Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

But he did not hush the servants because it would have drawn their attention. They would be quiet soon, and they would overhear his conversation. Yet perhaps he would manage to exchange a few warm words with Margit, to catch a change in the tone of her voice. He might even find out when she would come to Delhi or invite him to Agra.

He knew there were no telephones in the hotel rooms, yet his face contorted with impatience when the clerk, hemming and hawing, said that he would call Miss Ward to the telephone right away. As he scratched the wall mechanically with his fingernail, drawing slanted lines that resolved themselves into her initials, he seemed to hear the rasping of the cicadas hidden in the dusty festoons of blossoms on the pergola.

The time it took to summon her was unendurably long, a sickening void. He really had little to say to her apart from the one word which would explain his worry and longing. But he knew that he would not say that word, that the sentences would be as dead as plaster moldings. He thought of the multitude of ears that would be listening in on their conversation, the mute witnesses, bored but inquisitive. He saw girls with jingling necklaces and receivers clinging to their hair, which would be moist from sweat and fragrant oil; they would be on the line to assist the callers, and by accident.

He heard Margit’s voice, unfamiliar, distorted by the distance.

“Hello! Hello,” and then with a hearty note of recognition, “Is that you, Grace?”

“This is Istvan. You weren’t expecting—”

“No. Not you. Oh, how wonderful that you’ve called! Thank you.”

He said nothing. She offered, “Perhaps you are coming? When will I see you?”

“Saturday evening.”

“Four more days? That’s awfully long. May I call you?”

He did not answer. He still wanted to hide his relationship with her, to shield it from view like a miser, to keep it to himself. He saw obstacles mounting, saw avalanches hanging over him which could easily be sent thundering down.

“I got your letter.”

“Ah, that prompted you to call. And I thought that you yourself — that you really missed me.” He felt rather than heard a trace of disappointment in her reply.

“It’s true.” He licked his sticky, suddenly taut lips.

“What’s true?”

“I miss you, Margit.”

“If that were true, you wouldn’t be calling. You would be with me.”

“I can’t just now.”

“Evidently you don’t miss me enough.”

He was stricken. He did not speak; he could not contradict her.

“I’m sorry,” she said hastily. “I’m a capricious only child. I’m used to having what I want. You know that even waiting gives me joy I’ve never known until now. Istvan, are you there?” she asked, suddenly anxious. “Hello — can you hear me?”

“Yes,” he answered fervently. “I hear everything.” He seemed to be saying: You touch my heart, I understand, I am hanging on your words. Speak on.

But men’s voices were coming through the receiver, calling Margit impatiently, nagging her. It pained him; for an instant he even imagined that their exchange had been a clever sham.

“Wait. I’ll be right back.” Then he heard her say to those in the room, “This is Grace, my friend from Delhi.” Picking up the telephone again, she explained a bit defensively, “I’m having a little party. It’s too hot to go anywhere, so we’re sitting here, listening to Bartok. We’ll drink, but only a little. It’s just our group. Don’t be jealous. The professor is here, and Dr. Connoly, whom I promise to bring to you, since you invited him.

“I would so terribly like to see you,” she said in a completely different tone. “And now, quickly, tell me something pleasant that I can remember just before I fall asleep.”

He hesitated, then, amazed at the strength of his own emotion, whispered, “I’ll be there Saturday evening.”

“I already heard that. Say something more…”

“That’s all,” he said, turning around suddenly, for he had spied the cook’s long shadow on the wall, and the sweeper’s head hung down just over the threshold. They had been watching and listening.

He was furious. But then words that pacified him flowed from far away: “I understand. Thank you very, very much. Until Saturday.” There was a rattle as she hung up the receiver. The next instant the impersonal voice of the operator came on.

“Will you speak longer, sir?”

“No. I’ve finished.”

“Thank you,” she breathed, and the telephone jingled briefly, just once, as if there were a tremor of the heart in its bell.

He caught his breath like a swimmer emerging from deep water. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his hand. Instinct warned that he was in the power of an element the strength of which he did not know. He would have to dislodge the other man she had loved, to push him into the dark. Where would the contest take place? Certainly not amid the disheveled bedclothes, where subduing the shadow would be easy.

“Finish your work,” he said to the cook.

“Yes, sahib — but we would not have wanted to make noise,” Pereira answered earnestly. On the wall Terey could see the shadow of the cook’s thin foot nudging the sweeper. A second later he could hear the rhythmic scraping of the brush as it made its way in circles around the kitchen floor.

He went into the living room and sat down in an armchair. When he lit a cigarette, his fingers trembled. Lamplight glowed on the sheets covered with green writing. A sudden pain pierced him, for he was certain that Margit would never understand all that Bela’s letter conveyed, and what it meant to him. Though she loved and was loved, she would not be one of them.

Late the next afternoon, as dust gathered in the air and hovered just above an earth that exhaled fire; as the dry, yellow grass crumbled even when the grasshoppers trampled it; as the clamor of the cicadas in almost leafless treetops rang in the air like a great complaint, Terey drove up to the embassy garage. One of his directional signals had gone out, and even after the bulb was changed it refused to light up. Instead of the stocky Premchand he found only Krishan, whose clothing made a blotch of bright white as he sat on his heels by the wall, like an ordinary peasant resting at dusk. His hand, holding a smoking cigarette, almost touched the red ground. He seemed to be napping with his head down.

He did not move a muscle when the Austin pulled in not far from him and the counselor got out. The yellow glare reflected from the sun, which was now buried behind the houses, streamed over the white of Krishan’s narrow trousers, his dark, dangling hands, and the long lines of his fingers crossed by a white cigarette. He did not raise his dark head with its waves of greased hair even when he heard Terey’s greeting.

“Good evening, Krishan.”

“Good evening, sir,” a gentle, girlish voice answered from the dim interior of the garage.

Though she was too abashed to walk out, Istvan, seeing the outline of her figure, could tell that she was young and pretty. She must have clasped her hands in front of her chest, for he heard the jingle of silver sliding over her wrists. He sensed that there was something between them, though the driver did not turn his face toward her, and the girl did not assert her right to his attention. She only looked out with large, solicitous eyes, which gleamed with a moist luster in the dusky garage.

“Krishan, what is it?”

“Nothing, sir. I do not work at the embassy anymore.”

Terey was sorry for him; he remembered the ambassador’s instructions. He leaned against the hood and lit a cigarette. He heard the sigh of the cooling motor, the bell-like chirp of crickets, and the dry whisper of leaves from the plants that grew on the embassy walls.