Stone Tablets

Chapter VII

A short, violent rain chopped at the riotous greenery of the trees and rattled among the wide, wobbling banana leaves, then suddenly stopped. The sun blazed in myriads of puddles. Starlings dived into the beaten-down grass, whistling impertinently and gorging themselves on waterlogged insects unable to escape. The earth emitted the cloying odor of teeming life breeding in a layer of fermenting decay — a sweet smell as from a vase when no one has changed the water for a long time.

Istvan shuddered when the branches of the climbing plants he jostled with his head sprinkled him with water. He could not bear being in the house; an angry restlessness forced him out among people. He needed company, though he knew he could open his heart to no one. He did not expect to find relief, to free himself from oppressive thoughts. A moment before he had flung down the receiver because the mild voice of the receptionist had told him that Miss Ward had gone away from Agra.

He had not seen Margit for three weeks. To be precise, it was the twenty-third day she had eluded him, perhaps even deliberately avoided him.

Without thinking he flicked large beads of water from his pale jacket, where they had left dark spots. From the garden and from the overgrown lawn on the square came the smell of drenched plants, a musty smell that subsided into a haze of moisture.

What could be simpler than to take the car and dash over to Agra? Again? — he mocked himself. After all, he had been there and not found her; he had loitered around all the familiar corners of the city with a bitter, lost feeling, as if he had happened on the wrong address. In the hospital the old Swedish professor had looked at him as though he were an insect fluttering on a pin as the sick people droned monotonously. They seemed to hover in the overheated air along with the soiled bandages, the whiffs of stinking sweat, pus, and the souring milk their families were giving them to drink.

“Miss Margit is conducting surveys with Dr. Connoly out in the neighboring villages.” With his hand the professor described an arc on the horizon. “It is difficult to say exactly where they are, for a sudden downpour could wash out the road in a couple of minutes and turn it into a red swamp. The all-terrain vehicle would hardly get through. Many times they got oxen from a village to help. They laid branches under the wheels. With the Austin it would be impassable. When Dr. Ward returns, I will tell her you were here. Perhaps you will leave a note?”

He looked at the narrow, red-veined face and wanted to hit the man, though he had in no way injured him. The professor was looking at him with pale eyes and blinking with white eyelashes. His failure to supply information was irritating, but how could he guess that Istvan had a right to ask about Margit, that he was not just a casual acquaintance?

She had let two letters and a telegram go without answering. She must have received them, since they had not been returned. His masculine pride had hardened into a determination not to beg; he was not one of those who whimper. But by now he knew, he had resolved in spite of himself, that at the first sign he would be ready to run to her, to apologize, to plead. After all, one of us must be wiser than the other; this was his rather weak justification for his willingness to give way.

But what happened? Why is she determined to evade me, to shun me like this? What have I done? He ransacked his conscience. How have I hurt her? But she would have laid the whole bitter truth out in the open, demanded explanations. Perhaps someone told her something reprehensible about me. But she should come to me with it. Why would she be afraid to? Damned female nonsense — he clenched his fists. Entice me and then run away. She wants to worry me, to demonstrate her power over me.

But that was not like her. And indeed he felt that he knew her, for out of their nights together had grown conversations as unreserved as the intimacy of bodies hidden in the dark, under the pile of luminous white netting.

The tiresome, wavering but incessant lament of the sick crowded behind the screens of the vacuously staring windows, the waves of stinking disinfectant and feces, were carried on the stiff breeze. Stunned flies fled before the downpour and hit the men’s faces like shriveled seeds. Rain in heavy spurts clattered on the corrugated tin roof. The professor jumped aside, holding down the edges of his apron, which was flapping in the wind. Istvan took refuge in his car. He lowered the windows and would have gone on chatting, but the rain fell in sheets, so he only waved and they parted. The wipers could not clear the streaming windshield; he drove at a snail’s pace. Oxen in harness stood still, resigned. The peasants squatted naked, even without headbands. The rain beat on bony, bent backs. And then the sky was wide and clear; the partly formed arches of a triple rainbow glowed high above them.

Remembering that long, lonely ride in the torrential rain of the tropics, he turned his face toward the invisible sun and raised his hands to shield his eyes. Puddles stood on the square, their smooth surfaces giving off a glare that made him squint.

As he was driving the Austin out of the garage, the watchman suddenly appeared. Awkwardly holding up a long knife which he had taken from behind his belt, and a ball of yarn with knitting needles stuck into it, he helped Istvan maneuver the car by signaling with his finger.

“Sahib,” he announced breathlessly, leaning toward the open window, “I am going to be married. Krishan’s wife has a friend. Perhaps you will raise my salary by a few rupees?”

“I will see. And where will she live?”

“In the barsati. It is warm now. Oh, thank you for rewarding me for faithful service. I keep watch on the threshold of the house. I do not sleep.”

“And how will it be now?”

“I will sleep even less,” he smiled, happy that the master had assented to his request and was joking graciously.

He was touched by the servants’ trust. Not only do I feed and clothe them; I am the foundation of their futures, they cobble nests together around me. They look for happiness and believe that I can ensure it for them. Then one letter from Bajcsy could have me recalled and everything would fall apart. They do not take that into account, as we, Europeans, do not take death into account. They all have a right to happiness except me. Or perhaps they are simply satisfied with less, with what is more easily available.

In his festering resentment it seemed to him that he would rather see Margit dead than give her up to another. He felt robbed, as if the most precious thing he possessed had been torn from him. Though she had said so many times that she belonged to him, she was not his property; she had given herself. Now she had changed her mind. She did not want to be with him. She was rebelling. He must have the courage to acknowledge it. In a helpless rage he muttered a vow to get her back. But then, if she were standing before him, he would take her by the arms and shake her until his fingers bruised her. “Answer me: why have you had enough of me? What has separated us?” And afterward he would kiss her, kiss her.

He drove out beyond the cemetery, where in exemplary harmony, on a square divided into sections, Christians, Jews, and Muslims slept beside each other, though they had been brought there through gates marked with a cross, a star, or a sickle. The asphalt smelled of tar; the puddles splashed under his tires, which dried instantly. Vapor hovered over the road — a whitish smoke, swelling and quivering.

And what if Margit had simply fallen into a wayward frame of mind — needed a man and jumped into bed with him, and now, he thought vengefully, is ashamed to come back to me? Perhaps it would be better to indulge her…The miserable tramp. What a joy it would be to beat her, what a relief to humiliate her. I won’t meet you halfway, not even one step. You put up the wall; I’ll put in a few bricks from my side. He decided to drop in on Judit in the evening. She was a person who deserved his regard. Seeing her would cheer him up. For a while he would be able to forget Margit’s withering silence.

Margit. Margit. He repeated her name as if he were tugging at the bell by a locked gate. Why are you punishing me so?

Only now did he begin to feel the full extent of his loneliness, to fathom how much his life had changed. He had distanced himself from his friends. He had stopped spending time at the club. Margit had been enough; she was his world. He had forgotten the days of impatient expectation, when she put her head on his shoulder or stretched out beside him on the bed, shaking off her sandals. He had lived for the gift of those hours; they were the only ones that counted.

But I must see her, he said through clenched teeth as he plunged into the sultry shade of the boulevard. I must talk with her. I really have not gone mad. There is surely some logical reason for her behavior. She is too good to walk away without a word.

Yet the thought recurred like an echo: she is a woman.

So many times she said that she loved me, he reminded himself firmly, gripping the steering wheel harder. And the last time, too, she repeated it as if she were praying, when as we said goodbye I lifted her head with my fingers in her hair and kissed her until it hurt.

Her frankness was cruel sometimes. She did not conceal the past. When he had said tersely, “It is of no concern to me,” she had answered, “I want you to know everything about me.” With a sudden pressure at his heart he remembered that when he had asked her if she compared him to the others, she had shaken her head until her hair fell onto her shoulders, and slapped him on his bare chest.

“How silly you are,” she had laughed. “They are gone. I don’t remember anyone, anything. Nothing. I told you about those things because they happened in my life, but they meant nothing. It’s as if I wiped the slate utterly clean. Tabula rasa. You are only you, and only you matter.”

What if now it had been just as easy for her to rid herself of him? To wipe the slate clean? I am thirty-six years old now; half my life is behind me, and I still take women at their word. Yet he rebuked himself: be fair, she is not here to defend herself.

He saw his gloomy sunburned face in the mirror. Botflies darted in through the windows of the car, buzzing and creeping around the windshield until he squashed them with the chamois. Women in orange skirts held an unrolled strip of freshly printed fabric in their hands; it had come from a workshop under a tree, where a man was transferring designs to the material from blocks of wood treated with dye. The printing had to dry quickly; the women spread the fabric out like a sail swelling in the sun so the patterns would not blur. The air clung to the skin like oil as smoke from wet wood and smoldering stalks drifted from clay cottages, and heavy steam from laundered clothing, drying rags, and lye.

After all, he assured himself, true love could not end in such a ridiculous way.

Yes, it had been just here — there was even the tumbledown house patched together with dung and clay. He knew the worn path into the sugar cane fields and the old tomb, the shrine with the domed top, the old stone overgrown with lichen.

They had driven away from Istvan’s house when Mihaly came up to them unbidden.

“Take me, uncle,” he begged, pressing his lips together drolly.

“Let him come,” Margit took the boy’s part, “he won’t bother us.”

The little fellow slid into the car.

The fringes of the suburbs, overgrown with thorny shrubs, adjoined old cemeteries and the ruins of ancient temples. As they were speeding along, Istvan saw the massive gray hulk of an elephant. It was leaning against the remains of a wall, rubbing the back of its neck until the crumbling bricks fell down. Margit insisted on photographing it. He stopped the car and the three of them got out. Peasants hidden behind trees shouted something in husky voices and waved lean hands like withered branches, but no one paid any attention to them.

Mihaly found a half-crushed stalk of sugar cane on the road and picked it up for “our elephant.” Margit hovered at a distance; the elephant was too large to be photographed at close range, so Istvan stood beside her as Mihaly moved fearlessly, carrying the broken stalk in his outstretched hand, where it dangled like a whip. The shouts stopped. The silence was broken only by the piercing squawks of parrots.

Instinctively the boy slowed down; he seemed to grow smaller as he drew near the ponderously advancing giant, which relentlessly rubbed its neck against the rough wall. They could hear the scraping of the thick folds of skin and the clatter of falling stones. Suddenly the elephant stood still and spread its ears wide; only their edges fluttered lightly. It turned its head. Its eye in its yellow ring looked toward the approaching child with a tormented, furious glare. The elephant took a few steps, crushing weeds and raising a cloud of dust. Just then Istvan noticed that with every movement the animal was sweeping the ground with a broken length of thick chain that was fastened to one hind leg.

“Mihaly, stop!” he cried, and lunged for the boy.

With incredible lightness the elephant turned where he stood and, grunting, broke into a gallop, trampling the bushes. He ran straight for the huddled cottages. The Hindus shrieked and ran like frightened hens, grabbing naked children and trying to hide. Under the stomping of his powerful legs the huts shattered like pottery. Dry thatch and wisps of straw must have fallen onto a cooking fire, for a pale flame burst out unexpectedly. The elephant moved at a lumbering canter, tearing his way through the brush. They heard his trumpeting and the cracking of branches; then nothing remained but the noise of crying and the smoke from the fire.

