“And you talk about this with complete freedom?” Istvan bridled. “You did this for them?”
“Impossible cases are my specialty. I did it, and I was remunerated. The rajah and rani, I must say, knew what they wanted; the honorarium they paid left them fully conscious that they were requiring me to violate the laws of God and, what is more difficult, the laws of man. Your holy book speaks of Cain. Nothing is new! Properly speaking, does humanity know any other kind of homicide? People ought to be brothers, but dress them differently, give them a stick with a varicolored rag on it, and they are ready to murder each other.
“What is happening in your country? Before they overran you with tanks, Hungarians were disemboweling Hungarians who had been hung by their feet from streetlights. What do you call it? A just verdict,” he sneered, “which makes a man fighting for freedom an executioner. If you were there, I wonder where you would find yourself: among those trampled on the pavement, or among those they hung because somebody didn’t fancy their faces or the identity card with the star? And what right do you have to judge and condemn me?”
He spoke with an ominous mildness, but Istvan felt that he was incensed. “Is it because I am frank with you and your friends are not, although they are a close-knit family and make up a most hospitable circle: the rajah, his father-in-law, and the charming rani Grace, full of expectation and absorbed in the fruit of her womb? You had best try to remember how you got off on the wrong foot with her. Then I will try to rectify matters.”
Istvan caught his breath. He felt as if he had been beaten about the face. And he could not strike back, for one does not fight with a reptile, one only kills it. Or shuns it, walks around it at a distance.
They walked in the darkness under a sky like a net knotted with glittering stars. They stepped in rhythm. He sensed that Chandra had told him about the matter of the dead brother to encourage him to make confessions of his own, to admit faults — to feel that in this moral twilight they were accomplices. Confess without absolution? The joy of the condemned that there are so many of them, the dense throng with despair biting into it like pincers.
Be carefuclass="underline" he is pumping you for information. He wants to trap you, an inner voice warned. In spite of himself he slowly formulated sentences, evading the disturbing truth.
“Did rani Grace say where I wanted to escape to?”
“Yes.” The blow fell. “It was difficult for us to believe; she chose a strange place for you. She seemed to overlook Paris and London. Do you want to escape to Australia?”
Istvan’s shoulders hunched as if he had been hit in the chest. He walked like an automaton.
“You wanted to know. Now you do. Well, you have heard the truth. Someone has given you away. Now you must beg for mercy.”
“Oh, God!” he barely breathed, but the other man, whose head was tilted toward him, caught it.
“You have remembered after all!” he said triumphantly. “Well, you must not take it all so seriously. You have only to say to me, Help me, and mean it, and I will do everything you wish. Or almost everything,” he corrected himself. “At any rate, I will surely help you. Not for nothing do they call me a philanthropist. There is no predicament with no way out; it is only necessary to make up one’s mind. To know what one wants. For oneself. You should think of yourself, of yourself exclusively. For no one loves us but ourselves. No one; you may be sure of that.”
They were walking amid the caustic smell of swirling smoke. From both sides of the path countless fires appeared, a few with sharp red tongues licking at the night. Others hardly glimmered pink from under cooling ashes. Now they saw bodies wrapped in sheets like grayish cocoons, lying like unborn infants with knees tucked up.
“What have we come upon?” Suddenly Terey was conscious that the lights of the city were far behind them. “Do they bury the dead here as well?”
“No. But it is natural to think so, though those people are still living. It is a cool night. They sleep by the fires. These are the homeless. The poor — beloved of God—‘Harijan.’ That is what Gandhi named them,” Chandra sneered.
They stood for a moment, gazing at the vast encampment. They heard the far-off crying of a baby and the snoring of the sleepers. Little flames seemed to whisper curses and bite hastily at the thorny branches and stalks that were scattered over gray ash. “A cold night.” Chandra shivered.
Istvan looked at him. In the low reflection of a fire his white shirt front, his jacket, and the gloves he had doggedly pulled on created the impression that he was disguised as a magician — that in a moment he would appear on the dais, cheap, not worth the price of the ticket, not even worth applauding.
“Let’s go back,” he agreed. Then, oblivious to his companion, he began to walk faster and faster, as if to escape.
At the Janpath Hotel the porter pointed to a key hanging on the board where the room numbers were displayed.
“Miss Ward returned only for a moment and went out again at once.”
Worried, he caught a taxi and ordered the driver to take him home.
The fusty interior of the cab reeked of sweat and cloying incense. He felt nauseated. The potbellied driver in a ragged sweater was brazenly holding a young boy by his left hand; the boy giggled ingratiatingly. Clattering and grinding, the old Ford moved ahead, permeated by a smell of burning oil. It seemed to Istvan that the two in the front seat were too preoccupied with each other to remember where they were taking him. He got out with relief and noticed a blur of yellow light in his living room. Beside the door the watchman, half awake, was stretching. The girl lay almost hidden in a corner of the veranda, curled up on a blanket.
He could not fit the key into the lock, though he tried to be quick so as not to disturb the lovers. His hands trembled.
Margit came to the door and they fell on each other with desperate eagerness, as if they were about to separate forever. They embraced silently, her forehead resting on his already rough cheek, while under his lips a crisp wave of hair darkened in the deep shadow. He felt the pressure of that dearest flesh now touching his — near, yielding. He felt his own heart. Through the coarse wool of her suit he found her familiar, warm body; he stroked it, clasped it with inexpressible tenderness. All the world lost its meaning. There were only the two of them, predestined for each other.
“Why didn’t you go to bed? You’ll stay here.”
“A telegram came for you,” she whispered, touching his cheek with her lips. He did not let her go.
“What’s in it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You should have opened it. I have no secrets from you.”
“I opened it, but it was in Hungarian,” she breathed, holding him tightly. He quivered. Releasing himself, he went to the desk and shoved a creased slip of paper into the harsh glare of the lamp.
We are well stop do not worry dear stop peace here now stop Ilona.