Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

He smiled at the traitorous screen in the little window under the ceiling and called affably:

“It’s me. Good morning!”

He heard shuffling steps, then the sound of a man relieving himself. A gravelly bass voice assured the woman that the bathroom was empty, that its only door led to their bedroom.

The day sparkled with sunshine. The dew-sprinkled grass and the vines on the pergola blazed with rainbow-tinted fire. The greenery beguiled the eye with a freshness which in an hour would be sullied by brick-red dust rising from under the wheels of automobiles.

Istvan was delighted with the sky, which was not yet discolored — with the vast reaches of pure air. Though the door to Margit’s room was open and the familiar cat from the reception desk was sitting on the threshold, he walked from the brick path into the still-benign sun and busied himself with the car. He had hardly raised the hood and glanced at the motor when he found two young men beside him. Curious, they touched the nuts, ready to help, willing and friendly.

The motor hummed quietly. The freshly wiped windshield gave him a view of the white columns of the pergola, clusters of orange flowers tinged with gold, and the red road with barely visible ruts.

“Hello! Have you already eaten breakfast, Terry?”

Margit stood near him, exuding a freshness like spring. Her eyes as she looked at him were frank and warm.

“I’m getting the car ready for the road.”

“When are you leaving?”

He heard a slight dismay in her voice.

“The congress ends at noon. There is no need for me to be at the farewell reception. I’m leaving as early as possible. A mountain of work is waiting for me at the embassy.”

“Isn’t it better to travel at night? It’s cooler, and the road is freer.”

“I agreed to be here for three days. They have places reserved for a Cook’s tour. I wanted to vacate the room for them.”

“Bring your things to my room instead of cramming them into a suitcase,” she said simply. “In the evening you will leave. I haven’t yet been able to make the most of your being here.”

“It isn’t my fault,” he pointed out, a little aggrieved. “You were tired yesterday.”

“I really was tired yesterday. But what were you imagining? Stop spending time with the car and spend time with me. Let’s go to breakfast. Then you’ll drive me to the hospital. The congress begins at ten; there’s enough time for me to show you what I’m doing.”

“Go. Take a table. Only don’t order the sickening porridge for me. I’ll wash my hands and be right there.”

Standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom, looking himself in the eye, he thought with a hint of impatience: Is she trying to patch things up with this proposal? Yesterday she pushed me away, today she holds me. Is it a trick to entice me, a game? Or perhaps she is simply saying what she thinks, without subterfuge or calculation.

He gathered his shaving gear, threw his rumpled pajamas into his suitcase, and carried his jacket on a hanger to Margit’s room. As he hung it in the closet, he found himself stroking her dresses so tenderly that he was frightened.

“I am checking out,” he told the clerk at the reception desk. The young man wore an immaculate white shirt; his starched linen made crunching noises. On his swarthy, boyish neck was poised a handsome head. Nagar would have been enchanted with him. But the young Hindu did not understand, was not conscious of these priceless gifts — youth, beauty, a slightly effeminate grace — or what they could do for him, since he believed that he would return in innumerable incarnations. We must whip them into impatience, into a frenzy of desire. We must act quickly, we live only once, and our life is terribly short.

He put a tip on the desk and pressed the clerk’s hand, which must have pleased the young man even more, for a joyous smile brightened his face.

“I hope you will come to us again soon, sir.”

“I hope so, too,” Istvan affirmed, and made his way to Margit’s table.

In a warm camaraderie, bantering like the best of friends, they drove up in front of the sprawling two-story building that was the hospital. Under its walls, on the tin-roofed verandas, where peasant women in green and beet-colored saris had settled in for long stays, it was colorful and buzzing with voices. When he had parked the car, stifling odors blew into his face: disinfectants, pus, blood, and the sweat suffering wrings from human bodies.

He followed Margit. He had to step over the thin black legs of the village women. Their heavy silver anklets clinked on the concrete floor.

Margit was well liked here. Women greeted her, folding prayerful hands and wailing blessings. Half-naked little boys clung to her hands and raised their faces to her trustingly, looking at her with one eye while the other was covered with a wad of soiled gauze fastened with a pink bandage, like a broken window boarded up crosswise.

“It’s worse inside,” she said, anticipating his thought as she made, with difficulty, a path for them. “We have no room for all the sick. They’re lying in the corridors on nothing but mats. We don’t want anyone who’s dragged himself here to leave without our being able to assess whether the treatment is working. That’s why there’s such a crowd. Even in hopeless cases when the sight can’t be saved, it is possible to provide some relief. We try to teach them how they should care for the eyes.”

“Are all these people sick?” Shocked, he pointed to groups of villagers with wives and children who were making their way toward the hospital.

“No. Those are families visiting our patients. They are bringing them food. It is difficult for members of each sect to provide themselves with the obligatory ritual cuisine. We allow the close relatives of the sick to feed them. They come with children, with kinsfolk; such an expedition to the hospital is an event. Some of the sick have never lain on a bed before they came to the hospital, never in their lives eaten until they were full. They believe in spells more than in medicines. Their systems are not accustomed to the pills we take without thinking; here every day something as commonplace as aspirin or pyramidon can work miracles, to say nothing of the signs the head physician himself makes on their chests with a gentian solution.”

“He uses spells? Suggestion?”

“Suggestion doesn’t help much with trachoma,” she answered sadly. “He marks them with their initials and writes a case identification number.”

They went into a ward where, though the windows were open, the sticky-sweet smell of decomposing pus nearly choked him. The chatter, the weeping, the moaning of prayers stopped and a swell of greeting started up. He was moved by the sight of children who, in spite of the dressings on their eyes, played contentedly with little clay pots, rag dolls, and coconut shells. It was enough that they felt no pain and had already forgotten about the disease that threatened them. They picked the gauze away with their fingers and looked at the people moving around the room from under inflamed eyelids, with glassy, clouded eyeballs.

“Put on a gown. You don’t have to fasten it — just throw it over your shoulders. I want to show you the outpatient department.”

Two doctors came toward them, one tall, balding, and with nearly white hair, the other young, energetic, and sporting a crew cut.

“Professor Salminen, I would like to introduce Mr. Terey, a poet from Hungary. He is here for the Tagore congress.”

“Dr. Connoly, from the Ford Foundation.” The young American shook his hand vigorously.

“Do you want to write about us, sir?” the professor asked anxiously. “Dr. Ward is not conversant with all the hospital’s affairs. Perhaps Connoly will tell you more.”