Istvan seized the boy and ran to the car. “Come on,” he said to Margit. She stood pale and breathless with the camera pressed to her chest.

“Why was he so frightened of me?” Mihaly asked.

Half-naked figures were swarming about. People crept out of ditches and from behind large trees and clustered around the Europeans.

“That is a mad elephant, sahib,” a tall villager wearing a shirt explained in English. “He has killed two people. We warned you.”

“Are there injured people in those ruined houses?” he asked.

“No. But there are heavy losses: burned beds and saris. Give a few rupees, honored sir, madam,” they begged, extending their hands.

Margit shook out all the contents of her bag into their hands. They grabbed eagerly at the ten-rupee notes. On all fours they clapped their hands on the coins that rolled around on the road and fished them up. A clutch of bodies scuffled in the dust.

“You must have gone mad, too,” he scolded her when she clung to his arm. Then he saw that her eyes were wide with fear. “What are you afraid of? He is far away,” he said comfortingly.

“You could have been killed,” she whispered. “He could have trampled you. I was so terribly afraid for you when you ran like that. Istvan, what were you thinking? What were you counting on? That the elephant would be frightened?”

“I don’t know,” he said, and it was the truth. “I wanted to stop the child. It was a reflex.”

“But he isn’t important. Only you!” she cried accusingly, as if she were delivering a verdict on the boy.

“Would you have wanted me to leave him to the elephant?”

“Oh, no, Istvan. No. That’s not what I was thinking. I love you so for what you did. That’s right: it was a reflex.”

“Anyone would have done it. Nothing happened, after all.” He backed the car up and turned it around.

“Nothing at all,” Mihaly declared. “I won’t tell anybody about the trampled houses because my dad would give me a spanking.”

He drove the boy, who by now was drowsy, gorged with cake, to the embassy. Margit stayed in the house; she preferred not to be seen. In the night they clung to each other through long, sleepless hours.

“I got you back. He gave you back to me when He could have taken you.”

“Who?”

“He,” she whispered gravely. “You believe that He exists.”

Then he remembered the elephant as it turned with unimaginable lightness, and its fluid gallop, which made the earth groan.

“I think he was unnerved by the broken sugar cane in the boy’s hand. It reminded him of a whip,” he explained.

“No, they don’t use whips on elephants. You know that very well,” she insisted. “It was a sign.”

They lay in silence for a moment. His heart beat its measured rhythm under her hand.

“It beats,” she whispered almost reverently. “It beats for me.”

“You’re becoming as superstitious as a Hindu woman. It doesn’t know who it’s beating for. And if it does, it beats for itself, as it was formed to do in my mother’s womb,” he said to ease her tension.

But she did not quarrel with him. She kissed him on the mouth so he would say nothing that could cause her pain.

The next day the cryptographer showed him a notice in a newspaper and thanked him effusively, for Mihaly had blurted out the whole story. The counselor read that before soldiers shot the crazed elephant, he had wreaked havoc at a bazaar and trampled two people.

He stopped the car behind the large trunks of trees that were growing beside the road. Behind a stone pillar marking the sacred trail of King Ashoka, grayish-brown cottages stood among the thorn bushes, their walls patched with great clots of clay and dung. Women were cutting dry grass with sickles and using it to fill out the sparse sheaves of thatch on the roofs. Children were shouting in the ruined temple and running around under long strips of fabric — freshly laundered saris — that had been hung over the shrubbery.

“What am I searching for in this place?” he asked himself, looking at the vapor that rose from the thorny, matted vegetation. He knew: he wanted to remember Margit’s eyes half mad with fright, the eyes of a woman who loves.

He walked around the Hotel Ashoka, a modern building like a castle of red stone. He heard the tinkle of music; beach umbrellas pulsed in the breeze like blue and green jellyfish. Excited cries and the din of childish voices rose and fell around the pool when the dark figure of a diver vaulted from the board to flash in the sun and disappear behind the wall. He had no desire to meet strangers; there was too much glare and excitement, and it grated on him. He preferred the dim, expansive interior of the Dinghana Club, with its deep leather chairs and splendidly appointed bar. The smells of insecticide, dust, and cigars drifted together; the breeze drew in the robust odor of horse manure from the stables nearby.

The bartender greeted him as if he were the prodigal son, and, seeing two upraised fingers, poured a double whiskey from a silver jigger and tossed in some ice. He rocked it for a minute in his dark palm, testing the temperature, before handing it to Istvan with a genial smile.

“Your friend the rajah is out riding today, sir. He also had not been here for a long time.”

“Justifiably. He has a young wife.”

“And that does not help: he is fat again,” the old barman said solicitously, stealthily pouring himself a little whiskey and sniffing rather than drinking it.

They think of me as one of them, Istvan thought. They do not stand on ceremony with me. He would not dare drink in the presence of an Englishman, even if the English were buying for him. He would thank them politely and pour it into a cup, assuring them that he would take a sip for their health, but only when he was off duty.

A diffuse yellow glow from fly-specked bulbs hovered high up under the ceiling, which was ribbed like the ceiling of a hangar. Large fans milled the stagnant air; he felt no breeze. He took his glass and had just settled in among the creased, agreeably cool cushions of a chair when he spotted Major Stowne, with his narrow head like a bird of prey’s, in another corner of the room, apparently napping. His head was thrown back; from under his lowered, lashless eyelids he was actually observing the exit to the riding course. He greeted Terey with a dilatory raising of his open hand. The gesture and the downward movement of the protruding Adam’s apple on the lean neck amounted not only to a salutation, but an invitation to keep him company.

Stowne belonged to the old cadre; he was one of the British who could only be comfortable in India, for the changes that were taking place in England aroused their revulsion. They felt almost like foreigners on the island, or newcomers who had wandered in from an earlier epoch in which the social hierarchy was respected. In India he was still shown deference; he moved in the best society, among ministers and diplomats. Rajahs invited him to hunts, and his protégés glittered with generals’ gold braid. He could honor, could add splendor to parties with his presence, could revive the prestige of the former guard of the Empire.

The story that was told about him Istvan could hardly believe. It was said that he had been enamored of a wealthy Hindu woman, or even been her lover. At first it seemed incredible; it was enough to look at his stark profile, which seemed carved from red wood. Then, too, the sternness long ingrained in him would have appeared to render it impossible. There were allusions to a Hindu beauty with enormous eyes and dead-black hair, the furled sail of nights of love. She concealed her left hand in a lace glove and never removed it. Even the servants, from whom inquisitive women friends tried to wrest the truth, never saw their mistress’s hand uncovered. It was whispered that she had a birth mark or eczema, but her beauty could not have been significantly marred, for the deep tone of her skin glistened through the eyelets in the lace.

The Hindu must have had a fortune if she had allowed herself to defy convention and appear openly with her English friend. Then, unexpectedly, she disappeared. Stowne, even in his cups, never answered questions about the absent woman. He turned his back and left the room, then smoked a cigar and paced pensively around the park long enough to be sure the conversation had moved on to some other subject: the price of emeralds, the value of horses, the trustworthiness and devotion of servants.

But then vague rumors arose that the Hindu lady had gone mad, that they had been forced to lock her up, that she had been sedated with a brew of herbs and conveyed to the vicinity of Shimla, or that she had renounced the world and become an initiated yogini in one of the mountain retreats.

The major had not married in spite of many determined overtures from dowried women. He remained alone with his legend.

When Istvan had risen from his restful leather chair and its cushions had regained their shape, wheezing as if with relief, he made his way slowly to the major, uncertain whether he had read his gesture of permission correctly. Stowne waved his forefinger as if he were shaking the ashes from an invisible cigar, so Istvan sat down beside him, reassured. They had still not spoken, were not even looking at each other.

“Have some more?” The major said at last, showing him a bottle and siphon nestled close to his brown chair. He himself took a generous swallow from a glass.

“Yes, indeed.”

“Pour for yourself.” When the hiss of the siphon stopped, he whispered, “Hard, eh?”

Istvan nodded.

“Playing hard to get,” the major sighed. “Resisting.”

“How did you—” Terey turned away abruptly.

“There isn’t much that I don’t notice.” He winked with thickly creased eyelids. “It’s not only hard to find true feeling these days, but one doesn’t meet real women.”

“Oh!”

“You think I don’t know about anything but lances and horses: stupid retired old Stowne.” With strength from some unknown inner source he sat upright and his watery, somnolent eyes took on a gleam. “She could have had me — indeed, I begged — and she wouldn’t, though she could have so easily—” he lapsed into an alcoholic daze.

“She didn’t love you enough,” Istvan said, not sparing the major or himself.

“She loved me for sure, you foolish boy. She held my lip with her teeth and closed her eyes and trembled. ‘I want to be with you! I’ll throw over the service and the uniform and I’ll go where you go,’ I said. ‘No,’ she replied, ‘I can’t. I love you too much.’ It was enough to make her press harder with her teeth.”

He looked down at Istvan as if he wanted to peck him. Red veins showed in his face and his inebriated eye flashed from under a bristling white eyebrow.

“The only woman who was capable of loving that much. You see? That’s why she renounced me. And we could still have been happy for years. There was always time for that. I had a revolver, I wouldn’t have hesitated. If she had said so, we’d have gone away together. Understand?”

He shook his head.

“Leprosy. The nursemaid took the girl to the cave to be blessed. The sadhu scratched her with a dead hand.”

Istvan looked spellbound at the man’s bluish lips: Stowne’s secret had been revealed to him. Before he understood what had prompted the major’s confession, he heard a whisper:

“Go to the veranda. She is there. She came with him, but I know she is waiting for you. Go, then, and behave unwisely. I tell you this, I, Major Stowne. It is worth it to behave unwisely.”

He was willing Margit to appear so insistently that he already saw her with Connoly. He shook the major’s dry, bony hand, put down his glass, and moved toward the door. His steps beat dully on the walkway of thick coconut matting.

On one of the lounge chairs that were scattered about in the shade of the veranda Grace was resting, wrapped in silk. She turned her head reluctantly from the level course, drenched with gold in the sun, with its bright white horse pens, posts, and stakes. The riders bustled about, flashing in shimmering colors like doves in the cloud of dust that rose from under the horses’ hooves. From behind the shrubbery came the joyful calls of children; a little girl burst into happy, intoxicating laughter when a groom ran out into the light leading a trotting pony.

“Oh, it’s you.” Grace smiled gently. “You were lost; we have not seen you for years, Istvan.”

She must have noticed his surprise, which was slightly tinged with dismay, for she turned her face away and let her eyes escape to the wide pastures and the riding course as if to assure herself that her husband was there — as if only he were important. Only when Istvan was standing over her did she seize his hand convulsively. Here was no great lady, only a poor, groping, uncertain woman.

“I didn’t expect to find you here.”

“Why did you come? You pass my house and all the places we used to frequent—”

He cut her short. “I want to forget.”

“You have forgotten already. I am a handful of ashes. But others remember. They do not need the lights of Diwali to find their way to my door. On Tuesday Margit came with her boyfriend, an amusing American. His hair bristles like a colt’s mane when it’s cut.”

“Margit visited you!” The news stung him. “How was I to know that you had returned to Delhi?”

