Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

Leaning on one elbow, the ambassador lifted his upper eyelid with a finger. They saw the dark tufts of curly hair on the back of his hand.

“What do you advise, then?”

“I would let him go — but not right away. There are reasons enough. He damaged the automobile. He drives like a madman.” Ferenc looked Bajcsy in the eye.

“He has a sick wife,” Terey ventured.

“Oh, yes!” Ferenc seized on the mention of the ailing woman. “His relations with his wife are detestable. Instead of sending her to the hospital—”

“And I would slip him a few rupees to keep him quiet,” the counselor for trade put in, looking at the cryptographer, who did not speak but drummed with his fingers on the arm of his chair, as if he were sending something in Morse code.

“No. No money. That’s the worst way to go about it.” The ambassador beat the air with his hand. “He would never leave us alone after that. In any case you agree with me that he is not a good driver, and, worse, not a good man. We have to put up with him for the time being. But, Comrade Ferenc, warn Krishan that if there is the slightest infraction I will be ruthless, I will chuck him out! We must have order here, and, believe me, I know how to keep it.”

He looked at them grimly, malevolently, as if he were trying to tell which of them would be first to show himself an enemy. He turned to the cryptographer, whose mouth was half open.

“There will be no notification of this matter to our country. The repair is minimal: to beat out the dents, restore the finish, install a new light. I will cover it myself. And now, dear comrades, in such heat — since our meeting is coming to an end”—he spoke in a paternal tone—“perhaps Judit would break out a bottle of Tokay for us. Well, they are small bottles; perhaps two. Three. Why make two trips?”

Everyone began to move around, gratified. Only the counselor for trade asked to be excused, for he had an appointment with someone who wanted to buy a dozen buses and open his own transport line to Agra.

When the others had dispersed, the ambassador detained Terey, opened a drawer, and gave him a letter. At once he recognized the diminutive letters joined as in chain stitch: his wife’s handwriting.

“It must have come here by mistake when the morning post was handed around,” he said by way of explanation.

Istvan took it in his fingers and pressed: the letter had been cut open. Several other letters of his had gone astray recently. Was the ambassador involved in the inspection of correspondence? Were letters being confiscated as evidence for personal attacks?

Bajcsy’s heavy figure hung over him. The ambassador inclined his head and looked out from under bristling eyebrows. “Well — what has you so mystified?”

“It could at least have been steamed open and given back with no clue that it had been breached. Any jealous wife would do it better than this.”

“Calm down, Terey. Calm down. I opened this letter by mistake. Involuntarily. First I ripped it open, then I was taken aback when I saw it was not to me. My apologies.”

“But there is a pattern in these mistakes that happen to me. Why has my wife not gotten a passport to this day?” He held the opened envelope with its ragged edges as if it were repugnant to him.

“I have sent a notice of urgency concerning that matter. It seems that the arrival of your wife would be most expedient here. As to this letter, I have offered my apologies, and that should be sufficient. Goodbye now. This heat is unbearable, it wears on everyone’s nerves.”

When he had closed the office door and thick oilcloth cushions had shifted with a smacking sound, Judit raised inquiring eyebrows.

“Well?”

He showed her the torn envelope. “This is what I got. I told him what I thought of it.”

“I assure you, he was not the one.” She shook her head.

“But who?”

“I don’t know for sure. Ask the caretaker. That letter was not in the mail that passed through my hands. I would have set it aside.”

“God repay you, Judit!”

She looked ruminatively at him.

“When I hear that, I get an ominous feeling.”

“Because you know only the Father, and I the Son,” he answered soberly. “I was not calling down vengeance on your head.”

He walked out to the hall. He was in no hurry to read the letter. He felt as if he were reaching for an apple someone else had gnawed from the other side. Only when he was sitting behind his desk and had finished smoking a cigarette did he shake out the sheets of paper and photographs of his sons. They were holding a sheepdog by the collar; they were looking with keen, wise eyes toward the camera. They were small and slender, with hair clipped short. This was their grandfather’s work. And there was friendly Tibi, the great shaggy dog, who let himself be mounted like a pony.

Ilona did not raise his hopes that she would appear in India soon; she was encountering resistance. She asked him not to worry, for they were well. The boys were doing well enough in school, and she was managing. They had spent Easter with her parents; hence the photograph with Tibi.

Since you have been away, visitors have stopped coming. A delightful peace fills the house, yet it gives me a strange feeling. Only Bela, who is so kind, thinks of us. I see only now that without you I am not necessary to anyone except the boys. They ask that you put many stamps on your letters, and of various kinds, for they exchange them with their friends. We long for you, we kiss you — Your own Ilona.

And then the scrawled postscripts from his sons :—And I as well — Geza. And with a fanciful flourish: Sandor .

The letter was two weeks old. What had happened during that time? Nothing. Obviously, nothing. He would have gotten a telegram. She could even have called. Every day there was a designated hour for a connection with Budapest, or a cable through London, a roundabout way. He remembered only one telephone conversation, which had concerned a sudden decision on proposals by the counselor for trade. The telephone connection existed, it represented a possibility, but a call would consist of sentences spoken in the hearing of many witnesses, like a meeting in the visiting room of a prison.

The letter exuded sadness. Reproaching himself for thinking of home so little, Istvan ran his eyes over it once more. No — he found nothing to disturb him. Yet it left a residue of something like pain in his heart. Ilona had stopped believing that they would be together here; she had decided to wait out his tour of duty, she thought the solitary stay in India was for his good. The care of their sons filled her life. It was easy for her to adjust to this long separation, and rightly so. Doesn’t she need me, he wondered. Feelings remained, after all, not just the bonds of marriage. If Bajcsy had really sent that notice of urgency…

He heard the throb of an engine. He looked out the window lit by the fiery sun with instinctive aversion. Clear weather: he was sick to death of clear weather. Krishan had arrived. He must ask him about the business with the cow.

The dry air smelled of baking leaves and dust. The tiles of the walk that led around the building sent heat through the soles of his sandals. He peered into the dim garage and saw only concrete with a greasy oil stain. He bent over and touched it with his finger. It was sticky: the spot was fresh. Krishan must have hit the cow hard, since oil was leaking, he thought; the results could have been worse.

“What are you doing here?” He heard Ferenc’s voice at his ear. He gave a start. He had not heard the man’s light step.

“I thought Krishan had come.”

The secretary looked at him truculently.

“I wanted to ask him—” Terey floundered.