Wojciech Zukrowski - Stone Tablets

“Well — we are having an adventure,” the professor scowled. “From the beginning that sun today looked too bright to me. The proverb rightly says, ‘In the season of monsoons, do not lose sight of home.’”

They did not ride so much as dive into the water that poured from blue sluices. Innumerable flies and tiny moths with unerring instinct sought shelter with them under the moving roof. They attached themselves to the canvas or, frightened by the patter of the rain, flew about, beating against the men’s foreheads or clinging with their wings to their sticky skin.

The landrover rolled on at a slant. One side lodged in a deep rut, churning up and driving before it a red wave of rain water. Below them a village appeared: a dozen or so scattered cottages plastered together with clay. Their flat roofs with high railings had openings at the corners, and on each roof a kind of gutter had been made from the halves of a split stick of bamboo. Streams of water fell from them in full, foaming arcs, with loud splashes. The few trees bent and shuddered under the burden of the rain.

“Drive on.” The professor tapped the driver on the back. “Perhaps we will still make it through to the other bank.”

The village was deserted. Only a pair of black buffalo with enormous horns raised their wide muzzles joyfully toward the waves of rain that lashed their backs.

On one side of the road the cottages were shut up tight, the wood already darkening from the splashing water. On the other they saw squatting figures in an unlit room, colorful skirts and feet stained by clay now washed away. Smoke purled above inquisitive faces and dispersed below them in a sour whiff of smoldering cow dung.

They rolled on, sliding about in a bumpy stream the color of blood that was washing along the roadbed. Even before they reached the bank, they knew it was too late. Below it, a swollen, turbulent river full of swirling currents and eddies was advancing at menacing speed. Purplish red water, thick and silty, with scraps of foam like pieces of ripped-out lung, pushed steadily forward.

The roof of the car was streaming, and sagging under the weight of the rainwater. Without leaning out from under it, they measured the rumbling river with their eyes, roughly calculating its velocity and force and the distance to the far bank, which they saw blurred, even half obliterated by spurting water. The deluge was bearing down; where meadows had been moments before, the current was spilling greedily, stirring up and scrambling the underlayers of soil and depositing rose-tinted foam. The deluge moved on. Rivulets ran noisily on the road, dislodging hunks of clay. Tufts of uprooted grass floated about. Broken branches seemed to creep sluggishly but with dogged persistence toward the river, as if predestined to find their way there.

“We can forget about crossing for today,” sighed the driver. His wet turban was coming undone; water trickled from the untucked end.

“We must stop for the night,” the professor decided. “Though we are not far away now.”

“Do you think we will be there tomorrow?” Terey asked worriedly.

“If it doesn’t pour.” Salminen shrugged. “The river rose in a quarter of an hour. We will see when it will fall. We must find a cottage with enough space for us. We will turn back.”

It was easier said than done. The automobile surged forward; the ground beneath it was covered with water in which the wheels spun. The engine whined at high speed. The landrover shuddered, tilted, and began to crawl up the sloping shoulder of the road.

They drove up to the open door of a cottage that stood apart from the others. Above them stood the village, a scattering of houses sheltered by a low hill, and a dense thicket of acacia with thorns as long as a man’s finger. The familiar domestic smell of smoke mingled with the odors of wet straw, milk, and a trace of dung. They jumped from the vehicle one by one and walked into the dim interior, calling out words of greeting. In the haze of a smoldering fire Terey spied a cluster of children sitting cross-legged, a woman who covered her face — only her eyes flashed curiously in his direction — and an old man. His bare thighs, thin and gnarled, and his knees covered with scars gleamed as if he were a bronze statue. On the bed, covered with a large cloth, lay a form like a cocoon, coughing and quivering.

There was nothing to sit on, so they settled down on the floor. Unlike the old man, who remained motionless with the gravity of the very weary, the children were poking at each other, chatting in squeals and bursting into titters like birds on a branch before they fall asleep. Through the open door the hum and clatter of the frothing water made the quiet house feel snug and sheltering. In the other half of the room, separated by a small gutter, two cows rested, chewing tranquilly.

“Will we stay here?” Terey looked around blankly.

“It would be the same anywhere. There are a few children too many, but we will sleep well enough through the night. Anyway, they will leave the house to us; you will see. They are, quite simply, afraid of us. We are beings from another world from which they expect no good,” Salminen assured him. “Who is lying there?” He pointed to the bed. “Ask,” he ordered the chauffeur. “A sick person?”

A few sentences were exchanged and the driver translated, “Not a sick person. A very old woman. His grandmother.” He pointed to the dejected peasant.

They tried to overcome the dour distrust of their hosts. Terey offered the men cigarettes. The peasant reached for one slowly, looked it over, sniffed it, and put it on the ground by his bare feet. The whole family looked at Terey closely, with wonder.

Salminen opened a tin box of biscuits. They smelled of vanilla and bore the imprint of a smiling face. He held them out to the woman and the children. They took them and held them in their hands; their eyes were round with suspense, so he began to munch one, showing them by this pantomime what to do with them. One scraped it with his teeth and, shamefaced, burst into giggles. Others held the little discs and regarded them from both sides like pictures, obviously grieved at the thought of eating them.

“I told you they were afraid of us,” the Swede said in a low voice. “We have certainly come the wrong way. If our team had passed this way, they would have behaved differently toward us. Ask him.” He nudged the orderly.

“No. They have not seen an automobile, nor any English people, or so he said,” the orderly translated proudly. “Stupid peasants. He has never stuck his nose out of his fields. Even on pilgrimage he only went to the temple near the river.”

“Tell him who we are.”

“I told him,” the orderly smiled, “but here, doctor means witch doctor. He asked if we had come with the police who are in the village.”

“Tell him no.”

“I told him.”

“Why have the police come?”

“He says he does not know. He heard shots before the rain.”

“Perhaps it was when you were shooting pigeons?” Istvan asked. “But could they be holy birds?”

“No,” the driver rejoined, and moved closer to the old man in order to hear more. “They wanted to catch a dacoit . They shot rifles,” he explained. “That is why the peasants are so frightened. A dacoit is a bandit, a robber. He comes from this village, but he has done no harm to anyone here. He went far away for his plunder. Often he disappeared for half a year. He knows him because they are related. It is good that they did not catch him.”

“Do you understand any of this?” the Swede asked, rolling the empty tin biscuit box over the floor of straw and clay toward the children. A little girl pushed it back, laughing. The professor repeated the maneuver and then they rolled the box back and forth to each other. They were too absorbed in the game to notice that the rain had stopped. It only trickled from the roof. The sky cleared and brightened and the earth began to steam heavily.