“There is the telephone. Don’t lie — you haven’t called. I instructed the staff to record every name. Yours is not on the list, and they know you.”

She laid her narrow palm on his hands.

“Sit down. You see — my husband is out there testing a new horse.” She motioned with her head.

The stout figure of a rider swayed on the back of a light dapple-gray Arabian with dark legs and mane. His cork helmet gleamed like brass in the sun.

“And you aren’t riding? You liked it so much.”

She removed her hand as if she were closing into herself. Her gold bracelets jingled.

“I can’t just now. Doctor’s orders.”

She was not looking at her husband, but at the children on ponies who were breaking into short trots. The hubbub, the laughter, and the whinnying of the horses could be heard distinctly; it was like a gleeful picnic. Both her hands were resting protectively on her lap. With a sudden spasm of the heart he remembered her wedding night and the spoils he had taken. Perhaps it is mine? A rebuke shadowed by alarm flashed through his mind: Why had he not waited, not denied himself that night’s pleasure, in order to gain the deeper, more ardently desired love of the woman he had lost? I am paying for Grace now.

“You are expecting a child?”

“A son,” she answered with such certainty that it seemed a foregone conclusion. “The rajah wants a son. I do, too.”

She gazed at Terey with huge, sparkling eyes full of longing. Perhaps she wanted to lock the precious features in her memory and transfer them to the unborn child. I never loved her, after all, he thought, and was appalled. I was only under her spell. I was practicing, like a dog that hones its teeth before moving out on a new scent. He felt an aversion: she was pregnant, filled with the child. He so wanted it not to be his that he disowned it at once; he conceded paternity to the rajah without contest. Margit: her name rang like the whimper of a dog scratching against a door shut and bolted. Margit, only Margit.

They heard hoofbeats very near and the rajah trotted up. The horse looked white in the harsh light; it swept its hindquarters with a lash of its darker tail and tossed its head, chomping at the detested bit. Istvan saw only knee-high boots, the glint of a lowered spur and gloved hands pulling up the reins. The rajah’s head was obliterated by a low awning that waved in the breeze.

“Hello, Terey.” The rajah was panting after his gallop. “I’m glad to see you; you’ve been avoiding us lately. I know I stick in your craw a bit, but I have nothing against your looking at Grace the way you used to, especially now.” He nearly choked with triumphant laughter.

“You’re pestering me,” she said, taking the offensive to dispel suspicion.

“I have no intention of depriving you of admirers,” he parried. The horse under him danced and executed a half turn, then under a slight pressure of his rider’s calf returned to the spot that bore the indentation of its hooves.

Istvan bolted from under the ruffle of the flapping blue awning. With his head raised challengingly he looked into the rajah’s fat, sweaty, affably smiling face. He breathed deeply and rested a hand on the back of the horse’s neck. A tremor ran through its skin and he stroked its smooth coat.

“A good horse,” the rajah said. “Do you want to ride? Look: everything I have is at your disposal.” He flung his outstretched hands wide open as if he wanted to clasp Istvan to his chest like a brother. “And you sulk—”

“Thank you. I’ll stay with Grace.”

“Only do not take her away; wait for me. We will drink Coca-Cola. Well, do not frown. I said that so as not to annoy Grace. We will get something stronger.”

Only then did Terey notice that the crepe formerly displayed on the left lapel of the red frock coat the rajah wore as a member of the club was missing.

“Since you married you have removed your mourning,” he said comprehendingly.

“I removed it because my older brother is alive.” His face tightened into a bitter grimace. “He died, he was burned, his ashes were thrown into the Ganges, and now he has risen from the dead and is threatening to take me to court. His advocate came to see me — the celebrated Mr. Chandra.”

“He is your partner, after all. Surely you can arrive at an understanding with him. He rose from the dead?” Terey shrugged. “That’s lunacy.”

“You forget that we are in India.” The rajah combed out the horse’s mane with his fingers as if he were toying with the fringe of a napkin at an unpleasant party. The cries of children jogging on ponies were disturbing the horse; it pricked up its ears and raised its lean head. “Chandra is not my partner, though I loaned him a large sum on security. I am afraid he wants to show his gratitude by fleecing me.”

Before he pricked the mare’s side with his spur, she broke into a smooth gallop, lowering her ears and thrusting her muzzle forward as if she wanted to bite at something.

The rajah sat her well. He knew how to ride, Istvan had to admit, watching the buoyant gait of the horse and the rhythmic springing movements of its legs until the animal and its rider disappeared between the hedge and the white stables.

“What’s going on here, Grace?”

She sat with the face of a drowsy madonna, intent, as if she were hearing something. Pregnancy had not marred her beauty, only lent it gravity and a quiet ripeness — the charm of an orchard before the harvest.

“It’s kicking.” Her lips parted in a shy smile and she pressed her hands to her belly. “I felt its first movements on the left side, under my heart. It will be a boy.”

He looked at her with a feeling of guilt, dismay, and a slight impatience, as one looks at a dog that fails to understand a command, though it stiffens in friendly readiness to retrieve.

“I asked—”

“Oh, don’t bore me. When he comes back he will tell you all about it. He will be delighted to have someone to listen. When will you come to us?” She raised her eyes, large eyes that seemed to draw everything into them. “I thought I was free of you, but it only takes — and it comes back as hidden tears, a tightening in the throat at the thought of what might have been, what I cast aside through no wish of my own. When will I see you? Must I wait for a lucky accident?”

“What point is there in meeting? You have your own life.”

“Before long there will be his life, too.” She laid her hand tenderly on her swelling abdomen. “A little visitor will appear and must be guided through the world. So many stars fell that night.” She spoke as though only to herself, sleepily, slowly.

He did not understand her. He saw a rocket making flashing arcs. Glistening tears slid down. A shudder ran through him when he thought of the insane audacity of his behavior.

“One star fell onto me. It is here, I feel it shining. I would tell no one but you. You will understand.”

They sat motionless, leaning forward like people half asleep, incapable of any gesture. In the distance the noise of the galloping ponies died away; they could hear the boastful squeals of the small riders and the scolding of the mothers who sat on blankets in the shade of an acacia, never taking their eyes off the mischievous youngsters. Leather boots creaked, then came the light silvery jingle of a spur.

“I am waking you,” the rajah whispered, leaning over the musing pair. “Enough of this tête-à-tête. Get up. Let’s go. Istvan, come with us.”

“I have my car.” He was still resisting.

“Go first. I want to be sure you come to us.” The rajah laid a hot hand on his shoulder. Grace had already risen and seemed to have regained her enthusiasm for life, for she took both their arms and drew them toward the door.

When they had passed through the middle of the lobby, not acknowledging the bartender’s obsequious bow, it seemed to Istvan that Major Stowne, still dozing in the corner, lifted a hand from the arm of his chair to signal his delight that harmony was restored and that he had assisted fate by steering the lovers toward each other.

Before they reached the exit door the sky went gray and a heavy rain set in. The gleaming curtain of water stopped them. The downpour sang, twittering in streams from the roof, from teeming gutters overgrown with young grass sown by the wind. A barefoot servant hurried up noiselessly and handed them a big black umbrella.

The rajah let go of his wife’s elbow. Uncertain if this were a gesture of courtesy, of favor, or if the other man were simply leaving him to perform the function of a retainer, Terey took the umbrella with the name of a London firm stamped in metal and held it over the woman. She nestled close to him and her fingers wound themselves around his hand — No! No! he cried inwardly, we are walking close together because of the umbrella. He led her down the streaming steps to the automobile, which was standing among the trees. The driver jumped out to open the doors and tried to take the umbrella from Istvan, who was shaking like a wet dog, for the leaves were soaked and streaming.

“Thank you,” Grace whispered, gathering her sari around her. She pushed off her sandals and stamped her spattered bare feet. Her cherry-colored toenails gleamed garishly.

Now Istvan brought the rajah down under the umbrella. It’s shabby on my part, he thought, this show of being meek and obliging. Was she worth no more than this to me? Margit, Margit: the name throbbed with grief like a funeral bell. He barely restrained himself from starting his car and driving until the abyss of rain swallowed him. He closed the umbrella and threw it from the open door of the Austin to the servant, who caught it in flight.

For a moment he looked at the blue fumes that belched from under the rajah’s wide green car. Behind the rear windshield Grace’s dark hair loomed; she was waving. With warning blasts on his horn he moved out in front of the rajah’s limousine. The Austin rolled forward softly on the asphalt road, which was spattered white with rain.

The avenue was darkening. The large leaves of the trees, bent under spurting water, spread and drank in the steaming moisture. He almost heard the ravenous burble of plants, leaves, and grass as they sucked in the warm torrent. They seemed to swell. The very air took on a green cast.

The balding elderly man was nearly bouncing on his chair with impatience. He was eager to break in ahead of the rajah’s easygoing narrative, but an admonitory look from his son-in-law silenced him. His bulging eyes shot angry glances and he drank his coffee with loud slurps. Istvan let himself feel the familiar atmosphere of the house: the smells of dampness and extinguished cigars, of spices, of a clump of narcissus, cloyingly fragrant as a field of blossoming potatoes, in a glass vase on the floor.

“After the death of my older brother, the entire estate passed to me,” the rajah was explaining.

“And before that you had enough,” the father-in-law put in.

“Yes, but if only for courtesy’s sake, I had to submit information about financial operations for my brother’s approval. So when he died, probably from heart failure — he was always sickly — the whole estate fell to me. There were bequests, but then jewels, currency, safety deposit boxes one doesn’t take account of. Those are family matters.”

“Good customs,” Terey interposed. “Discretion ensures lower inheritance fees.”

Vijayaveda nodded in agreement.

“His body was taken to the river in the evening. The pyre was quite grand; we don’t spare the camphorwood for our dead.” The rajah spoke with emphasis. “The body rested as if in a small house. It was covered with aromatic chips. Melted butter was poured from pitchers. When the priest touched the four corners of it with the torch, all the sky began to rumble and rain fell in sheets.

“The pyre smoked, but it caught fire. It poured, so there was nothing to wait for. I ordered the servants to attend to the burning of the remains and we took shelter in the automobile. Later we went out to the castle.” He lowered his head and brooded, then after a long pause added, “The next day it was reported to me that the remains were consumed by the fire and the ashes thrown into the river. And now he turns up, and claims his rights.” He struck his heavy parted thighs passionately with his fist.

“Now, now. A moment—” the counselor quieted him. “Did you recognize him? Is he really your brother?”

The rajah turned his head toward the window, which was washed by the pelting rain. His eyes were sad.

“I recognized him and I did not recognize him. He is so terribly burned. All over him are scars unevenly healed.”

“But he must remember at least a few things that no one knows but you. Can you catch him in some inaccuracy when he alludes to childhood events — an old nurse, a dog, toys?”

“It is not that simple. He remembers some things. Others he seems not to remember. He blames the fire for eating the past out of his head. He is surely suffering. You know, I would like him to be my brother, but I am afraid there is some trickery.”

“The servants are dark peasants. They long so for miracles that they accepted him as their master at once,” old Vijayaveda fumed. “They try to persuade us that this is the true rajah, and they want it to be him so much that they constantly feed the person who was not burned up new details, and he begins to live his role. Another month or two and he will feel himself to be the older brother. He will demand shares in the businesses, request rigorous accounts. He will be different from the dead man, for he will know what he wants.”

