Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

“He was not lying. He deserves support. He is no copyist or photographer. He wants to be himself. If he persists, he will be famous.”

“I will wait,” the rajah drawled patronizingly. “How much does he want for his pictures?”

“Two hundred rupees.”

“And how much does he really get?”

“A hundred, a hundred and twenty.”

“And he sells two a year, one to some embassy or American tourist, another they buy out of pity at the annual exhibition. The price itself shows that the pictures are worth nothing. I have a pair of Impressionists at my place in Cannes, for taking them out of France is not allowed; my agent paid a couple of thousand pounds apiece for them. Those are painters.”

“Were.”

“So much the better! They don’t lower the market price with new pictures. If your protégé were dead, it might be worth the risk to buy one or two canvases. Boy!” he called. “Pour us some cognac. No, not that. From the bulgy bottle, the Larsen. All the old French cognacs had false labels; not one cellar could hold out against the pressure of the liberating armies. Nothing was saved but the cognac the Swedes bought before ’39. I believe in Larsen — a solid firm, cognac aged more than forty years.”

The servant approached, knelt, and handed around bulbous snifters. He tilted the bottle, peeping at the rajah’s raised little finger; at a flick of that finger he pulled up the neck without spilling a drop. They warmed the snifters with their palms, shaking them lightly, watching approvingly as the trickling unctuous liquid left its tracery on the little crystal walls. The rajah put his fleshy nose to the glass and sniffed.

“What an aroma.”

Terey drank the cognac down. It rolled around his tongue with a stinging savor. He tested it on his palate. It had a rich, complex bouquet. It was a noble liqueur, a drink for connoisseurs.

“Another hour of this torment.” The rajah exhaled heavily and spread his legs. “We must say goodbye to our guests. You will stay, of course, to see the traditional ceremony? Now we may drink to my future obligations! After midnight, not a drop.”

“You want so much to be with Grace?”

“If I had liked, I could have had her long ago.” The rajah waved a careless hand. “I was thinking of something else. I dream of giving up the uniform. Feel—” he took Istvan’s hand and shoved it under his red shirt. Terey felt the swelling of an elasticized corset.

“They say that I am fat, though I engage in sports. I have a good appetite, they serve me the dishes; must I deny myself? Some do not eat because they have no food. Should I starve myself when I can afford anything? A thin rajah is a sick rajah. My position demands that I look impressive. In our country they say, fat, because he has plenty of everything, fat — that means rich, and rich, because he has the knack of making money, because he is smart. A logical chain of reasoning! I would like to be free of this frippery, to be at ease in a loose dhoti.”

Terey looked with growing aversion at the short, corpulent man with his face gleaming like a bronze cast from the alcohol he was sweating out. The rajah parted his dark lips and panted, nearly stifled by the tight uniform he wore as captain of the lancers of the president’s guard. His words about Grace had struck a nerve with Istvan. He blinked and, peering through his upraised glass at the rajah’s face, saw it distended as in a warped mirror. It was repulsive to him. He swallowed the cognac, drinking, in fact, with antagonism toward his host. But the rajah interpreted the gesture differently.

“You are a likable fellow.” He clapped Terey on the knee. “You have the knack of being quiet in a friendly way. It is a rare virtue in a communist, for you must be continually moralizing, as if you yourselves had not properly digested the knowledge you gained, and then, right away, you brazenly reverse yourselves. Well, do not be angry because I say it.”

Then he reached for the bottle and poured for himself.

“More?”

Istvan declined with a motion of his hand.

“Why did you rush the wedding?” he asked cautiously.

“Do you ask for personal reasons, or professional?” The rajah roused himself. “Have you heard about our law? It will make life more difficult for you, too.” He stopped speaking, still holding the snifter against his lip.

“Don’t speak of it if you’d rather not,” Istvan shrugged.

“It is the end of free transfer of pounds abroad. Half a year earlier than we foresaw, the law will come into effect. For a couple of years now, old Vijayaveda has invested capital in Australian weaving mills. He had the privilege thanks to influences in the Congress Party. He got special permission.

“The government took over my copper mines. Part of the damages it paid me I would like to entrust to my father-in-law. A worthy family! He helped Gandhi; they were in jail together. That counts for something. It’s worth it to remind a few ministers of it at the right times. The lawyers were vetting our financial standing. They vouched for the probity of ‘both the distinguished parties,’” he laughed. “The families held councils. The benefits and a certain risk were weighed — well, and marriage is like a guarantee of long-term credit, which I gave my father-in-law. I had to hurry. I don’t want them to freeze my capital here. I dare say the details would not concern you.”

“And Grace?” Terey rotated his glass and the golden liquid swirled inside it.

“She is a good daughter. The family council made its decision. That is enough. She could have objected, but what for? Could she have been sure of a better match?”

“She loves you?”

“Only with you in Europe is that a great issue. Love is a device of the literati, filmmakers, and journalists, who batten on marital scandals, and they do well financially by keeping up that myth. With us one approaches marriage seriously. It can be big business, especially in our sphere, when it involves real money. Does Grace love me?” he repeated, and his vigor revived. “And why would she not? I am rich, healthy, educated. I can ensure her welfare and her position in society. She will remain not only in the upper ten thousand, but in the thousand of the supremely influential.” He dabbed with his fingertips at drops of sweat on his upper lip and eyebrows, and wiped them on the arm of his chair. His eyelids were almost black — from fatigue, obviously, and too much alcohol.

“Is such an arrangement really necessary?” Terey leaned forward and offered him a cigarette. A servant who had been waiting almost invisibly in the shadows hurried forward with a light. They smoked. Muffled music whimpered beyond the veranda doors, which stood wide open.

“You have forced me to it. Well, perhaps not you” —he exonerated Terey— “but it was easier for us to get rid of the English than to control what you set in motion. You entice people with talk of paradise on earth. That is your advantage, and your weakness. You continually move the time appointed for this happiness up by five years, but people still believe. The first stage surely is yours by right: to take from the rich and give to the poor. But that does not suffice for long, and the hardships become severe, because those who rebel acquire a taste for change. They grow vociferous, they make demands, they exert pressure.

“My land was taken. Well, not all of it. I still have enough. The government pays me rent for my lifetime, every year a tidy sum in pounds. Something must be done with it. Sometimes there are businesses which are risky but yield quick profits, and are easily dissolved; even the air transport partnership Ikar. We have airplanes from the demobilization, Dakotas, still in fair condition. We buy them at auction. I see to it that they are not made available to our competitors, but to people we trust. The money must be put to work, every rupee must triple,” he nodded with unctuous gravity.