Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

“I was with her.” He put a hand on Judit’s arm.

“Istvan, do you love her?” she asked in alarm. “What will happen to you both?”

He stood without a word, as if he had been struck by a hammer. Only now did the question cut him to the very heart. He turned around reluctantly, brimming with bitterness. He caught her look; it was full of pity and kindness, as if she understood — as if she had the same kind of test behind her and, feeling her own scars, wanted to buoy him up, to whisper: You see, I eat, I dress, I work, I live, do I not?

When he drummed with his fist on the armored door, he felt a hard spasm in his belly, as he had in wartime before an offensive. I’m wounded. The mournful refrain repeated itself. I’m wounded.

Little by little the door opened. Smoke billowed from behind it as if the room were burning. When he saw the metal box full of crumpled cigarettes on the table, the fumes suspended in the air — the tilted blue layers the other man stirred as he moved about — he realized that something serious had happened.

“I’ve come for my letters.”

The cryptographer looked around alertly. He asked no questions. Taciturn as usual, a little sleepy and absent-minded, he opened the safe and took out a thick envelope with a number.

“Was it a disciplinary recall?”

“No. At your own request. The date of your departure is at the discretion of the management of the mission. Have you spoken with the ambassador?”

Istvan opened the envelope and shook a handful of letters out onto the table. He recognized Ilona’s handwriting at once. He was enraged to see that they had all been opened. On some he saw something written with a red marker on one corner: the letter P.

“What I got I’ll give back.” His anger leaped ahead of events. “What does that mean?” He pointed to the marking.

“To photograph it. You probably want the films and the pictures. I have them in a separate place. Please just sign for them. I must do things by the rules.”

It isn’t his fault, Istvan thought. He only got an order and carried it out. Controlling his feelings with difficulty, he wrote his name in the open book. He saw the other man’s tremulous blink and suddenly it dawned on him that the cryptographer had deliberately not asked on whose authority he was collecting the papers and photographs. He had simply obliged him by returning them. Perhaps he had even taken a risk.

“Did you read the letters as well?”

“I sit here. I wait for hours. I get bored. I read them. Have a look at the ones that are marked. The parcel was waiting for the couriers. You withdrew it just in time.”

Istvan unfolded one letter. At the top he saw the inscription AFP. Nagar had written.

My dear fellow,

The news has reached me that you have taken leave of the embassy. Reportedly you are marrying, in spite of previous experience. Will you be going to Melbourne? I will miss you; you know how fond of you I am. If I can help you in any way, remember, you may count on me. You are not going back to Hungary: good judgment won out. I endorse the decision. Follow my example: I lost my homeland and gained the whole world.

Yours affectionately,

Maurice

The next letter was from Chandra. He proposed on behalf of a partnership including Rajah Khaterpalia, his father-in-law, and Chandra himself that Istvan assume the role of overseer of investment in Australia — of the construction of a modern cotton weaving mill and spinning factory which they had entrusted to their old partner, Mr. Arthur Ward.

“Knowing your interest in his daughter, I think that my, or rather our, offer — for it is the result of serious deliberation, and evidence of trust — may be suitable for you. Conditions remain to be negotiated.”

Why do I hesitate, then? I would make so many people happy. How comfortable it would be to say: We predicted this. This flight has been in the planning for a long time. He is guilty. At last we have the culprit! The mission was purged of a questionable element. The ambassador was not duplicitous when he said: I have evidence. There was proof enough. One does not write such letters if some shared secret does not lie behind them, some plan for the near future. Bajcsy knew what he was doing; he generously returned the letters but kept the photocopies.

Chandra’s letter was balm to his bruised self-esteem; it held out the promise of restoring his financial independence. He would not feel like a prince consort. It would be a beginning. He felt an urge to spit into the open safe, then rush to Margit, press her to himself, cradle her in his embrace and whisper, “Let’s run away from here. Let’s go. Let’s go now!”

The cryptographer looked at him out of the corner of his eye, puffing out blue smoke that swirled in the light of the draftsman’s lamp that was burning though it was daytime. The hand in which he held Chandra’s letter fell as if the paper were lead.

“Attractive offer, eh? Will you accept it?”

He said nothing.

“When will you leave?”

“I don’t know.”

The cryptographer smiled as if he had heard a choice piece of wit.

“Perhaps you two will fly out with the ambassador.” He leaned forward and exulted. “An hour ago a message came. He was recalled.”

“Does he know?”

“No. For the time being only you and I know. Amusing, no?”

His face looked a little like the face of a cat who holds a mouse in its claws: it betrayed a vein of startling cruelty. He is sure that I, too, have reason enough to hate the man and he wants, for a little while, the company of someone of like mind.

“When will you tell him?”

“Tonight. He will be more susceptible. Believe me, he will not check to see what time the wire came. He will have something to think about until morning. So many times he kept me here like a dog on a leash because he thought something would come in. He made me watch here whole nights. He treated the machine better! Now I will take this night from him. I will pull the pillow from under his head and sprinkle hot coals on it. He will not sleep tonight.”

In this submissive man, not given to conversation, condemned to loneliness because of the nature of his work, lurked undiluted rage.

Istvan brooded. If Kádár is replacing people, the change of course will not simply be a maneuver, a subterfuge, but a sign that there is life in our country, that there is hope for Hungary.

“If they shove him off the teat, you will see him spit on Hungary, and soon he will be sick of socialism. Fly out with him and bring him in by the scruff of the neck so they will make his tongue wag about what he did. But I am afraid that while they are making sense of the situation, he will become ill and put in for treatment in Switzerland, where he stored his money. And when he is close to the money, he will recover his health. He will disappear and they will forget about him right away, but the evaluations he wrote up will still affect the fates of people like me. That is why I gave you the photocopies and plates, though you did not even know about them. He will not give you a hiding. He will have to save his own skin.” The man spoke in a voice thick with anger long suppressed.

Suddenly he went quiet; they heard a knock at the door. The cryptographer put a finger to his lips. He listened: he recognized Judit’s voice and pushed aside the bolt.

“Come. Take your pay for January,” she said. “You’ll need it.”

Istvan pressed the cryptographer’s hand and went with Judit to the cashier’s desk. He signed the only blank space on the list, which was filled out with no room to spare by the embassy staff.

“Can I help you with anything?” she asked timidly.

“Yes,” he said vehemently. Seeing her face riveted on him and her eyes filled with suspense, he smiled slightly. “It’s nothing difficult. I wanted to ask you to retain my servants for the person who will take my place.”