“Well, very good, but what do the attendants at the place of cremation say?” Terey inquired. “Is there the slightest chance that he could have survived? What does the doctor say? Surely you brought in a doctor.”

“Attorney Chandra heard statements from everyone. Confronted with this blatant miracle, they admitted that the pyre was not consumed, that the rain extinguished the flames. They threw the remains into the Ganges so they would be carried downstream. The wood they sold; it could be used for other funerals, for new dead were being brought to the place. They swear that the remains were half charred, as the terrible scars and disfigurement confirm. No one would voluntarily allow himself to be so savagely injured, even to acquire a fortune like this.

“The man says that he felt how the flames gnawed and bored into his body, but he could not move or call for help. Only when they threw away the smoking pyre and pushed him into the water did he return to consciousness. The goddess Durga ordered the waters to carry him. They licked his wounds and assuaged his suffering.” In the voice of old Vijayaveda there was a note of irony; he looked to his daughter for support, but she was silent.

“In the morning it seems that he regained consciousness, having been laid gently on the sand. He scooped up water and quenched his thirst. Women were caring for him as they did their washing on the river bank. He did not know who he was, but in his dreams, by degrees, heavenly powers restored his past to him. Do you understand?” He nodded at Terey. “It is all miraculous, out of the ordinary, exciting — but it is about money, a great deal of money.” He shifted restlessly until his spoon fell on the stone floor with a jingle like glass.

“Incredible,” Terey sighed. “And how did he get back here?”

“Attorney Chandra brought him. He found him in a cave on the shore, surrounded by worshipers, people doing him honor. The villagers fed him, brought offerings. He was, after all, visible proof that it is possible to die and return by the grace of the gods.”

“And how did Chandra come to be there?” Istvan asked suspiciously. “Aren’t there too many of these coincidences?”

“Chandra is a devout Hindu and came to wash away his sins in the holy waters. He heard of this new sadhu, so he came to ask for a blessing. They began talking and Chandra suggested that he abandon his retreat and return to his former life. He promised to appear before the court and defend his just cause — to force me to return the inheritance I had improperly taken possession of.”

The rajah exhaled deeply and pondered for a moment how best to explain his troubles.

“The trial took place. The court had to decide who that grossly disfigured person really was. Only the court had the right to return him to life,” he explained for Terey’s benefit. “The judge asked me if I wanted to acknowledge him as my brother. Well — what would you have done in my place? If I had said no, right away they would have had evidence that he is indeed my brother, because I would have been defending my rights of possession: I would not have wanted to return what I took as my inheritance from him, and they are not trivial sums. I would have had everyone against me—”

“Who is ‘everyone’?” Istvan interrupted.

“The attendants at the cemetery. The women from the village who found him. Even my own wife. Yes, even Grace, who is simply afraid he will put a curse on her child. Well, what was I to do? I acknowledged him. He was in the castle, and I took Grace away, so she would not be staring at that terrible face that looked as if it had been flayed, and I came here — to arrive at terms with Chandra. Yes, for in fact it was he who called that specter to life. And he hints that he would be able to convince the man to sign an act of relinquishment and go away to his retreat to perfect his inner life. To all appearances the rajah would die and a sadhu would be born.”

“So, damn it, I’m asking you: Is he your brother or not?” Terey almost snarled.

“I do not know. I truly do not know. When I look into his tortured eyes through the slits in those eyelids scarred by the flames, it seems to me that I recognize him. When I hear his voice, I think: he is a stranger.”

“Because it is a fraud!” His father-in-law sprang up and ran around the office, kicking the red cashmere carpet until it lay in folds. “They threw the corpse into the river and it drifted for a hundred miles. At least that was where the washerwomen found him.”

“Oh, do not wear me out.” The rajah raised his hands as if to shield himself. “I would rather give up money than repudiate my brother. There is so much that is miraculous about this business that no one will marvel at this hundred miles. You know very well what the judges said: that he must have floated on the wood as on a raft. After all, the pyre did not burn up.”

“How much will Chandra get in the end?”

The rajah looked from under his eyelids at his father-in-law. They exchanged gestures of helplessness.

“If I do not pay him, my brother will, for he is a puppet in his hands. His trust knows no bounds. He is ready to turn over half his fortune to him. And he would be within his rights. Chandra brought him into the castle, gave him clothing, servants, a fortune, a good name. He made him my brother.”

“Well, decide, then: He made him your brother, or he is your brother?” Istvan persisted. “Everything that happens from now on depends on this.”

“You must protect yourself from this corpse that survived the flames!” Vijayaveda shouted. “It concerns not only you but Grace, and the one not yet born. Why must you allow yourself to be robbed? It is all Chandra’s fault — Chandra, that demon whose appetite for gold and influence is never satiated. Can you conceive of it? He is obviously amusing himself with this whole affair, in which even the gods are implicated.”

“And your sister-in-law? Did she recognize her husband?”

“She recognized him. She recognized him.” The rajah spread his hands like one who is at his wits’ end. “Understand: it is not possible to expect good judgment from women. She pities him.”

“She even commends him,” snorted the father-in-law. “He exercises his marital rights and is more adept at it than your deceased brother.”

“So what can be done?”

“Things could be arranged with Chandra.” The rajah inclined his head. “You know him. It seemed to me that he liked you. Talk with him. Cross-examine him. Perhaps he will show his hand. He has one weakness: he likes to brag. About everything, from his excellent cigars to his intimacy with ministers.”

“Oh, he is proud as the devil himself,” the older man concurred, pacing impatiently around the carpet, which lay diagonally across the floor. “But when he wants to make money, he can be”—he lowered his hands to knee height—“such a dear little thing.”

“But after he humbles himself, he does not forget it. He is vindictive as a wounded elephant,” the rajah added in his easygoing way. “No one would want to have him for an enemy. For the rest, he is a past master at law. He can unearth examples from old laws to settle contentious cases, examples that support his conclusions. You know that with us, as in England, legal precedents are binding. The judge must take them into consideration. I regret now that I engaged in business dealings with him. I yielded to the inducement of high interest and the impunity which he guaranteed me.”

“And I warned you,” his father-in-law said testily. “I didn’t hide what they were saying about him—”

“None of which kept you from availing yourself of his services, father,” the rajah cut in. “Who executed the transfer via Ceylon to Australia, to the Ward account?”

“Once, much, quickly, and an end to it.” With a gesture of his hand the older man cut an unseen bond. “Was I going to dissolve the estate here, to let them squander it on their scheduled investments? It is possible to take risks, but good sense dictates that the future be secured — not for me, only for you and your children. I want nothing from life by now; I must think of your happiness.” He spoke a little mawkishly, and the rajah caught the false note, for he rested both hands on his knees, leaned forward and looked at his father-in-law with a hint of mockery.

“Well, well. Let us say no more about it. I got myself into this and I will find my own way out.” His face clouded over and he looked toward the door, where the portieres swelled in a light gust of wind as if something sinister were entering the room, breathing into their faces a cool dampness with the rotting odor of greenery run rampant.

“You must remember,” Vijayaveda began gravely.

“I remember. I also remember our guest, whom we ought not to bore,” the rajah said, discreetly signifying that Terey had been made privy to family secrets — real secrets, because they had to do with financial operations

A cart rolled out of the premature dusk. A servant, his sandals pattering, squatted beside the chairs and collected the emptied cups that stood on the bare floor and on the carpet. He put them on the cart with such a clatter that they might have been made of iron. He was announcing, with this rather unnecessary commotion, that he was working zealously. He could have gathered the dishes on a tray and cleared them away, but he preferred to roll out the tea cart in order to show that this was a modern house, a house of the highest class.

None of this was of any concern to Grace. She had changed her sari, which was sprinkled with rain, for a dark blue one, and was sitting in the shadows. Shifting gleams of light played only on the slippery silk that streamed over her knees. The gold of her sandals flashed, and the ruby red of her nails.

“Istvan—” she raised her head as if she were impeded by the burden of her artistically wound hair—“It is good to see you. I think we could renew our old friendship. I know I have become heavy and ugly, but that will pass. We will go riding again. I know I am not attractive to you just now.”

He shook his head and said nothing. He saw her uplifted face, her doe’s eyes open wide, her lips full and unresisting, parted in a wistful sigh. He was not certain if it was for him or for the girlish freedom, the joyous possession of a body free as it had been before marriage. Or perhaps she already felt pain and apprehension about the fate of the one who was growing inside her.

“Something has changed, Istvan.” She spoke like a capricious child. “Margit is not the same, either. When I took her hand and put it here, so that she felt how he moves, she cried suddenly. You have all disowned me, even my father, though you heard him say he does everything for my good, and I don’t even want to think that he sacrificed me for his business interests. They are his only true passion: to have, to possess. Indeed, he does not manage to use even a fraction of what he owns. My husband is like him. They call it prudence, sensible provision for the future, but it is a sickness. The goal is millions of pounds, tens of millions of rupees. Money be damned.”

“But without it — you know how it is. You know life.” The rajah rose and stretched. “You, my love, can allow yourself to disparage money because for us wealth is as much a matter of course as the air he breathes is to a poor man. Do not believe her, Istvan. She flatters you; she dreams of some utopian justice. Well, ask him what his colleagues do in that red hutch of an embassy. Everyone wants to skim off something. No one would say that he has enough, let his friend get a raise, a promotion. The increase of wealth is the very essence of life. You will get everything for money: dignity, honors, justice, and power. No one is immune. True, they will say no, but it is enough to bargain with them and they set their real price. They change their minds.”

She smiled tolerantly, as if her mind were fixed on a different truth. She seized Istvan’s hand and turned toward the rajah.

“And what do you have to reproach Terey with? That he seeks contacts and information, that he wants to earn a living? Perhaps he is immune to your sickness.”

“I? Nothing.” He spread his hands in a gracious gesture of powerlessness. “You forget that he is a poet.” His tone seemed to say: an idler, a person with an impairment, even a cripple. “Istvan, beware — indeed, that is almost a confession of love. I will have to separate you, for she will bring up my son as a communist yet! Don’t frown; after all, every revolution beginning with the French was fomented by jaded sons of aristocrats, bankers, and manufacturers.”

“And the people?” Istvan asked truculently.

“The revolutions need their blood, and their voices, to legitimize the power that is taken over. I can have that power by paying for it with good money, not the false coin of slogans and illusory hopes. You will not convince me that you have equality, and where equality is achieved, it is like a freshly trimmed hedge: mutinous, ready to explode with wild growth.”

“The law of the people is sanctioned lawlessness,” his father-in-law asserted. “He was born a rajah; he must defend his own privileges and those of his children. True equality is in the hands of the gods. They decide where one is born. Perhaps it is just one of the despised, the suffering, the hungry, the cleansed from sin and after death incarnated into a noble race, who now absorbs our blood into his freshly formed heart—”

“No, I won’t have that!” cried Grace, curling up and clasping her hands protectively over her rounded abdomen. “This is no stranger. He began from us.”

“Yes — he is no stranger,” her father affirmed. “He is from here, from India.”

“Don’t believe it, Grace,” Istvan said comfortingly. “We only live once. You are very much a Hindu, Mr. Vijayaveda.”

“What the devil else should I be?”

