They went into the servants’ quarters; the screen door stuck on one of the tiles in the floor, scraping harshly. Behind the partition of boards plastered with wallpaper the light was dim. Smoke floated over the makeshift wall as an unknown man puffed at a cigarette. The portable mattresses, pillows, and linen spread on plank beds were covered by old army mosquito netting painted with green and yellow spots.
“Which do you want?” she asked, yawning.
“Does it matter? I’m sleeping with you.”
“No.” She shook her head, motioning with her thumb toward the wall, which was rickety as a screen. Tiny rays of light burst through holes in the wallpaper.
He showed her a hook affixed to a beam at the end of the corridor. A cord was attached to the hook: he explained the mechanism. Water ran boisterously from a gasoline barrel. In the drain, covered with a slimy grating, something was scratching. She pulled down her dress, asked him to run the water again, and bathed, suppressing her aversion. The medallion in the shape of Buddha’s hand gleamed, throwing a golden blotch like a birthmark on her breast. When the water began to flow into the drain as if from a watering can, there was a scraping in the hole under the floor and a rat fled, squealing.
In the dark, invisible mosquitoes flew over them, spinning out their tremulous hungry whine. Their bites burned like sparks from a fire. They communicated in whispers, since under the barrel ceiling of the old chapel voices were amplified. When they returned, their neighbor’s curtain was pushed aside and they saw a slender, balding man in striped pajamas.
“Do not let my presence constrain you”—he inclined his head—“since we must share accommodations. Please behave as if I were not here. I have shown myself so you can see that I am not asleep.”
“Are you still working?”
“Who can sleep when the moon is full? It draws me outside. Do you hear, madam, how the jackals howl? They, too, are restless.”
It was clear that he was waiting for them to prolong the conversation, but they bowed politely and made their way to their quarter of the room.
They undressed in the dimness. There was nowhere to hang things, so Margit laid her dress over the foot of the bed under the mosquito netting. Istvan sat lost in thought, feeling to the bone the fatigue of the long ride that had demanded alertness and concentration. When he closed his eyes, he saw orange cliffs in the harsh sun; blue shadows and thorny ashen-colored brush on the slopes; watermelons almost black, with water streaming from them as if the rinds were coated with wax; Margit’s pale breasts ever so slightly brushed with tan in the flashing shallow stream.
“Are you thinking of what will happen in Delhi?” she whispered. She was as invisible under the spotted net as if she were hidden in a treetop.
“No. I feel calm.”
“Budapest?”
“I’d give a lot to know what’s really going on there. It’s quiet as a cemetery. Everyone wants to forget what happened.”
“There are demonstrations at the Central Committee again. The workers went with torches of burning newspaper.”
“How do you know?” He raised his head, suddenly alert.
“I bought some papers. There’s been unrest there for quite a while.”
“Why didn’t you tell me at once?”
“I didn’t want to upset you.”
“Where are the papers?”
“In the car. You’re not going to read them by flashlight, after all.”
She heard only the screen door frame scraping the floor. A moment later the other man was shuffling about as well. She lay with her hands under her head, half asleep. With a crackling sound the rat tore splinters from the wooden grating over the drain. It squeezed through with a squeal of relief and scampered along the wall. Margit, hidden behind the mosquito netting, did not see it. In the deep shadow its claws scratched on the stone; furiously it set about tearing at some paper. She thought solicitously of Istvan. No doubt he was sitting in the car reading the news briefs by flashlight for the hundredth time. Without knowing it she fell asleep.
Istvan could read by the light of the full moon; he sighed tranquilly. If the workers could hold rallies and march in the streets burning the party newspaper, and no cannon fire dispersed the crowd, that meant the new government was confident. Things were not so bad. He breathed more freely. Around him the world was white with luminous, shifting moonlight. Dung houses slept below him like cast-off building blocks. Monkeys sat on the peak of a small pagoda, and it seemed that they might easily jump onto the enormous face of the moon, which was all too near. The pond bristled with two-headed monsters: the heads of ruminating buffalo were reflected in water heavy as mercury.
In the distance, mountain ranges shimmered in the starlight. The quivering air was filled with lustrous, disquieting blue dust. Roosters hoarsely announced the midnight hour; a vast silence lay on the heart, unmarred by the sobbing of the jackals close by who slipped past in pairs, disturbed by the unusual brightness of the moon. In the yard, in a puddle of rippling silver, the dog in its weird armor, trailing a long, misshapen shadow, circled quietly this way and that like an antediluvian beast. Leaning against the wall of the inn, the Hindu was sitting crossed-legged, peasant-fashion, wrapped in a blanket. His bald head glistened in the stream of moonlight.
“Are you in a hurry to seek oblivion, to lose yourself in sleep?” he asked, wishing to detain Terey. “Sit on this stone. Let us talk for a while. What a splendid night! Surely madam is asleep already.”
All at once the captivating loveliness of the night was laid bare to Istvan. He was moved; he felt a warning twinge of sadness. Feast on this, he thought; drink in the beauty of the full moon over India. This may be the last time you will see such a night in the Ghat Mountains. His feelings choked him as if he were saying goodbye. He wanted so much to call Margit to him, to have her share the silence in the shifting radiance of the moon.
“I came here to fight against the greatest plague in the country.” The Hindu’s glasses gleamed like ice. “People do not even know about this, and after all, they are being devoured.”
“You hunt tigers?” Terey said in amazement.
“No. I am thinking of cows.”
“Sacred cows?”
“They are all sacred, the ones that go about the cities wearing garlands and the wild herds that roam by night and graze on cultivated land, destroying fields. A fifth of the crop is lost. Think: a cow for every two residents of a teeming nation of four hundred million. A cow, which gives a modicum of milk, eats as it tramples fields and is not permitted to be killed, so its meat will be eaten by dogs and jackals. Its hide can be pulled off only by untouchables, and not until it collapses from old age, at which time the leather is not worth much. These millions of cows are our downfall. They lay waste the fields and starve the people, depriving them of life. These wandering herds in effect devour people.”
His thin hands, like greenish bronze in the moonlight, stretched toward the sleeping village in the valley. His voice had a fanatical ring. Long shadows lay on the white wall of the old chapel.
“Do the peasants understand this? Aren’t you afraid they might stone you?”
“If I told them that extermination — selection of the stunted beasts — is necessary for their good, they would surely beat me to death.” His tone was bitter and sarcastic. “But I say that it is for the good of the cows. I speak of their hunger, of their agonizing deaths when the vultures rend them while they are still alive. And the peasants cry, more than they cry over their own starving children! Indeed, they have seen the cows when they are sick — ill with consumption, poisoned with bhang hanging down on half-decayed plants. They know very well what I am talking about, and they admit that I am right. They want to help the cows more than they want to help themselves.”