Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

He waited. He lifted the thick white mesh and knelt on the bed, which gave under his weight. He waited, resting his hands on his thighs. His breathing was labored. It seemed to him that he filled the tent with the heat his body exuded through his bronze skin and black hair.

After all, this had happened once before — had certainly happened — he had been through it already. He had come to this room just as certain as he was tonight that Margit would be his, but he had left chastened. She had returned in his dreams, and he had had her, had taken her with all his might. And when he had raised his head in delight, it had seemed that their time was measured by a great pendulum sizzling in a fire. He knew that pendulum, knew it so that it filled him with pain and loathing. Don’t call him back, forget, a voice admonished. Life belongs to the living. Hating himself, he triumphed over that other man. He was alive with male force: his torso glinted with veins of sweat, a different sweat than torture had drawn from that man’s body.

He did not hear her step; she was barefoot. Only when she appeared leaning on the drooping net did he see that she was naked and wet. The partition bent at the touch of her hand and fell away. He looked through the netting and saw the rising of her breasts, the lines of her hips and the dark triangle between her thighs. He moved toward her on his knees and rested his hands on hers. She was his already; only the dusty froth of white netting separated them. He wanted to kiss her, but the trace of mustiness and insecticide in the air put him off. He wanted to have her leaning on his chest, to press her until she lost her breath, until it hurt, and she would leap and toss in the circle of his arms like a fish caught by the gills. He raised the netting and saw her uncovered. Knees. Thighs. The eternal tremor that fills a man when he brings womanflesh out of hiding — familiar and mysterious, worthy of scorn, yet desired. The dream of boys. The lust of the eyes.

He threw off the netting above her head with one tug so that it flew behind his back, and then he encircled her, caught her in his arms, settled her on the sheet and explored her body with his lips, learning its parts by memory. He found her breasts docile to his hands; he took possession of her flat belly, nipped at her knees with his teeth as if they were apples. He divided her into sections with his looks: she was there — and then in an instant he forgot about her, lost in delight at her cool, refreshing skin, where perfect beads of water lingered, at the taste of that skin, which he knew now for the first time.

With his cheek he caressed the insides of her thighs, which were far smoother than the lips of a foal. He felt an overpowering joy in this voyage of discovery when she gave herself to him as if she were running out impulsively to meet him, then clung to him and trembled. He was, consciously, making his appeal to her body, not to her, and she was participating. He had bought off the resistance with caresses, by conspiring with the crew in spite of the commander, who might still be ready to mount a defense. The understanding between eager lips and the summits of her breasts; the absorption in her body, which did not annihilate but restored him; the shape of the ear remembered by the mouth; the fingers combing the flame of hair, the plucking of the fruit…

He stole a glance at her eyes, glowing with points of light, at her lips, half open in defenseless receptiveness and altered, unfamiliar, swollen with delight. She did not see him. She closed her eyes, she forgot him, though he felt her hands playing over him, grazing him, stroking him timidly, like swallows’ wings stirring sparkles from the smooth blue surface of a pond. Almost sleepily she drew up her knees and opened them with a movement like a butterfly; in that unashamed, desirous yielding he saw a beauty that choked him. His arms to the elbow were under her back. His face was tangled in her crisp, fragrant hair. The coolness of her skin, pressed against his chest, vanished, and by now he did not know, could not feel, where his body ended and hers began as he passed beyond the boundary he had abolished with such joy. He enclosed her, he drew her into himself, and she was entwined with him; he was under her, on her, and in her.

“I want you so, Margit,” he said, reeling as if something had struck him.

“You have me.” He heard the words as if from a distance, from the depths of drowsiness, and he thought that he would never conquer her, never possess her heart, her imagination. That is why he had sought to reach an understanding with the inner secrets of her body, the interior of smooth moist satin, the sweet shell, as he whispered to her — true to the custom of conquerors naming each part of the new land as they please — in the mysterious language, like incantations, of the rites of love.

Unceasing entry: flight into clouds. And she understands, feeling the weight of him, seeing his uplifted head, his tanned neck bent outward, she knows that in this moment, though she is the cause of all his exultation, he has almost forgotten her, he has soared and is far away. Margit rocks wildly, like a wave in a boat’s wake, squeezes and curls.

She moans — a moan that is the delight of a man, like the last voice of an expiring enemy. Her teeth are parted, her lips thick, her eyes swimming, too clouded to receive the light. It is as if she were in agony, and her face should frighten but only delights him. At last he has what he so doggedly pursued, has it, though he wishes this flight would go on forever. And by now she is conscious of him again, making certain that he is there, blushing as if caught sleeping, ashamed that she abandoned him for a moment to be enclosed in herself, happy now that she could have made him such a gift. Suddenly, as he wrings his tense hands and falls on her breasts with his warm lips wide open and creeps toward her neck, Margit whispers in his ear, “Ay-ker.” She pronounces it in English, “Ay-ker,” and after a long moment of mild stupefaction, he comprehends: Icarus. He only smiles.

They lie beside each other under the white cone of mosquito netting, their bodies, slippery with sweat, resting like animals herded into a shelter, animals who know and trust each other. Margit’s fingers wander around his chest. Her lips touch it lightly and brush his arm. He takes her hand, puts the ends of her fingers to his lips and whispers:

“Thank you.”

“Repeat his exact words to me again.” The ambassador’s face was porous, like a cheese sprinkled with cattle salt. A fold of puffy razor-scraped cheek drooped above his fist as he patiently calculated the level of threat. Malevolent intent showed in his dark eyes, which were swollen with sleeplessness. His thinning black hair was streaked with bristling gray like pale lichen on a dry branch.

“So Krishan shows himself ungrateful,” he mumbled. “I expected this. People like that always take kind gestures for signs of weakness. We will have to protect ourselves from his greed and stupidity, which could harm us. Yes — above all, he is stupid. Don’t deny it: stupid, for he doesn’t know that I have him in the palm of my hand.” Kalman Bajcsy stretched out a bloated paw with glistening lines of sweat and slowly squeezed it into a fist. “He hasn’t a chance of shaking us down. But a good lawyer might come in handy.”

Istvan thought immediately of the “philanthropist”: Attorney Chandra of the ageless face and diminutive, almost boyish figure, the Hindu who liked difficult cases. He did not hasten to offer advice, however, since the ambassador not only had not asked for it, but had not even confided to him the true cause of the dispute with the dismissed chauffeur.

Bajcsy’s light, airy clothing of black alpaca, long forgotten in Europe, still passed as stylish here. The edge of his collar had a greasy gleam, and when Bajcsy raised his hand to rub his balding crown, Terey spied a white salt stain under his arm.