“You are very comfortable with it, sir,” Terey concluded, raising Grace’s hand to his lips ceremoniously as if apologizing for the words that must have hurt her. “It’s time for me to go.”

“When will we see you?” The rajah walked him toward the door with a friendly clap on the back. “You must not wait for a special invitation. You know we are both fond of you.”

The car stood gleaming wet in the twilight. The fragrance of blossoming trees permeated the early evening air. The luxuriant greenery perspired, full of rustlings, the ticking of heavy drops of water, the sizzling sound of trickling rivulets. The light of lamps with overgrown branches pressing on them seemed to sing with the passionate tremolo of insects. Into this cloud, as it moaned with delight, bats fell like slivers of the deepening night, pricking holes in a drizzling horde of dancing moths, grasshoppers, botflies, and winged vermin that swarmed from under soaked foliage, from puddles, hollow trunks, steaming dung, chinks in old walls, and leaves delicately curled into tiny sheaths.

He breathed in the narcotic aromas of burgeoning plant life, listening to the throbbing of insects and the saucy rattle of large beetles, which shouted straight into his ears and tumbled like pebbles over the body of the car. The glare of the headlights caught a man in white with outspread arms. The watchman was hanging on the wrought iron gate, trying to open both sides of it with one tug.

Margit must be ill or she would not have let it be seen that something bothered her. Why had she been crying? Was she jealous? This meeting with Grace had held no importance for him; he was ashamed of that. Margit had stung him when she had spoken with brutal frankness of “wiping the slate clean,” but now he had plumbed the meaning of the phrase. Grace had only attracted him because of her beauty; she had aroused desire. And now he was immersed in the element of love, which would either save or ruin him.

He did not have the strength to return to his house, to listen to the grumbling of the cook and the insipid effusions of the guard, who would speak of his future with such paeans of gratitude that it would be necessary to lay out a handsome sum for the wedding expenses. That was inescapable. To shut himself into the bedroom with a book, smoke a cigarette and chafe, to review the developments of the last few weeks…Why was she so stubbornly silent? She had been in Delhi several times, after all, and he could swear she had given no sign that she wanted to distance him. He could still hear her warm whisper close to his ear as her hair lightly brushed his cheek: “I am so happy with you.”

They had visited Ram Kanval’s exhibition together. In the dark hall of the club, in spite of the burning lights, the pictures lost their vividness; they looked gray. Potbellied Hindus, turbaned Sikhs with beards shining with pomade, streamed by indolently. Their untucked shirts and creased white trousers created an impression of torpor and slovenliness. They stood before the canvases exchanging malicious comments in whispers, tittering into their hands and fanning themselves with the printed programs. Professors of the Academy gathered around the artist with troubled faces like guests at a funeral.

The greatest interest was aroused by the cards with the inscription “Sold,” and the price named. Until the counselor came with Miss Ward, and, when called as witnesses, they vouched for the painter, the little signs were taken for a shrewd advertising gambit. Hardly any diplomats attended; it was the wrong season, it was too hot. Whoever could had decamped to the mountains. And the exhibit was not to the taste of the Russians, though they had painters of their own who were searching for something novel. Only the Yugoslavians bought two pictures, and the Academy took one large canvas for thirty rupees to keep for a future museum of contemporary art, promising that for the time being it would be hung in a corridor.

Margit, full of joy and ready to share her happiness with everyone, then induced Connoly to pose for a portrait by Kanval, making sure that he paid the artist an advance. These successes, to all appearances minor but minutely observed by his competitors, reinforced the painter’s cachet, and after the opening day flattering notices appeared in the press — except for a newspaper of the extreme right which called Kanval a subversive, an enemy of the national landscape, and, worse, of the beauty of Hindu women.

Margit had been in the capital twice more, and once on a Saturday night he had gone to Agra. Nothing had suggested that she would suddenly stop answering his letters, that she would not pick up the telephone.

He drove through the streets of Delhi, which were empty after the recent rain. A jackal fleeting past loomed yellow in the light; it looked like a little fox. Istvan saw two farther on, jumping nimbly as cats from crates full of garbage and ash. He heard their whining, like the crying of lost children, until it wrung his heart.

Kanval. He wanted, sincerely, to help him. Simply by using his scissors he had been able to alter slightly the tone of the reviews he had sent to the ministry to press a request that the painter be invited to Hungary. There was a chance that he could wheedle a stipend out of them and open the way for him to travel to Hungary and other parts of Europe, where they ought to understand his work and appreciate his originality. From their conversations, from the tone of Kanval’s impassioned requests and sudden rushes of hope, he had gathered that such a journey would be not only the ultimate test, but an escape, a rising to the surface, an extrication from life in the anthill — from the struggle for daily rice, for a shirt for one’s back, for favorable notice for art with a value not measurable in rupees.

Near the ruins of Jantar Mantar, where the enormous stone curves of the royal astrolabe bent into the sky over the tops of palm trees, he was too distracted to notice that a light-colored Citroen was blocking his way until he was forced to stop by the curb. A small man popped out of it, spread his hands in a gesture of welcome, and leaped straight into the glare of his headlights.

“I dreamed of meeting you,” cried Nagar, hugging him suddenly and hard. He clapped him on the back and held him with restless hands, as if Istvan were the trunk of a tree he wanted to climb. “Great news: I predicted it! I smelled it!” he gloated. “I followed my nose.”

“And I am looking for—”

“Everything will be there”—Istvan could not get a word in edgewise as Nagar held him by his sleeve and dragged him after him—“and news, splen-did news,” he reveled in the weight of the words, “and a modest little bachelor dinner. Wait, for this is no less important, the aperitif: a martini with lemon and a drop of gin, but literally only for aftertaste. Perhaps Dubonnet. A cup of turtle broth, from a little turtle, it must be, not those great flat carrion eaters, I know, I know”—he forestalled doubts and reservations—“then quail and a heavy red. I can sniff the wine, and you will give me pleasure by emptying the bottle slowly, very slowly. Nothing is to be left for the servers; they don’t understand wine. The English are boors in the matter of cuisine. Stinking whiskey is enough for them. So who is going to teach the Indians?”

In spite of this stream of chatter and the other man’s quick, clumsy movements, Istvan pulled out a vinyl briefcase and locked the car. The wet branches along the boulevard brushed against their hands. The open house blazed with yellow light. A spotted setter was sitting on the threshold. She had not run up to meet her master; she only gave a wide yawn and casually wagged her tail.

“How are you, Trompette?” Nagar pulled a drooping ear. “A big old mutt, and still stupid. She thinks she will catch a jackal. When they begin to run close to the house at twilight and wail and prowl around the rubbish heap, the bitch goes into a frenzy. She nudges me with her nose, paws at me, and leads me to the gun rack. Straight away she tries to incite me to murder, and when I explain to her that one does not shoot at jackals, she looks at me reproachfully, even a bit contemptuously, for when she walks away she scratches the floor with her hind feet as if she were burying something.”

The small, brightly lit hallway was filled with the aroma of wood burning on a hearth. Nagar squatted and thrust in his hands. His outspread fingers fluttered over the flame.

“I can’t abide dampness.” He pointed to the buffalo and antelope skins that hung on the wall. Between bunches of spears with tufts of horse hair dyed red he had displayed, as if its neck were built into the wall, the horned, majestically ugly head of the Indian rhinoceros. “I bought him,” he confessed. “Isn’t he a fine one? Nature’s tank. I would not have shot him. Fewer of them remain than of us.” He nodded for emphasis.

Two servants with languid movements and liquid glances — men of feminine aspect, flaunting their beauty — took bottles from a carved box. Listening with rapt expressions to the orders their master was issuing in Hindi, they poured the contents of the bottles into glasses and whittled thin slices of lemon, releasing the aroma of the peel. Nagar himself poured in a little gin, counting out the drops with the painstaking care of an apothecary. He tested the drink by sniffing and almost dipped the tip of his nose into the glass. He adjusted the proportions like a connoisseur. The very sight of these rituals aroused not thirst but craving.

The reddish cockscomb of flame trembled deep in the fireplace. As they were holding generous glasses that smelled of herbs and the forest and were garnished with tilted moons of lemon, Istvan heard the chirp of the teletype machine through the dark hall and said diffidently, “You were going to tell me—”

“In a moment. You are insatiable. Is nothing enough for you? You still want anxiety from the world to spice things up?” He cocked his head like a bird who wonders from which side to peck apart a crust of bread. “Only after the twentieth congress did he comprehend,” he mocked, affecting the sober, expository voice of a radio announcer. “‘I understood that the gravity and consequences of the errors are worse than I had thought…The damage caused by our party is significantly greater than I could have predicted.’ Who is saying this? Something for you, Istvan, especially for you. Matyas Rakosi himself, and with beads of sweat on his bald head. For he knows it is his own funeral oration. And he is not sure if they will let him walk away or if they will demand an accounting for those he pushed to the wall. Everyone in the hall knows that those he murdered were true communists. He looks around and sees faces like clenched fists, and though he still sits in the presidium, he is wondering if the guard at the door among the oleanders will protect him or is already waiting to apprehend him. Or so it is said among you in Budapest.

“Rakosi has fallen, the secretary is Gerő, and his deputy is a former prisoner indicted under the imprimatur of Stalin — Kádár. Say now, what am I glad about? You should be glad! Your people at the embassy will only learn about this tomorrow from the newspapers, but in three days, when all the rejoicing is over and you get the official coded message that there are changes, you will see how your Bajcsy begins to realign himself, to set his sails handily for the new wind. But you have the news from me while it is still hot. Take advantage of it: you know how the cards have been dealt. Do you even understand what has happened there? There is another Hungary — you are a representative of a different country than the one that sent you here.” His small face twitched into violent grimaces, like the face of a monkey struggling with a woman’s handbag and its delightful contents, the value of which it feels though it knows nothing about how to make use of them.

So Bela signaled the temper of things correctly, Istvan thought with elation. Changes are going forward, great changes…

“Well? Well, what do you say?” The old reporter waited to hear Istvan’s transports of joy. “Still not enough for you? Comrade Number One has no more cards up his sleeve, and people still living, because they suffered, don’t feel the ache in anyone’s back except their own.” He beat his thin, sunken chest with a clenched paw, as if he himself had been in prison, been beaten by interrogators. “It’s a healthy pain, a blessed pain, because it reenfranchises those on the bottom, who are forgotten. He can’t see them through the memoranda on the production of steel, aluminum, corn. They disappeared because a black swarm of statistics effaced them.”

“I knew that there was a congress. I had some sense of the mood—” The counselor tried to catch his breath.

“And you thought it would be a meeting of old apparatchiks, a row of plaster busts against a background of four profiles, the last of which veils those older ones as violence muffles the hopes of philosophers. And today they are separated from their natural constituency by a triple cordon, inaccessible. They listen graciously to applause and watchfully measure the volume of it.

“They have told me about it. I know as if I were there. They had a separate smoking room; each had his own coffee, which was examined by a doctor and heated by the trembling hands of the colonel himself. Instead of conversations with the nation for whose benefit they were trying to make decisions, out of those rooms came arrangements made in fear of the inevitable cleaning out of that — heroic, I don’t deny — room full of dusty junk by young, prudent professionals. By engineers, economists, who have the courage to ask how much this will really cost, whose interest it will really serve. If young people begin making decisions about the future, people who are not encumbered by their pasts, who have no grievances, who are passionate in their fields of study — people who are not for sale and who see an opponent as someone who can be persuaded rather than having to be bought off — then Hungary can move forward.”

