. The dog in its armor sat in the middle of the yard; raising her head, she echoed the jackals’ whining note. Then, as if frightened by the dead face of the rising moon and worried about her pups, she scratched at the door. It opened slightly under the pressure of her paw: with a jarring clank the metal spines caught on it.

An overwhelming vision of this world in its captivating wholeness came over him and he loved the man, the enemy of cows, who sat crosslegged beside him; loved the dog, who was forcing her way into the sleepy dimness of the shed; loved the old man, though he was a slaughterer of chickens; loved the living chickens who squeaked in their sleep, awaiting their turn. He even loved the voices of the jackals, as if their lament, wrested from their famished entrails, was part of that world’s entreaty. The actions of all living things seemed incalculably precious, though he knew they were like words written with a stick on a path trodden by feet and hooves and sprinkled with dust by the wind.

For he was convinced that one must undertake the troublesome task of transforming the world, and carry on until the last heartbeat, the last breath. He felt that he was close to a great, enchantingly simple secret that would be revealed to him that night so that he would tremble with amazement that he had not guessed it long before. A few minutes more…The silver mask with its obliterated features seemed to rustle in the treetops in the gap between the mountains, to shatter the boughs. He had never been so close to the truth; he longed for it, and he feared that it would change him.

And then the roosters in the village began to crow raucously, as if with alarm. The younger ones in the shed chimed in in immature, broken voices. From inside the building came Margit’s voice, filled with sleepy alarm.

He went inside. When he pushed aside the mosquito netting, she seized his hand and pressed it to her hot chest. Her heart was pounding.

“Were you afraid? After all, I’m here,” he whispered. She relaxed and fell back on the bed with relief.

“Something was crawling near the bed. Probably a rat. I called and you were nowhere to be found. I was frightened. Outside the screen in the door I saw that dreadful moon and someone sitting hunched over, lurking there as if to tell me something awful,” she mumbled, not letting go of his hand.

“That’s our neighbor.” He laughed lightly. “It’s the full moon. An exceptionally beautiful night. We chatted for a while, sitting on the threshold.”

He noticed that her breathing was regular, that already she had ceased to hear him. Though she held his hand involuntarily, she was in a deep sleep. He went to his bed and undressed slowly under the netting. Mosquitoes flew over him and bumped into the screen. Their neighbor shuffled in, cleared his throat for a long time, and spat. Istvan fell asleep, still hearing a light splashing; he remembered with relief that water was spattering from the barrel a few drops at a time. He closed his heavy eyelids, then half-opened them. The light still glowed through the holes in the wallpaper.

It frightened him that this moon, bathed in its own glow, was merging with the whole world and overlooking, displacing, the woman he truly loved. He listened to her calm breathing. The scratching of the rat’s feet, the scraping and rustling, disturbed him. The truth. What is the truth in my case? Did I love less when I pledged to be faithful to Ilona? Perhaps in a different way, and I was different, he thought, hoping to justify himself.