They lay side by side, breathing on each other. Her fragrant hair was spread lightly against his temple. The shadows deepened above them and pressed down so heavily that breathing was difficult. He thought he heard the rustle of flying flakes of invisible soot, but perhaps it was only her eyelids brushing his chest. It seemed to him that they were like a pair of freshly hatched chicks whom the brooding hen has not taken under her wing, who are put into a pot full of gray down and feathers and, terrified by their unknown fate, cuddle together, searching for courage in their own warmth.
He heard the brisk ticking of his watch on the table; the metal face emitted a low tinkle as if the squeaks of a greedy insect were tirelessly cutting into the congealing dark. Margit’s breathing grew even; she must have closed her eyes, for one last tear, pressed from under an eyelid, flowed onto his chest, tickling him. His arms were growing numb, but he avoided the slightest movement so as not to rouse her. He thought she was sleeping when she said softly, taking him by surprise with her cool, wakeful tone, “Let’s not talk now, Istvan. We’ve wounded each other enough.”
“Yes.”
“I want you to sleep. You’re showing the strain of the last two weeks. You must rest. You must sleep.”
“I can’t.”
She moved her hand over his forehead as if to wipe away the disturbing thoughts that repeated themselves in his mind. “Think of the boys. They love you, though they may not even know it. They have you, even if they don’t appreciate it. Think of them. They are alive. They need you.”
“I’m thinking of you.”
“You’ll have plenty of time for that. Until the end of your life, when I won’t be with you.”
They were silent, listening to the rapid beating of their hearts, terrified by the words she had spoken. The sleepless nights of the lonely, separated from each other, when pictures bleed from the memory to torture the heart, and insistent questions return. Why? Could it have turned out differently?
He kissed her warmly as if she were a child, covered her carefully with the blankets, and, lying on his back, listened to her breathing in the darkness that teemed around them, rose and then subsided into black atoms. It seemed to him that the gnawing insect in his watch was working faster, boring into time, cutting indefatigably. Its tiny rasping bit Istvan to the heart.
“You must go away.” Margit was handing him a cup of morning coffee.
“That’s what the ambassador recommended. But I can’t just now. I don’t know if things have really quieted down there.”
“What did you say to him? When he lets you, go.”
“I told him I would go to Cochin.”
“Where is that?”
“In the south. The very tip of India.”
“But why there?”
“Out of cheek, to take him by surprise. Soon after I arrived in India I saw a color film: the ocean, palm trees, white beaches. Little houses, the water, and sails like kites on the horizon. I said to myself, I must go there. The winter is a good season, not too hot.”
“Well — go.”
“I don’t know yet.”
“I’ll be free the fifteenth of December,” she said thoughtfully. “I didn’t extend my contract.”
“Would you go?”
“Yes. Though I know it would be senseless, trailing after you to the end.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“Cochin. Cochin,” she whispered. “Surely that’s far enough from the embassy. Do they pester you very much about me?”
“They don’t know much about us, fortunately. I’ve stopped spending time at the club.”
“That must seem strange in itself. It will be harder and harder for you to hide me. You must be seen among people. You can’t avoid them like this. They really should see you. That’s only common sense. Promise?”
“When I’d rather wait for you. I think…I’m at no loss for company.”
“You’re dreaming,” she said sorrowfully.
“Do you forbid me to dream?”
“When you dream, you are preoccupied with what you are creating. I, a living person, am less important to you. Istvan, you are much happier than I am. When you are suffering, you can tell the whole world in your writing. And I…I only have you, and still I hesitate before I say a word.” She took his hand and put it on her heart. “We will go to Cochin together. If you like.”
“We’ll steal away and be out of sight. We’ll have no one but each other.”
“You don’t even know what you’re saying.” She was defending herself against the vision of that joyous solitude on the sparsely peopled beaches of the south. “That’s terrible.”
“We’ll be happy.”
“So that afterward we can push each other away into despair?”
He kissed her hair and whispered pleadingly, “Don’t talk that way. Please.”
She was quiet. She only held him desperately, as if the future were going to tear her away and carry her to a place from which there was no return.
“Listen,” she said in a peremptory tone. “Salminen is arriving Saturday. He’s giving a lecture on Sunday. He asked me to assemble some material for him and develop some statistical summaries. I’ll be busy.”
“Two whole days?” he burst out, annoyed that the old doctor with whom he felt little connection was taking away what was his.
“He’s coming by car. I must wait for him at the hotel. I certainly won’t tell him I’m staying with you. It’s only decent for me to be with him on Sunday. Imagine how affronted he would feel if I weren’t in the hall! On Saturday you can entertain your colleagues. On Sunday, go to the club. Surely you don’t want their attention to be drawn to us.”
“I don’t want to see anyone. I’m not up to talking to people.”
“I’m not asking you if you want to do this. You must,” she said with emphasis, “for our sakes. I really want to go to Cochin with you. All the holidays; just the two of us.”
“Good!”
“And Sunday?”
“For a few days now Nagar has been after me to go out for duck with him. But not a real hunt. A club picnic.”
“So much the better. Everyone will see you.”
He only sighed.
“You don’t have to murder ducks. Let them live,” she whispered. “And in the evening I’ll come to you and you will tell me everything. Remember — it must be a cheerful story. Do you hear?”
“Yes.”
“And now kiss me,” she murmured, pretending that she was brave, that she had already forgotten about the night’s conversation — that she was thinking only about the next few days. That she was carefully forming plans, believing that there would be many such days, so many that both of them would begin to speak not of days to come, but of years.
The Yamuna flowed languidly through a wide valley. Its moving surface sparkled with scales of light. Its shoals were overgrown with willow and clumps of reeds three meters high, with tassels of violet seeds curved like cocks’ feathers. The marshes dozed, their slimy pools like windows surrounded by a wall of bulrushes — a wall partitioned by miry streams that could hardly be seen under clumps of matted grass. The sharp edges of the rushes attached themselves to clothing; the hand careless enough to catch one was cut as if with a razor. Even on the tops of the high hunting boots there were white scratches.
These thickets were the ducks’ breeding grounds. Their only enemy was the jackal who, lured by sleepy squeals, could steal the young from the nest. But when the mother led them to the water, they were safe in the shadowy corridors of streams hidden by the mane of riotously overgrown grasses, and the fecund slime assured them of plentiful food.
The birds that were not shot burst into flight reluctantly. They liked to forage among the rushes and bide their time while the hunters wandered along the streams, plunging into the labyrinths of grasses, into the tall reeds, which emitted the fusty odor of rotting weeds — the sickeningly warm, heavy stench of decay.