He gazed into the fire, sipped his cocktail carefully and licked his lips, savoring it. He chewed the lemon peel for a moment, and when it became too bitter, spat the rest deep into the hearth, where it sizzled.

“The race with capitalism. Why should I be happy for you? How does it concern me? I don’t want to race, I want to live”—he smacked his lips twice—“no more poorly than I do today, but I will refuse no one the right to such a life. By all means, strive like Nagar and you will have…”

Istvan had just grasped the significance of this new information. Rakosi’s exit marked the beginning of an avalanche. His heart pounded. He foresaw enormous change: in Moscow, Khrushchev; in Warsaw, Gomulka; in Budapest…Who would have the courage to stand before a roaring crowd, tell the truth, and shoulder the burden of leadership without a feeling of contemptuous superiority toward workers, the indigent, the stubborn farmers? It must be someone free of the pride of the initiated, someone inured to every humiliation and to the fickleness of those who chanted his name, ready to lift him higher than their heads today, to serve him self-effacingly, as ready as they had been yesterday to tread him down with the vengeful rumblings of a thwarted herd of animals.

Trompette gave a sudden leap and squeal in the dusk of the garden and began to bark, romping under the bushes. They heard a machine clacking in the large room, striking its lever. A long tape filled with information unrolled in spirals, then stopped.

Like a miller awakened from dozing by the scraping of the sluice gate, Nagar rose briskly, put down his glass, and ran, shoulders hunched, down the corridor. Istvan saw him crouch by a machine and pass strips of type through his hands, then throw them around his neck like a snake charmer.

Just then he noticed that a young Hindu in a white shirt with a blue-speckled bow tie handed Nagar more tapes, and scissors, which the older man pushed away impatiently and then tore off the crisp paper with his fingers. With one determined smear he glued the printed strips together; he was doing his night’s work.

Istvan would willingly have helped him, would have hovered beside him, seized the finish printouts of the news and read them greedily over his shoulder. As it was, courtesy dictated that he wait. Nagar knew both sides of the divided world; he had been forced to coexist, to survive concurrent tests of humanity’s capacity for survival, but he belonged to the other side.

He returned with a long strip of paper hanging around his neck to his knees, perspiring lightly and wearing the complacent smile of the tailor who has conducted a successful fitting and knows that the client should be satisfied.

“A ‘bloodless revolution,’” he mocked, reaching for his glass. “Gerő is already boasting that there was, fortunately, no Poznań there, though some writings in the West—” he drummed on the glass with his fingers until it rang jarringly—“our writings, ours, tried to describe some incidents in the Petofi club by calling it ‘little Poznań.’”

“Agents of Western imperialism must have been at work in Poznań!” Terey bridled.

“And in the Petofi club were old comrades, even some from the Spanish underground, and Rajk’s widow cried out to them to be brave enough to demand that the honor of her murdered husband be restored.” He prodded him with his finger. “No doubt imperialist agents were there as well, yelling in the hall, ‘Stalin sent us hangmen. Court martial for Rakosi!’ ‘Those people of Stalin’s sow suspicion of treason and hate among us, comrades — whatever will keep them in power.’ ‘The struggle for freedom is the struggle for socialism.’ Yes, those are certainly the voices of agents provocateurs. One hears the crackle of the dollar in them,” he said sardonically.

“My dear fellow, unity of authority in the nation — that is no easy matter, and reports are no substitute for knowledge of the collective fate. Well, ask them: When was the last time they walked the streets of Budapest like normal people, drank a glass of wine in a tavern, not at a party, under the eye of the plainclothes police? When did they themselves buy something? You can mock the queen of the Netherlands because she rides a bicycle, but, well,” he laughed unaffectedly, “I’m a bit of a demagogue myself. Holland to me is a great country. I imagined Khrushchev on a bicycle, as if he were already gone. Of course he must use that jet that is the bane of the continent whose fate is being decided.”

Two servants took turns coming in and setting plates and little porcelain dishes with covers on the table. The smell of roasted meat mingled with the scents of wine and smoke from the fireplace. From the open door came the hum of rain. The dog ran in, wet and out of breath, shaking herself irritably. Flushed from under the trees by the downpour and lured by the light, moths flew in, whirring around the lamps, and lay on the white tablecloth like fuzzy buds broken off by a child.

“Justice, Istvan, is best left to God. At least I, an old Jew — or Frenchman, if you like, for that’s more elegant — prefer to leave it to Him. Only sometimes He loses patience, He also becomes fed up, and entrusts the execution of it to people. He does not return life to the dead; broken human beings cannot be repaired like broken pots. So the guilty must pay. And if they are all shielded by the new leaders in whom people are now vesting power in order to secure, at last, this justice of theirs, there can be trouble if it takes too long.” He spoke passionately until the light, throat-tickling, mouth-watering fragrance of turtle soup reached him. Then he rose from the stool by the hearth, bumped into the dog, who looked at him reproachfully, and sat down at the table. He lifted the lid of one of the cups without handles and sighed with relief.

“It is there — and I was so on edge because I thought they had forgotten to sprinkle a little chopped herb on top. Without parsley it’s as insipid as,” he hesitated, then brightened, “as reformation without justice. Tasteless; send it back to the kitchen. Let it cook longer.”

When they were seated at the table and the dog had put her heavy head on Nagar’s knees, he asked with a smile of childish cunning:

“Do you know why one sprinkles parsley on that broth? So it will keep you from eating too fast, so you will not swill it down but savor it, just as you tuck a tuft of hay into a bucket for an overheated horse before you water him after a run, so he can strain it through his teeth. It’s healthier. It prolongs the pleasure. But what am I telling you this for? You are a Hungarian, you come of herdsmen and horse thieves. Hungary is not a stupid nation; when we were wandering around the wilderness on foot, you were riding from Asia on horseback like dukes.”

But they could not finish dinner in peace, for messengers from the Delhi newsrooms, swathed in capes streaming with water, came to the house on bicycles, clamoring for bulletins, not from Hungary, but from Yugoslavia.

A little perplexed, Nagar rushed to the room with the teletype machines, sniffing like a bloodhound. He rifled through the coils of printed tape and tossed them behind him, cursing at his Hindu assistant. Trompette shook her muzzle, which was full of rustling ribbons of paper. Joined by the serpentine white loops, they looked like the modern figures in the satirical Laocoon of Salvador Dali.

“Here it is. I have it at last!” he shouted, hopping about as the dog tried to seize the twisted ends of the tape that fluttered just beyond her mouth. “She knows. She understands already that this is important information, and you, you sleepy scarecrow, missed it,” he said abusively to the Hindu, who was not very much affected but put on a mawkish expression and set his lips as if he were about to cry. It was a bit overdone, but Nagar went silent, stroked the dark hand, and kissed the cheek comfortingly. Istvan saw how the young man smiled complacently behind his employer’s back and lit a cigarette.

“I have to attend to everything myself,” Nagar complained. “Look, a very important dispatch: a declaration by Tito, Nasser, and Nehru on the island of Brioni. Here, of course, we change the order of the names; Nehru will go first. They support the aims of the Algerian liberation movement. Now I understand why Sherif, a true Riffian from the Atlas Mountains, was hanging around here seeking admittance to the diplomatic corps. The representative of the state that is still a French province, and a member of a regime that does not even allow itself to be photographed — what times these are!” He rubbed his hands together. “Most eventful; even to be the dispatch agent is stimulating.”

The telephone barked urgently and Terey, feeling that he was in the way, began taking his leave.

“Pandemonium! All my life it’s been shouted over my head that the world is on fire”—Nagar pulled him back to the table—“but you must still drink this glass of burgundy. A good vintage; I got it from Ambassador Strovski. His family is from Poland, like mine, but that count from Galicia who became an ambassador only knows perhaps two words of Polish, both filthy, and meanwhile we are to believe in sentiment, in inheritance through blood. Well, how is the quail?” He picked it with his fork, using his fingers to help tear a slice of meat from the breast. He dipped it in the golden sauce and chewed it with relish.

“The Indian quail becomes tender quickly. It lies half the day in shallow swamp water before it catches the wind.” He used the hunting imagery with obvious delight. “Eat, Istvan, don’t stare at me. Your cook can’t make you anything like this.”

He paced around the room. The small gnawed bones he flung into the fire on the hearth. He gave the dog his fingers to lick, then wiped them on a printed tape that had stuck to his shoe and been dragged into the dining room.

“Cheese? Coffee and cognac? Ah, barbarian, barbarian! It’s as if you had dressed in a frock coat and forgotten the socks for your patent leather shoes. Well, since you must, be off—” he patted him affectionately. “I know what’s driving you. Make good use of your few hours’ advantage over the embassy. And remember that you have someone here; true, Trompette?”

But the dog, with a furious whine, once again leaped out among the trees, which were drenched by the diagonally lashing rain.

He was so overwrought that he could not think of going home.

Long sprays of rain shone in the headlights. The outlines of trees, and the villas hidden behind greenery from which banana leaves burst like geysers, flew by like an old, torn film. He drove up near Judit’s door but did not get out, did not turn off the engine.

The curtain in the window was drawn aside and yellow light poured over the hood of the Austin. Thinking he had been recognized, he raised a hand in greeting and got out of the car. But instead of Judit, Ferenc opened the door, with a motion that seemed to say that Istvan was expected.

“You have heard already?” he asked confidentially. “It is certain. It came through London.”

“Good. You’ve come.” Judit sailed through the room, touching up her hair and giving them their chance to admire her full, shapely bosom. “What will they do with him? Do you think they will let him make a quiet exit? Even in retirement he would not be content. He is eaten up with ambition. He might become a source of trouble — a thorn in the side of his more successful competitors.”

“He will take a side track. They will hide him away,” Terey said vehemently.

“So I thought. Surely this is not an earthquake, only a cosmetic change.” Ferenc looked him in the eye. “Others were also at the helm with Stalin—”

“But they must have preserved their humanity, since they are pressing for change. Democracy doesn’t mean that it is permissible to arrest anyone, to condemn them for crimes not committed, to shove them into camps for years, or shoot them.” Istvan’s voice rang with passion. “Any government may find itself compelled to resort to force, especially revolutionary force. The difference is, and this is fundamental, that force cannot be the only form of contact with the citizens. It’s the same with lying, for you must admit that every government has to lie, or at least be silent, about many things that are of pressing concern to people.”

“Istvan, I find your analysis objectionable,” Ferenc said worriedly. “To whose side have you slipped over? Are you edging too close to the capitalists?”

“I? That’s just what you are doing. They pay us miserably at the ministry. Everyone lives in hope of getting abroad and grabbing a little hard currency — feathering his nest, fitting himself out, putting a little something by, perhaps even developing a couple of little businesses on the side. I’m not thinking of systematic abuses, only of what happens when the masters turn a blind eye.”

“I don’t understand what you’re driving at,” Ferenc said as if to distance himself.

“You understand. You understand perfectly well,” Judit whispered with a wink, as if to say, the game is up.

