Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

That was how they remembered him. That is how she remembers him.

And what if some Japanese had cut him down in time? What if he had fallen, scattering sparks, into the hot ashes, dragged himself on to escape the pain that tormented him? What if he had survived, his face scalding and glistening with scars? Margit would have stayed by him. But, seeing himself in the mirror one morning, would he not have shot himself in the head to free her and end all her self-abnegation, devotion, and sacrifice? For that would not have been the old love that they had pledged…Yet it might have been a love unlike what is usually called love, though to those looking on from outside it would have seemed a perpetual hospital duty, a charity.

How dare I accuse him of pride, Istvan thought. Only because I want to take what belongs to him? Am I afraid she might think me inferior, less worthy, greedy for spoils, like a jackal? She writes, “I wanted you to know about him; it is important to you as well.” To know that I come into someone else’s entitlement, into privileges the other man could not enjoy? That I have a chance to show myself a worthy successor? Hero, martyr. Would too much be demanded of me?

He sprang up and rubbed behind his ear; a drop of sweat was crawling like an ant. I want to love her and not to suffer. I must have her, I must — he shook off the thoughts that vexed him — then I will see. Life itself will sort things out.

He wanted to drink. The cook opened the door slightly and glanced in through the chink with one eye to assure himself that his master was sleeping. Taken aback on seeing that Istvan was lounging in the chair and looking him in the face, he shut the door and waited for his summons.

“Well, what is it?”

“The telephone, sir. I didn’t want to wake you, but he was so insistent.”

“Who is calling?”

“The painter who comes here sometimes.”

Istvan rose wearily, stretched, and yawned. Through the receiver he heard Ram Kanval’s low, pleasant voice. He wanted to know if the counselor had left the capital, like most people in their right minds, who had escaped to Dehradun or Shimla, in the foothills of the Himalayas, to wait out the harshest season.

Kanval himself was being allowed, free of charge, to exhibit his paintings in a hall in one of the clubs. He was overjoyed at this, and, since the counselor had been such a staunch well-wisher, warmly invited him to visit him and with his critical eye assist first with the choice of pictures that might please Europeans, and then with the varnishing. The fact that members of the embassy corps were in the city had led him to hope that someone would buy a painting. Diplomats were people of importance. Many had gone away on holidays. That was why Istvan’s presence had taken on special significance.

Finally he assured him that he remembered his debt and would repay it, if not with cash, then with a picture. He would not dare make that decision on his own, however, and so he would expect a visit.

“Good. I understand. Yes, certainly, I will be there,” Terey murmured into the receiver. Pereira stood in the doorway to the kitchen, trying to divine from the sound of the words whether he had done well in calling his master to the telephone. In his black hands he held a cup of strong tea. Terey was anticipating it; he smelled the pungency of it, felt already its reviving action, its clearing of the mind. So he beckoned with a hand and listened to exuberant plans for the conquest of New Delhi by innovative art, sipping his tea and inhaling its aromatic vapor. The cook, with a bright face, stood by him like a mannequin, slipping him a saucer on which he finally set his empty cup.

“One more?”

“No. Thank you.”

Those were the words, as friendly Hindus had taught him, that it was not proper to use with the servants. The master’s satisfaction, after all, was thanks beyond measure.

He had hardly spread out his papers at the embassy when Kalman Bajcsy summoned him. He stood, heavy, lumpish, blinking his swollen eyelids, looking out at the courtyard from behind the parted curtains. Involuntarily Terey looked to see what had caught the ambassador’s attention, but apart from trees shriveled by the sun and the road from which red dust rose in columns, he could discern nothing.

“Well, you see.” Kalman Bajcsy clapped him on the shoulder with a white palm and fingers covered with curly black hair. “Here under us, on the roof—”

Terey saw two brown starlings standing motionless with gaping beaks. The feathers on their necks bristled. Their wings hung half spread.

“The heat is exhausting them?”

“No, this is a moment’s pause. Soon they will begin mauling each other again. One will try to catch the other by the throat, choke him and peck out his tongue,” he said gloomily. “Little singing birds! Which one do you bet on? I’ll wager the smaller one on the right will win. Well, bestir yourselves!” he urged them on.

As if at a signal the birds hopped toward each other, pecking, clawing, each beating the resilience out of his opponent. Ripped-out feathers protruded from their beaks. Locked together, they pushed each other into the withering vines with their wings. It was clear that the battle had not stopped, for startled lizards fled from the hot wall.

“Pity we won’t see the end—” the ambassador thrust out his lip—“but I called you in about another matter, as you would have guessed.”

He pushed Terey in front of him a little paternally, steering him with a disdainful motion toward the chairs reserved for guests.

“Let’s sit down. Cigarette? No? Good for you. Heat like this makes everyone feel that his heart is short of oxygen, that his lungs are boiling.”

He sat resting his elbows on the arms of his chair. His hands dangled wearily. His eyelids drooped; his mouth was partly open. Tiny lines of sweat glittered on his thick neck. He looked like a tired old man. Only his dark eyes, full of life, forestalled signs of sympathy, for he might not receive them well — might feel that those who showed them perceived him as prematurely weak.

How old is he? Istvan wondered. Fifty-four, fifty-five — not old, only spent, burned out. He wore himself out in the struggle.

“I had to dismiss the chauffeur,” the ambassador began dispassionately, “even though I like him. A good driver—” he was looking up carefully to gauge the effect of an objective assessment on the counselor, but concluded quickly, “Only he is unstable. Hysterical. Nerves just under the skin, like most people’s in this country. It pains me a little, for the dismissal coincides with his wife’s death, though they attach less weight to death here. So I’d like you to see to it that he gets an extra hundred rupees, but discreetly: don’t say it came from me. I don’t care about gratitude. Have a chat with him, then drop in and see me. I have a premonition that there might be trouble with him. Well, tell me now, what is going on? Have you any news?”

“Nothing in particular. It’s the dead season.”

“Perhaps you will unearth something. What’s good at the cinema? You’re flagging, counselor. Have all the ladies you know left town? Have a word with the cook, he’ll bring you back to life. But in such heat—” he exhaled deeply—“oh, young people, young people, you don’t know how to take care of yourselves.”

He seemed to say it, not reproachfully, but with envy.

“ House of Wax starts today at the Splendid. It’s an English film about grave robbers.”

The ambassador looked at him, propping up one thick eyelid with a nicotine-stained finger, as if there might be some hidden meaning in what he had said.

“I know. I saw it five years ago in Geneva. It is sad when more and more is behind you, when you have weighed it in your hands, felt it, explored it, let it go. There are fewer and fewer faces that I would wish to meet, fewer landscapes to see. Those one saw in youth, even on an empty stomach, were more beautiful. The whole world had more vivid colors. Now it is exhausted — stale, like out-of-date merchandise. You say: it’s the heat, the boss is bracing himself to reveal something — now, now, I know you call me that. No, dear counselor, it is the years. I speak of the age I feel myself to be, not the age on my birth certificate. Death holds no strangeness for me. We will meet as acquaintances who have already exchanged salutations. From darkness into darkness. Happy Hindus! He was—” he muttered, compressing his thoughts—“there is not even a dent in the air. He was. Oh, we don’t like to think of that moment.”