Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

“What was she singing?”

“That her bodice is tight and there is no friendly hand to loosen it, so I offered my help.”

“Well, well! I didn’t think you had such songs.” Margit shook her head. “Your customs are strict: the family exercises discipline and a girl goes meekly into the bed of the man who is the family council’s designee.”

“That is not a real song,” the painter countered. “She made it up herself. She is hot from her work, her bodice is squeezing her, and she finds relief in singing. She thought no one could hear but others like herself. How could she know that someone else was listening? Well, well, such girlish banter!”

The radiance from the west hovered under the trees among heaps of fallen leaves. The lavender earth gleamed through the trampled grass. The shirts of men walking along the paths were dazzling white.

“It’s amusing to overhear such a request,” Terey laughed.

“Don’t forget that the singing was not meant for our ears. I overheard and translated it,” the painter said defensively.

They were heading into a traffic jam. Police in red turbans were standing by, their bare legs dark, their sleeves rolled up; in their sinewy hands they held long bamboo sticks.

“The road is closed,” Istvan said, taken by surprise. “Something must have happened.”

“Full speed ahead. Have no fear,” Ram Kanval urged. “They will not dare to stop you.”

Indeed, when they turned aside and drove toward the cordon with one wheel on the grass, an officer — a black-bearded Sikh with a pompom on his cherry-colored beret — saw the insignia of the diplomatic corps on the car and ordered the police to stand aside.

“Some important person must have arrived,” Kanval mused, leaning out through the open window and staring curiously in every direction.

“They would have sent me an invitation to an official meeting,” Terey said a little huffily. “No, this is some parade. A big crowd is standing around the Parliament. Probably we won’t get through.”

They had to stop. Three trucks with police were blocking the street. They could have walked farther by taking the shortcut across the grass, but everyone was doing that. Istvan saw the journalists; the fiery sunset flashed in the lenses of carefully aimed cameras. He spotted Nagar’s slight, nimble figure in the crowd, but before he decided to try and overtake him, Nagar was swallowed by a wave of rushing women. They were being chased by the police, who seized them and menaced them with uplifted clubs but hit no one. The light caught the shifting greens and yellows of the women’s saris. The crowd gave way, squealing, then formed a circle with all eyes on a group of people who were shouting in rhythm. In these chases, or attempts by the police to disperse the crowd, there was something almost like fun, almost comic, yet grave, for a hymn or recitative was rising from the square.

“Shall we go closer?” He took Margit by the arm, afraid that she would be swept away in the whirlpools and waves of human particles and he would lose sight of her.

“This is curious.” She pulled him into the dense mass of people who were chanting in the square. “What is it about?”

Women were moving all around them. Not only did they hear the soft rustle of silk and the clinking of bracelets; they were caught in a stifling wave of fragrance, the mixed odors of strong perfumes, powders, spices, sweat, and heated bodies. They saw young faces and wasted ones, flamboyantly painted, eyes glowing feverishly, hair ingeniously piled high on the head, plaited with garlands of flowers and covered with misty veils from Benares. Supple bodies gave way to them reluctantly, but eyes watched importunately, provocatively. Thick lips parted in enticing smiles. It struck Istvan that he had really never met Hindu women of this sort on the streets or in fashionable coffee houses. They were conscious of their beauty, of their full, warm bosoms as they nudged him. An atmosphere of animal tension was forming, of lurking readiness to bite and claw, and, it seemed, a great despairing sob. Istvan and Margit felt the agitation.

“What is this strange demonstration?” she asked. “Where did these women come from? Look, they’re dancing.”

A tremor ran through the crowd on the square. The dry earth rumbled. Light dust rose and floated toward the sunset in a red cloud. Flutes and three-stringed fiddles struck up; drums purred like cats and small bells twittered. Half-naked men, old and gray or very young, stamped in place in front of them, blowing fifes. With wooden fingers like partially burnt roots they tapped, they scraped, they stroked the skins of drums that chatted in bass voices. Istvan shuddered; he had just noticed the sunken eyelids, the empty eye sockets, or eyes wide open looking straight into the savage glare of the sun, eyes with white, dead irises.

“Look!” He pulled Margit closer. “Blind — the whole crowd, as far as those trees. They are all blind.”

“What’s going on here?” she asked in a frightened whisper.

“Nothing alarming.” Ram Kanval had just come up behind them. “The prostitutes came to present a petition against the implementation of a decree that would resettle them outside the capital. They are not allowed now to practice their profession closer than twenty-five miles from New Delhi. It is amusing”—he pointed to the steps of the Parliament—“they call the delegates by name. Several they know well. No, not as clients, but they own the streets, the houses in which they live. They are calling out—” he translated, “‘Must I return to the village, where people dry up like the earth?’ ‘Does my body, which gives pleasure to so many, have to wither away?’ ‘I support an entire family. They live because of me. Condemning me to hunger, you condemn them as well.’”

The calls became more and more anguished and despairing. The high, senile whine from the choir was filling the square.

“Why are those older men shouting?” Istvan tugged at Kanval’s arm.

“They are afraid of what will happen to them. The blind — they will starve as well. Till now they have had work. They earned money honestly.”

“How?”

“They played for the dancing in the bordellos. They accompanied the singers. They made time pass pleasantly for the guests. They are blind, so their presence does not interfere with the diversions. Living music boxes, human nickelodeons. What will they do? Where will they go? They can only beg, condemned to slow death.”

“How many of them can there be here?”

“Well, about a thousand. There is an economic problem that cannot be assuaged by talking. The deputies will think long and hard before making a decision. At any rate, pressures will be felt from all sides. It will take away income from the owners of the houses, shopkeepers, tradesmen. Astrologers, drafters of love letters, they all earned money. And doctors and charlatans. Hordes of people lived off those girls. The resettlement decree could ruin tens of thousands of families whose livings are indirectly connected to that trade, its supplies and services. It is a more important matter than you think.”

The exhalation of the crowd was in their faces, the smell of sweat, attars, powders. A great lament resounded from the square. Two women carried a petition encircled with garlands of orange flowers toward a group that stood, cordoned off by the police, on the stairs of the Parliament. They did not dare hand it directly to the deputies, but, according to an old custom, laid it on the steps, bowing to the feet of the officials standing a few steps above them and putting their fingertips to their lips in an act of humility and obeisance (“I kiss the dust of your sandals”). One of the police brought the rolled paper to his officer, who handed it to the deputies.