“Your fears are well founded. There will be changes. There must be a democratization of this system which calls itself the most democratic, but how much we paid only the historians will tell us half a century from now. The stupid must go — that has just begun, and best if they are not pushed to the wall, for they will defend themselves. They will resist desperately; they will unite. They must be sent into retirement, to well-earned rest. They put themselves to great exertions; now let them set about writing memoirs in which they can exculpate themselves and bring the truth about their friends to light. Let us give them time to exhume what is in their consciences, perhaps even to sentimentalize their own misery.”

“You think this is the avalanche?”

“I think the same way you think.” He looked him hard in the eye. “You know that the boss, too—”

“Do not be quick to condemn, Istvan.”

“You hope to outlast the ambassador, and, it follows, me,” Ferenc said slowly, incredulously, his face contorting. “Oh, you poet! Poet!” he hissed.

“No quarreling. You two are standing rigid as a pair of roosters,” Judit said soothingly, “and in the end, we are all of the same opinion.”

“Not all.” Ferenc turned aside unexpectedly. “I will not trouble you anymore. Do the agreeing yourselves.” He bowed and walked out.

“You were carried away and you chose your confidant.” Judit shrugged and sat down on the couch, looking worried. “You cannot just stir up the hornet’s nest with that kind of talk. You know what he is like.”

Istvan shrugged indifferently. “He’s afraid for his skin.”

“And I for yours,” she said warmly. “You are a true hotheaded Hungarian. Silence is not always treason, and deliberation is not subjugation. You want to fight your way through everything. Before Kalman Bajcsy leaves — and he has connections and influence at home — you can create a great deal of bad blood. Do not be deceived by his indolent manner; he knows how to hit. Even if they recalled him, his opinion would carry great weight for a long time. They used to say that a man is composed of soul and body, then given a passport. Today he gets a whole file marked Confidential. You know how people love to speak ill of others.” She tilted her head and moistened her lips with the end of her tongue, smiling as if to say, what can one do? “Even I,” she added.

“No.” He shook his head. “We’ve known each other too long. You are good. You have a heart.”

“Don’t count on anything. I have been through too much to be able take risks, even in the name of friendship. I tell you in all sincerity, I want to live in peace. Enough of those romantic gestures, one-day coalitions, capitulations on the eve of the scheduled attack. Enough whispered warnings, small betrayals. I want peace; surely you’ll admit that I am entitled to it. I know everything.” She thrust out her full lips with bitter assurance. “Well — why don’t you ask me what?”

Her warm brown eyes looked at him invitingly. She sat hunched over, her locked fingers gripping one upraised knee.

“I fled Hitler and went to Russia. I wanted to be as far from him as I could. And I was. I was taken to the mouth of the Obi. Oh, to be sure I understand that they could not trust deserters. With a terrible effort that enormous country fought against the invasion! I remember to this day those browned clusters of log houses, those appalling tree trunks like dead columns, the clogged chimneys, the forest cut to a height of three meters. I beat my brains: who inflicted this senseless difficulty on themselves? And without further ado three meters of snow fell. Loggers were out standing on skis and cutting in a minus-forty-degree frost that made the beams in the cottages crack as if you were battering them with axes.

“There were plenty of trees. You couldn’t chop through the wall of entwined trunks. The healthy cedar held up the weak birch, which crumbled at the touch like decayed fungus.

“I didn’t meet my quotas. I had lice, impetigo, bumps on my face from gnats, those tiny midges that cut the skin. I had bites from the ticks that dropped from the leaves — but I still aroused desire. They did their business on plank beds in the bathhouse; I got a hunk of bread. Do you despise me? Istvan, I wanted to live. I took to sewing. The dress I’m wearing I made myself. Then they stopped taking me for a German spy. I got my own corner, set off with a large slab of wood, and the officers stood in line, competed for my regard, gave me boxes of fish paste, bottles of homemade liquor, cigarettes. Sometimes I see the tundra in my dreams and I wake up with my heart pounding. I breathe easily now because that is all over for me. I returned to Budapest. I worked for the military prosecutor. Don’t look at me that way. And don’t demand too much.”

He looked at her with profound pity. He seemed to see her from a great distance, as if through the eyepieces of a lorgnette turned backward. She has foreseen the thunderbolts that will fall on my head. Are things really that bad for me? His breathing grew labored.

“My dear,” he began gently, “I came to you because I was looking for my own, for Hungarians. When great developments are occurring in Budapest, surely we ought to be together. The embassy, after all, is a piece of the homeland, or at least it should be. And both of you — and you yourself — Judit, I knew I was alone, but I did not think I was so very alone.” With a savage motion he snuffed out his cigarette. “No. Don’t be afraid. I’ll not cause you any trouble.”

“Terey,” she ventured timidly. “Istvan,” she corrected herself, “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“It’s I who am apologizing. Well, all right, then. There is nothing more to talk about. Goodbye.”

He walked with a heavy stride through the living room, in which every piece of furniture seemed to have been put in place only temporarily, as on a stage — even the flowers, enormous lavender bouquets of gladioli. Nothing, not one picture, tapestry, or piece of earthenware, was from Hungary. She could have gone out of that room with a suitcase and someone else could have moved in, and nothing would have been changed. He raised her hand to his lips. Suddenly he felt her warm, ample arms around his head. She kissed him maternally on the forehead and pushed him away lightly.

“Go now,” she whispered.

He stopped on the threshold.

“No one yet has seen how I cry,” she said with her head erect, and suddenly he noticed the unnatural flash in her eyes. They were brimming with great tears which she did not wipe away but which rolled slowly down her cheeks.

“Until tomorrow,” he said warmly, his fingers on the door handle.

When he had slammed the door of the Austin, the light in the window went out and the house seemed to retreat behind a heavy veil of rain that had waited just for that moment. The windshield wipers, purring monotonously, slid over the glass. He forgot about the weeping woman; he was forced to concentrate on the road. Glimmering reflections lit up in front of him and the half-obliterated landscape loomed like a bad dream.

In the morning — a morning full of cheerful flutterings, starlings’ cries, leaves rinsed and sparkling clean — he had hardly driven up to the embassy and heard the friendly crunching of gravel under his tires when Ferenc came out to meet him, greeting him as if they had not seen each other for a long time.

“Everything is confirmed. Headlines in bold type,” he announced triumphantly. “The ambassador is here already.” He leaned forward. “Someone must have let him know, because he called during the night and asked what Budapest had sent over. He directed the cryptographer to get the dispatches to him immediately.”

They looked at each other.

“It is only a bulletin. Less information than in the newspapers.”

“You know already?” Terey asked tauntingly.

“The cryptographer gave me a copy before he burned it.” Ferenc was not in the least troubled by the admission; it was as though he and the ambassador, only they, had the right to read the coded dispatches.

“How is the boss?”

“Hard hit, not showing it. A diehard.”

“He is well schooled,” Terey admitted. “As if he were going to show anything! Dissatisfaction? Now he must turn all his ingenuity to making allies of his recent opponents, just as if they had been waiting for that all the time. He can manage it.”

“It is not known yet if the changes will be permanent.” Ferenc hesitated as if he were not certain whether to confide everything to Istvan. “The boss crumpled a dispatch, threw it on the table, and said to the cryptographer, ‘They changed the hat for the time being, but the head remained the same. Get those papers away. They are littering up the place.’ Apparently he believes that everything may still reverse itself.”

They went in and walked up the stairs to the second floor, each to his own office. Stacks of local newspapers lay on Istvan’s desk. He read the large headlines, inhaling the familiar odor of printer’s ink. Above the news of the changes in the central committee in Hungary he saw the proud words about freedom for African nations: the declaration from the Brioni islands on the issue of freedom for Algeria. Nehru, Nasser, Tito; the order of the names was just as Nagar had predicted.

He waited until noon, expecting that the ambassador would call them in and give an account of the situation in Hungary. The matter was becoming urgent, for journalists they knew were calling, asking for what they politely called “background” comment. But the embassy staff had no details, no sense of the atmosphere of the congress, no authoritative information from the home country, he thought, writhing.

Outside the window the heat was intensifying. The cooling machine wheezed air sticky as vapors from a laundry. Rakosi gazed at him from the wall with a roguish sneer. I didn’t hang him there. Let Ferenc take him down, he sighed, rubbing the sweat from his face. The caretaker had just brought him coffee when someone knocked lightly at the door.

“Come in,” Terey said in Hungarian. He was not expecting any calls from “contacts,” the term used by embassy staff for Indian visitors from the city. But no one entered.

Then the caretaker opened the door. Behind it stood a stocky man, an importer who numbered the embassy among his customers. He pressed his hands together in front of his chest and inclined his head, which appeared distended in a turban painstakingly done up in small pleats. His face had a greasy gleam.

“Greetings, sir.” He approached the desk. “I have a small matter.”

“Are you taking orders, Mr. Gupta? I asked for half a dozen cases of whiskey.”

“I have just brought them. They are waiting below in the automobile. As you ordered. The servant will bring them directly. Or perhaps we will simply leave them at your home?”

The caretaker waited to see if the counselor would tell him to bring more coffee. Terey paid no attention to his questioning look.

“And what about payment? Check or cash?”

The merchant threw a meaningful glance at the caretaker. Obviously he found the presence of a witness bothersome.

“Well, then, Mr. Gupta?”

“Cash.” Reluctantly he drew a thick envelope from the pocket of his wide, baggy, rumpled trousers. “Mr. Ferenc doesn’t like checks.” He tried discreetly to hand the counselor the envelope, which was stained with grease and bulging with a roll of banknotes.

“What is this money?” he asked in amazement.

“It is for the whiskey.” The Sikh thrust out a thick lip under an oiled mustache. “They have raised the duty so that my countrymen will only drink at embassy receptions.” Suddenly comprehending that the counselor was not going to take the proffered envelope, he snatched his hand away and began to explain that the secretary was not in his office, though he had called from the city and arranged a meeting.

At that moment the door opened and Ferenc came in. He greeted Gupta.

“I went out for a moment. The ambassador summoned me. Have you brought the vodka?”

“Yes, and I cannot find out how much I am paying for it now, because they have raised the duty.”

“For Indians, not for us. Diplomatic status. True, Mr. Gupta?”

“Yes,” he affirmed warmly. “For me, a poor merchant, it is a loss; for you gentlemen it is a profit. They locked my warehouse. I can sell only what I brought in at the earlier price.”

“Well, how much must I pay?” Terey demanded.

“Nothing. It is a gift from a friend,” said the Sikh, twisting his puffy face into a grimace.

“That is not possible.”

“But it is possible. It is.” Ferenc took the merchant by the arm and pushed him toward the door.

“Take it as they give it, Istvan. As you drink it, you will have time to think about why you got it.”

“Take it, counselor, sir,” whispered the caretaker. “Perhaps you will have a bottle to spare for me?”

“One always has to pay three times over for this free whiskey,” the counselor retorted. “What does he want from me?”

“I am waiting for a new order,” the merchant said, bowing. “I even have one written out here.”

“Come to me. We will consider this in a calmer moment.” An impatient Ferenc waved the man out. “How hot it is!”

When they had gone, the caretaker looked at Istvan approvingly.

“May I have a bottle? Why not a little something for me, too?”

“Take it,” Terey waved a hand, “and be off.”

