Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

“How do you feel, comrade?” the ambassador asked Terey solicitously. “The heat has not overcome you?”

“No. I like dry weather.”

“He likes it,” Kalman Bajcsy repeated morosely. “So you will go to Agra. Tagore — that’s your department: a writer, a Nobel laureate. You will represent Hungary!” he added grandiloquently.

“I thought we could pass this up. Tagore is not published in our country. We would escape troublesome questions,” Istvan said as if in self-defense.

“I count on your astuteness. Speak, impress them, but don’t commit us to anything. In personal conversations, unofficially, don’t spare the praise, it costs nothing,” the ambassador coached him. “Who doesn’t like to bask in approval?”

“Comrade Ferenc hasn’t been to Agra yet. He could take the occasion to see the historic landmarks. The Taj Mahal is one of the seven wonders of the world,” Istvan offered. “He could take the car and Krishan, he would be at his own disposal.”

“I will not send Krishan anywhere,” the ambassador bristled. “He is an utter fool. I must keep an eye on him. His behavior is so erratic that it is time to look for a new driver. The accident taught him nothing. You have a car. Drive yourself there. You like the weather so much,” he said ironically. “Run over to Agra for three days.”

“So you are assigning me to do this?” he asked, secretly gratified. “So our presence there is really necessary?”

“I wish you to go,” Bajcsy said emphatically.

“Something is wrong with my eyes.” Ferenc adjusted his sunglasses, which reflected like mirrors and made him look like an exasperated bumblebee. “The sun hurts them. I would gladly go, but there isn’t enough time. Work is pressing. We’ve had word that the couriers will be here in a couple of days. We must prepare the mail, compile the reports. Everything is coming down on me.”

“Very well. I’ll go.”

“The congress begins tomorrow,” the ambassador reminded him, producing an ornate invitation card. “As occasion arises, you will serve as our correspondent. You are really a poet, but that needn’t hinder you from drafting statements in prose. So — acquit yourself well for my sake.” He clapped a heavy hand on the counselor’s shoulder. It was rather like the comradely gesture a commander makes to encourage an officer sent on a dangerous mission.

How naive they are, he thought, rolling up the window as the big gadflies swooped blindly and rattled against the windshield. They thought they were forcing this down my throat, while I was only looking for a chance to dash over to Agra.

The wish to see her is getting the best of me, he thought, finding himself surprised. How I have missed her lately! It’s good to talk with her. She is excellent company on evening walks to Old Delhi and the cinema. Somehow she has inserted herself into the dull rhythm of my life.

The breezes stirred reddish streaks like smoke from the parched, empty fields. Packs of vultures slept fitfully in the bare tops of lonely trees. Nothing was vivid green except the wings of parrots feeding in the road, tottering clumsily as they pecked at dry camel droppings. They darted away just in front of the car; some hit the fender lightly and flew away screeching, but none fell under the wheels.

What do I really want? What am I expecting? he thought. Without answering his own question he smiled, for he saw her as she came up to him — slender, lithe, with a coppery sheen to her hair as it swung with the rhythm of her walk — and caught him in the glance of blue eyes shining like water in a mountain stream in the spring, when the snow melts. Surely she would be waiting. She must have gotten his telegram the day before.

He found himself in villages built of clay, and now empty. Scrawny hens ran away startled, stretching their necks, which were bare of feathers. Only by the well were there women, women in green and orange saris who beat the wet linen with sticks, gossiping cheerfully. At the sight of the car they stopped their work and shielded their eyes with their hands, watching for the bus. Their necklaces and bracelets glittered as if they were wealthy.

As he approached the city itself, he had to slow down. In the shade of the trees around the temple, arbas stood in a circle with their shafts raised. The oxen lay together, lazily munching dry grass. A crowd of the faithful were singing and beating gongs. For the last few minutes he had to steer through the spellbound crowd; it left him tired and irritated.

When he pulled up in front of the hotel — a one-story building replete with shady verandas and pergolas, its horseshoe shape set in a park — he was certain that Margit would immediately emerge from the shade. He even loitered for a moment, raising the hood, checking the oil, glancing at the overheated tires.

His room was reserved.

“Is Miss Ward staying here?”

“Yes,” answered the clerk, shooing a cat from a table. The cat stretched and yawned widely, showing the pale pink interior of its mouth. “Yes, sir, in number eleven, on the right.”

As he signed the register he saw a telegram tucked into the frame of a large photograph of Gandhi. He could read the address: it was his telegram to Margit. He was a little troubled.

“Miss Ward is in?”

The clerk spread his hands helplessly.

“I do not know, sir. The key is not here—” he checked the pigeonhole in a drawer. “Miss Ward is not a tourist. I do not know her schedule.Tourists get guides from us, from the hotel. Perhaps you—”

“I know Agra. I’d be a pretty good guide myself. Thank you.”

Two porters in turbans with gold piping were lurking about, ready to carry his suitcase.

“Number fifteen, the third room past Miss Ward’s. We have no room thirteen; tourists don’t like the devil’s dozen.”

He drove the car into the shade. The metal body was unbearably hot. He followed the porter through a pergola overgrown with a dense screen of wisteria.

The door of number eleven was ajar. He went in without knocking, pleased that he would surprise Margit. The white room felt cool. He looked around: a bed, a table, two armchairs, a wardrobe, a fireplace without adornment. There was no trace of a woman’s presence: no photographs, no flowers. He was thinking that the attendant had made a mistake when he noticed a few pairs of shoes next to the wall; he recognized the sandals they had bought on that first evening together.

He heard the drumming sound of running water in the bathroom.

“Margit,” he called, tapping on the door with his fingers.

The door opened instantly. An old Hindu woman who was on her knees scouring the bathtub, and was obviously startled, answered that Miss Ward had gone out in the car that morning with the gentleman who usually came for her.That pained him as if it had been an insult.

“When will she return?”

“She took a bag of bedding with her. Perhaps she is spending the night away,” the maid said in a languid drawl, tilting her head with a bewildered look.

On the desk lay stationery and envelopes with a little image of the Taj Mahal, which drew multitudes of visitors to Agra. He had pulled out the chair with the thought of writing a few words when suddenly, with unreasoning vehemence, he whispered, “No. No.” He went to his own room, his steps pounding on the brick pavement. He sighed like a dog that has lost the scent.

Where has she been taken? Who comes for her? It seemed odd to him that he felt such acute jealousy at the first suspicion that he might have a rival. Perhaps it was simply a doctor, a colleague from the center.

He washed his hands and face and knotted his tie with abrupt motions. The room smelled of insecticide and fresh paint. He felt a premonition that this first setback was a sign of more to come. Everything to do with the congress became distasteful to him.