Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

The monkey sat on the back of the sofa, above their heads.

“My husband gets his ring tangled,” the rajah’s sister-in-law chimed in, shielding herself with a napkin from the drops of juice that leaked from the darting black paws of the monkey. Kapur, who was watching this amusing little contest, winked at Terey.

“I met the ambassador in Amritsar.”

“I know. He told us about the Golden Temple of the Sikhs and the extraordinary success of the speech. Reportedly the hall was so crowded no one could breathe.”

“We found around thirty persons: officials, intellectuals, members of the Hungarian-Indian Friendship Society.”

“Those people also belong to the Czech and Bulgarian societies.”

“Socialist sympathizers,” Professor Dass interposed.

“Not necessarily. Snobs — and some are simply there under orders, but many reports confirm that the activities of the Society do not escape surveillance,” the manufacturer added. “Perhaps this is painful to you, Mr. Terey, but so it must be. Self-defense.”

“Allow me to finish,” Kapur insisted, distending his hairy cheeks with a smothered simper. “It was after the ceremonial greeting, when the crowd pressed into the hall with wives and children. Not only were all the seats occupied, but people were even sitting on the floor and the windowsills. The ambassador expressed his thanks with elation, because he thought he himself had aroused such interest. No one disabused him. In the meantime, it was a rabid monkey that had driven listeners into the hall where he was speaking. It was jumping from a tree onto the necks of passersby and biting them. It was attacking cyclists in particular; no doubt their torpid pedaling irritated it.”

“I read in the newspaper that some Sikh killed the monkey,” Terey recalled. “And he didn’t even claim the reward.”

“Very wise. If the monkey in question hadn’t been mad, he would have been accused of sacrilege,” Kapur explained. “He shot it with a bow and arrow. The whistle of the arrow attracted no attention. Those who had been bitten were summoned to be inoculated against rabies. About three hundred people reported, but none had bite marks. People simply like to be treated. The shot is free; they must take advantage of it.”

“Did anyone seek out those who really were bitten?” Istvan asked worriedly.

“Have you no more pressing concerns?” The doctor shrugged. “They will fall ill, they will die out and the circle of exposure will eliminate itself. We trust in the wisdom of nature.”

“You say that,” Dass said angrily, “as if you meant, let us leave it to the gods.”

No; Kapur enjoyed treating people. Even his ritualistic questions about health resonated with the secret hope that he would hear some guarded admission of sickness, spy out its first symptoms. He was a surgeon for the love of it; he had a deft hand, and even in this accursed heat, wounds closed easily and pus stopped running. He delighted in injections; as often as he could he applied those he received free of charge from pharmaceutical houses, each in a package with its advertising prospectus. He divided patients into two classes, the chronically ill and the incurable. During the time of treatment he did not spare expensive measures, especially when the medicines were nearly out of date and needed to be used up quickly. For the rest, under his tender care any sickness could take on the character of a chronic condition. The dark prognoses that surrounded his patients lent drama to the success of the ensuing treatment.

The members of the diplomatic corps knew him and even liked him, for he assured them from the first that all sicknesses reside in each body, that what mattered was only to discover modes of coexistence. In that enterprise a double whiskey with ice was remarkably helpful, taken after sunset, of course.

The dosage of whiskey he prescribed linked the number of years the patient had spent in the tropics to the height of a box of matches. In the first year he laid it flat beside the glass, in the second he put it on its side, in the third he stood it on end. After that, one could push out the center of the matchbox with a finger as one saw fit, and fill the glass to the prescribed level. “For if three years in India does not make you my patient for life, whiskey will certainly do you no harm,” he jokingly assured the embassy staff.

“I must come and see you, doctor,” Terey began. “It has been eight months since I was inoculated against smallpox, and there are many new cases.”

“There is nothing to be perturbed about. We always have smallpox among us, someone always falls ill with it, but they don’t put it into the newspapers because it bores readers. If there is a large outbreak — several hundred dead — in the vicinity of Delhi, then they set up an alarm. The team goes out, they inoculate people, they burn the victims’ belongings, they sprinkle the lodgings with creosote and it’s all over. Call me and I will get some vaccine from the hospital cooler.”

The man who was sitting on the edge of his chair, leaning toward the rajah — almost kneeling like a penitent — suddenly rose to his feet and walked away with his head down, as if he had been granted absolution. His rapt eyes slowly began to focus on what was around him; he smiled apologetically at Istvan. He pulled aside the lapel of his jacket; from the inside pocket, where the wallet is usually carried, protruded a row of metal holders.

“Perhaps you smoke? These are healthier than cigarettes,” he urged, opening an aluminum case. He shook a thick brown cigar with a little crimson and gold band out onto his palm and involuntarily pushed it under his twitching nostrils, savoring the aroma.

“Havana. Havana,” he said elatedly. “The whole secret of the perfection of those cigars is in the hand work. Girls roll the leaves on their bare thighs. The hand moist with spit, the perspiring thigh, create the variable fermentation which decides the flavor of each cigar — not chemists, not machines. Please feel free. I have more of them.” He pulled aside the other flap of his jacket with the gesture of a man being searched under a warrant. The cigars stood in their holders like cartridges in the dress uniform of a Cossack. “Americans bring me any number of them. I get them straight from the embassy, duty free.”

He took out a little cigar cutter and trimmed the end.

“Wait—” he raised a match and held it in midair. “Do not spoil the taste with sulfur. Now there is a red flame; we may light it,” he said imperiously, then pressed for encomiums, “Well — how is it? Was it worth it?”

They inhaled for a moment, concentrating deeply on the smoke. Finally Istvan raised the cigar, which exuded thick, aromatic fumes.

“Excellent,” he had to confess.

“Please take a couple more, for later. Give me the pleasure.” He thrust his pocket forward, but Terey mistrusted the sudden cordiality. Instinctively he felt that it concealed a desire to put him under some undefined obligation.

“Do you go to Pakistan sometimes? Above all, I mean to Karachi.”

“No. I have no reason; we have an embassy there as well.” After a pause Terey added, “And I can hardly afford it.”

“Or to Hong Kong?”

“Not there either. It is beyond the range of my posting.”

The Hindu seemed to be turning something over in his mind. He moved the end of the cigar around his thin purplish lips.

“But might you not have reason to go there? The means could be found. It is very easy to get money. If the occasion arose, would you think of me? I am in need of a favor.” He looked at Istvan gently, as if he were an uncomprehending child. “Why are you always so resistant? They are strict with you. It is easier to communicate with the Americans.”