“Right you are.” He drew himself up in soldierly style. “I have not been here at all, counselor.”

The telephone rang shrilly. The ambassador was calling him to a briefing. Istvan rose, stretched, and adjusted his loosened tie. As he closed the door, he looked again at the portrait, at the bold, conical head of the man who had bullied Hungarians for years.

“I have read you the bulletin.” The ambassador rested both hands on his desk and, straightening his heavy trunk, looked out from under lowered eyelids. “Well — this you already know. De-Stalinization has taken over our country. It is a complex process — the consequence of errors, perversions, and a quite complicated situation in our camp. It must be embraced with great caution, since the very process that carries within itself the possibility of favorable changes, if unleashed without restraint, may lead to internal upheaval and drastically weaken the resiliency of the party machine, and its enemies are just waiting for that.”

They stood in a huddle, a little dismayed by the paucity of words, the absence of a feeling of relationship to recent events.

“He is biding his time,” Istvan whispered to Judit. But she only pressed his fingertips to silence him.

“Go back to work. Are there any questions?”

“Journalists are on our doorstep, wanting details,” Terey began.

“They must be pacified. Tell them the truth — Hungarian radio does not reach us, and we have received no official commentary as yet. Do not rush to the fore with any statements. Send them to me, and I will get rid of them…as many as manage to catch me, for I intend to leave Delhi for a couple days just now.” He grinned, showing crooked teeth yellowed from nicotine. “There is no need to rush into some folly. There is always time for that. True, Comrade Terey?”

It seemed to Istvan that he was only now about to hear a truthful remark. He took the bait.

“‘To err is human,’” he said.

“But an official, especially when he is attached to the embassy, ought to avoid it. Remember, Terey, that you are not here as a poet. Do not let your imagination have its head too soon.”

“This mentoring is rather astonishing to me.”

“To me as well. You are not a young colt, Terey, to go kicking over the traces here. It should be time to think seriously of the future.”

“That is just what I am doing,” he said obdurately. He turned and walked out. But he felt that the ambassador had not let him out of his sight, and was barely restraining himself from calling him back.

Nothing has happened. It is just the way he is, he reassured himself as he smoked a cigarette in his office. He shouts at one person to single him out from the group and force him into some capitulation, taking the occasion to throw fear into the others. He spoke quite sensibly; there is nothing worth worrying over, though the schoolmasterly tone was grating.

The caretaker came in quietly, set a small chair in place, and took down the portrait.

“Pish! Away with the vermin,” he shuddered. “I mean the lizards that lived behind the photograph. I have loathed reptiles since I was a child.”

He peered at Rakosi at close range, as neighbors gaze with undignified curiosity at the face of someone who has died.

“Comrade secretary ordered that the portraits be stored in the library. He said that in a few days we may be hanging them again.” He lingered, wiping away smudges of dust. “But you, counselor, stand up to them all. You will not swallow that.”

Terey did not engage him in conversation. The anger he was stifling smoldered in him. He was annoyed with Ferenc over the matter of Gupta. I’m not the prosecutor, he thought, biting his lip. I don’t care how much he makes from it, but I won’t be played for a fool. Does he think I don’t remember what he asked for?

He was so irate that he rose impetuously, shoving his chair aside. For a moment he plunged his hands in the stream of cool air from the machine. Then he made up his mind to have a talk with Ferenc.

The secretary put a calm face on the issue. He invited Istvan to have a seat, to smoke a cigarette — or perhaps he would prefer a sip of orange juice with ice?

“What is on your mind, Istvan? My little flair for business? Really, the money comes of itself. If you want me to, I will give you half. I swear to you, I saw that Sikh in person for the first time today. Gupta Brothers — and that must be the stupidest of them. Take this.” He pushed a wad of banknotes across the desk as if foreseeing that Terey would reproach himself for signing the orders. That Ferenc had five hundred rupees already counted out exasperated Istvan most of all.

“You know where you can put that cash,” he snarled. “You’ll have no partner in me.”

“You feel disgust? So much the better. Just remember that your signature is on the orders, and you cannot deny it, and you cannot justify it. So be careful,” he warned coolly. “If you become annoying, I have ways of dealing with you. Bajcsy will be on my side. Would it not be better to part amicably and forget about the whole business? It is a bore in any case.”

“It’s rotten, do you understand?” Terey shouted. The other man smiled as if it were a compliment, full of the sense that he had the upper hand.

“Do you want it to be war between us?” He blew out a stream of smoke. “Comrade Terey, think well: you have no chance. You will lose. Well, I extend the hand of friendship.”

Istvan ran out of the room and slammed the door. He summoned the caretaker and told him he could take the remaining five bottles of whiskey.

“Oh, counselor, sir! That really is too many. I asked for one because when the sun dries a man out in the daytime, he likes a nip of something wet at night.”

“If you don’t want them, give him back to Gupta when he shows up here.”

“Ah! I am not so stupid. He gave what he gave. They will not be wasted on me. Thank you very much.” He bowed in the doorway. “And if you think better of it, counselor, sir, why, as long as they are with me, they are, let us say, on deposit. Perhaps I will crack one a week.”

“Go now.”

“Everyone is irritable today. Things seem to have become a little less difficult at home, after all, and Rakosi is not your kin or mine. What is there to regret?”

When he was alone he began to make notes, to answer messages from Indian officials. A feeling of powerlessness weighed on him. He was in trouble; he had to be courageous enough to admit it. He would have to pay for his obtuseness. He heard Ferenc passing through the hall: his footsteps stopped in front of his door, but after a moment he moved on. The engine of the ambassador’s large car growled in its familiar bass. Through the window he saw one figure lolling in the back seat. So they didn’t go together, he thought with relief.

It would be enough to tabulate and produce a checklist of the casually signed forms to ensure that evidence that the counselor was speculating in imported vodka would find its way into a report to the ministry — evidence that he was exploiting his diplomatic status to avoid paying duty. “This kind of hole-and-corner profit-taking is unworthy of a diplomat and may lead to intervention by the Indian authorities. We defer the decision…” Or a simpler accusation: “Counselor Terey has been drinking heavily, as the enclosed invoices with his orders for alcohol attest. In recent months the value of his orders has amounted to three-quarters of his salary. We are of the opinion that, before a scandal results, it would be advisable…”

Then they remind themselves that he is a poet, and the officials only nod their heads: these are the effects of experimentation with unsuitable personnel, of making a poet a civil servant. Complaisantly, with untroubled consciences, they present his recall from his posting to the minister for his signature.

A desperate longing to see Margit came over him again. The fear that he might have to leave without seeing her assaulted him with the sense of the power of this clandestine relationship. Margit. Margit. He had no claim on her apart from the one she had given him out of generosity. He had no opportunity in the course of the next two weeks to go to Agra again. He was ready to humble himself, to offer explanations, to plead; anything to ward off a final rejection. He swallowed and opened his mouth as if he were gasping for the steamy air. To have Margit back, nothing else, nothing, only to hold her in his arms, to breathe the fragrance of her hair, to feel her thighs pressing against him, her belly, her breasts, warm breath on a bare neck. The thought of his loss was bitter as gall. He ached; a great hunger cried out in him, a hunger for tenderness.

He looked through the dusty window screens to the fringed tops of palms waving in the sun and the brilliance of the sky washed with torrents of rain. He was overcome by the desire for movement and space — to escape from this stifling room, from the odors of damp, creased papers covered with writing and cigarette ashes shaken onto the carpet, from the the nauseating smell of DDT.

One more letter and he ran to the car.

The shaggy greenery of the climbing plants rippled. The embassy seemed to be sighing in the broiling noon heat.

“Uncle, wait!” He heard Mihaly’s plaintive voice. “Uncle, take me with you.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t care. Where you go.” He looked Istvan in the eye, pushing his pale blond hair aside.

Terey sensed the boy’s wish and announced without hesitation, “I’m going a long way. I will tell you where, but don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t. Word of honor.” The boy blinked in the glare.

The counselor leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “For ice cream.”

The little fellow did not believe this. He fixed him with a crestfallen smile and said, “You are always joking, uncle.”

“No. I was afraid you wouldn’t want to go.”

For answer the boy got into the car. They rode along the avenue, where warm gusts of wind blew up great sprays of fallen, withered blossoms. Motorcycle rickshaws passed them — small, crowded vehicles. Under their heavily fringed canopies, Hindu women’s shawls fluttered, blue, cherry-red, and light as mist. The drivers’ downy cheeks bulged with wide smiles as they honked, squeezing big pear-shaped rubber horns as gleefully as if they had been the full breasts of girls.

“You know, uncle,” Mihaly confided, “I have a friend, a mongoose. He is not afraid of me at all. He comes to my hand. He lets me pet him. I feed him every evening.”

“What do you feed him?”

The child faltered. He rubbed his nose with his hand, turned his head away and mumbled, “Different things, but he likes raw eggs best.”

A wide perspective on the avenue leading to the India Gate opened in front of them. Space bursting with light streamed toward the car.

“And what does your mother say about this?”

“Nothing.” He shrugged his small shoulders. “Mama doesn’t know about it.”

Under trees with succulent foliage growing wild stood an odd building with the appearance of an enormous tub, covered by an undulating blue pavilion. They could hear the noise of an engine, like the roar of an enraged tiger, rising to a whine as the motor raced. The planks beneath the flying motorcycle rattled like loose timbers under a bridge.

“Have you been here, uncle?”

“No.”

“But I have. He told them to let me in. His wife sits there all day and prays to the king of monkeys for his success.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Krishan,” the boy said indignantly. “He is the death rider. He rides just like this”—he turned his hand flat—“until it’s frightful to see. When he comes flying by everyone huddles behind the barrier, and it hurts their ears.”

“That daredevil!”

“Krishan says he likes it. Sometimes he lies on the grass and smokes a cigarette and I run to the cashier to see how many tickets they sold, because when there are fifty, they tell him to do the show.”

Light and shadow played over their faces. They sped along beneath the overhanging boughs of old trees.

“Listen, Mihaly. What do you want to be?”

“I?” His eyes opened wide. “I want to be a real Hungarian. Like you, uncle.”

Through his linen shirt Istvan felt a warm little hand resting against him.

“Because I love you very, very much.”

“You certainly know how to get ice cream!” He put on the brakes at Connaught Place. “Well, get out.”

But Mihaly sat still and stared him in the eye.

“Go by yourself. I will wait. Because you said that I know how—”

“You’ll be sorry.”

“Yes…but if you want, you can bring me a little bit on a waffle,” he said, relenting.

“Get out. Don’t be annoying,” the counselor said, feigning impatience. “Indeed, you know that I am very fond of you and that I could not eat ice cream knowing that you were waiting in the car.”

“Oh, uncle,” the boy sighed and clasped him around his neck. Istvan felt each of his limber knuckles and the eager quivering of the heart.

He kissed the little lad with dry lips, reproaching himself inwardly because he had not answered his sons’ letters for two weeks. He held Mihaly’s hand and led him through the arcades. A slender boy with a sash around his hips moved along behind them, playing a simple melody full of lamentation on a flute. A monkey dressed in Scotch style with a plaid kilt, caftan, and beret darted ahead of them and blocked their way, then struck a tambourine and threw furtive glances from bulging eyes brimming with a human hunger.