Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

As if remembering Istvan’s presence, he opened his eyes wide and rumbled:

“So you have nothing to tell me?”

“Except for the Rajk affair,” Terey ventured.

“And how do you know about that?” the ambassador bristled. “That is strictly confidential.”

“From the journalists. Nagar had the information. Tomorrow all the world will be trumpeting it. But this is only the beginning.”

“You are brave enough to think that way? Well, you had better keep those hopes to yourself. Power always demands victims, and governing is not a parlor game but an exercise in force…though I don’t know what people have been saying…if, of course, one wants to accomplish anything. Certainly it is force to which the nation consents, to which in the end it is reconciled, if it is to have significance in today’s world.”

He breathed heavily for a moment, looked at Istvan morosely, then added, “I don’t like people who dig up graves, poke their noses into prisons, walk around the back walls of buildings, and wail that they smell a stench. There must be a stench. All power, the best power, has its muck. There is no need to ask what’s in the garbage heap, only what was possible for a man, what was done, if there is some guarantee that everything won’t go to the devil, that no one will demolish Budapest as you would plow an anthill under with your boot. And the panic begins, and the running about, and the general helplessness. And perhaps you are one of those who can’t stand to listen to anyone and haven’t the knack of giving commands themselves; such people are the worst! I can smell them a kilometer away.

“So you say Nagar had this information? One can believe him. The worst of it is that what comes to us only in snatches rebounds a hundredfold in echoes from the world, and creates confusion for us. And I would so have liked to live out the days I spend in Hungary, when I return every few years, in peace — to see how things progress, how much has been built. That gives me great relief, for in the foundation are my labor and anguish and sleepless nights. And I beg you,” he changed the subject, resting his belly on the tabletop, “speak a few warm words to Krishan. It’s always better that we part as friends. I count on your tact.”

He sank into a chair as if he were breaking down. He slouched and covered his face with his hand; his fingers crept down around his fleshy nose. He grimaced and began fussing with the hair that protruded from his nostrils. Terey saw that his presence was superfluous. He slipped silently out of the room.

The arrival of the couriers enlivened the torpid atmosphere. Typewriters rattled more vigorously; footsteps quickened in the corridor. The Hindu workers shuffled documents and rustled creased carbon paper like birds cleaning their wings with their beaks. As usual it appeared that, though reports had to be completed, under the watchful eyes of the ambassador some expressions took on equivocal shades of meaning. He set Ferenc and Terey to the urgent task of executing together the final stylistic amendments.

The couriers were alike as brothers: tall, with a military habit of standing at attention. Their faces were frank and open, full of a mindless sincerity that inspired confidence. Their wide eyes were not devoid of a spark of shrewdness. One could tell at once from which school they had come, could discern the stamp of the office in which, until recently, they had worked.

As they themselves had hinted in a rush of unthinking candor, behind their promotions to the foreign service were hidden some unnamed offenses to which they never alluded, though they were attributed to them as merits. The authorities simply thought it expedient to keep the two out of the public eye. Such journeys as these, taken regularly — although they always came as a pair, like gypsies or nuns guarding each other from mishap or temptation — furnished opportunities for a little business, for profits on the side, became an overt reward for blind obedience previously demonstrated. Even full exposure to foreign cultures, infusions of the magnificence of Paris or Rome, could not sow doubt in these minds, but rather awakened their contempt and a kind of pride that, in spite of renunciation and poverty, they were faithful, they were among the elite who moved between both worlds.

They tossed salami onto Istvan’s desk. In its white coating it was thick as a man’s arm, and smelled of home. He had to invite them to his residence, though it was not proper for a counselor to maintain social relations with them because of their low rank. They both came, wearing their navy blue suits as though they were uniforms. They answered questions briefly, in generalities, each looking at the other to assure himself that his statement was the correct one and did not deviate from the obligatory formulas Istvan knew from the first page of Szabad Nep.

But the whiskey they downed as they munched salted peanuts took the edge off their alertness. Lulled by Istvan’s permissiveness, they took off their jackets, loosened their ties and unfastened their limp collars.

They vied with each other to assure him that all was peaceful in Budapest. “People work, earn their money, enjoy themselves. The outlook for the harvest is not bad. No particular shortages are felt. There is enough meat. Perhaps earnings are a little too low. But when has a man not wanted more cash?”

“And the mood?”

“Rather good. Discipline is a little on the decline; a degree of apathy has set in since Stalin’s death. People aren’t as committed as before.”

“You know our country, counselor; it needs the whip,” the other added eagerly, plucking at his mustache, which was clipped short like a small brush. “Now our leaders want to ingratiate themselves, to loosen the reins. When there is a temporary shortage of something, right away people say that the Russians took it, that for the good of the partnership it is necessary to make sacrifices.”

“And when we were in Moscow, I heard again that it was necessary to tighten the belt to give something to us and the Czechs and the Poles, to keep everyone in the camp. Such talk is bound to rankle.”

“Do you see dissatisfaction, then, or not?” Istvan persisted.

“There is the expectation of change, the hope that there will be new appointments, even in the government itself. But which direction change will take, or where the new people will come from, no one knows.”

“A thaw,” he offered.

“So they call it in Moscow. But what does that mean in practice? Everyone points to the Soviet example, and indeed Rakosi and Gerő studied government there. They won’t do anything foolish, they won’t agree to any compromises.”

“Well, and what will happen with regard to the Rajk affair? What about those who were innocently sentenced to death?”

They were troubled. They looked questioningly at each other. They raised their glasses and dawdled between sips of the amber liquid. The sunset flamed in the sky, full of fierce blood red and coagulating violet. The colors were disturbing. They riveted the eye; they threw a copper-tinted reflection on the walls and the faces, with their altering expressions.

“Well, perhaps sometimes we have been hasty in branding someone an enemy. But one must remember what the situation was, what forces were closing in on us. When the Russians left Austria, we found ourselves in the forefront,” the older one pointed out. “All the pressure from the West was bearing down on us.”

“And enemy propaganda? And Szabad Europa radio, which abused the government unrelentingly? I don’t even find it surprising that there were those few verdicts. Not for nothing is it said that the ideological front, like the front itself, can’t do without cannon fire. Was there a lack of victims from our side?”