Judgment on Deltchev

CHAPTER FIVE

The Hotel Boris had been built by a German company in 1914 and was one of those hotels in which footsteps echo and only the sound of a toilet flushing in the distance reminds you that you are not alone there. The foyer was a cavernous place with a tessellated floor and a hydraulic lift in a wrought-iron cage. The reception clerk was a slow-moving, mentally deficient youth with a charming smile. He spoke a little English.

‘There is a message for you, sir,’ he said. He glanced at the scrap of paper that he had taken out of the key rack. ‘Mr Stanoiev called to see you and will call again.’

‘Stanoiev? I don’t know anyone of that name. Are you sure it was for me?’

He looked stupid. ‘I don’t know, sir. He went away.’

‘I see.’

The lift was deserted. I walked up the wide shallow stairs to the sixth floor.

My room was at the end of a long corridor with upholstered benches set against the wall at intervals along it. As I started down the corridor, I noticed that at the far end there was a man sitting on one of the benches. He was reading a newspaper.

It made an odd picture; one never expects corridor furniture to be used except as shelves for trays and chambermaids’ dusters. As I approached he looked up casually, then went back to his newspaper. I glanced at him as I passed by.

He was a thin, dried-up man with pale, haggard eyes and grey hair cropped so that the bone of his skull was visible. He had a peculiarly blotchy complexion like that of someone just cured of a skin disease. The hands holding up the newspaper were long and yellow. There was a black soft hat beside him on the bench.

I went past him to my room. I put the key in the lock and turned it. Then someone spoke from just behind me.

‘Herr Foster?’

It made me jump. I turned round. The man who had been on the bench was standing there with his hat under his arm.

I nodded.

‘Petlarov,’ he said, and then added in German, ‘I can speak French or German, whichever you prefer.’

‘German will be all right. I’m glad to see you.’ I finished opening the door. ‘Will you come in?’

He bowed slightly. ‘Thank you.’ He walked in and then turned and faced me. ‘I must apologize,’ he said in a clipped, businesslike way, ‘for answering your note in this fashion. A native of this country would not find it strange, but as you are a foreigner I must make an explanation.’

‘Please sit down.’

‘Thank you.’ In the light of the room his clothes were shabby and he looked ill. His precise, formal manner, however, seemed to ignore both facts. He chose a hard chair as if he did not intend to stay long.

‘First,’ he said, ‘I think you should know that I am under surveillance; that is to say, I have to report to the police every day. Second, I am officially listed as an “untrustworthy person”. That means that if you were to be seen entering my house or talking to me in a public place, you would attract the attention of the police, and yourself become suspect. That is why I have used this unconventional means of seeing you. I discovered your room number by leaving a note for you in the name of Stanoiev and noticing which box it was put into. Then I came discreetly up here and waited for you to return. You need therefore have no fear that my name is in any way connected with yours or my presence here known about.’ He bowed curtly.

‘I am most grateful to you for coming.’

‘Thank you. May I ask how you obtained my address?’

‘From a man named Pashik.’

‘Ah, yes. I thought it must be him.’ He looked thoughtfully into space.

‘Do you know him well, Herr Petlarov?’

‘You mean what is my opinion of him?’

‘Yes.’

He considered for a moment. ‘Let us say that I do not subscribe to the common belief that he is merely a disagreeable person whose political views change with the person he talks to. But now that I am here, what do you want of me?’

I had held out my cigarettes. His hand had gone out to them as he was speaking, but now he hesitated. He looked up from the cigarettes, and his eyes met mine.

‘I have some more,’ I said.

He smiled in a deprecatory way. ‘If you had perhaps a bar of chocolate or a biscuit, Herr Foster, it would, I think, be better for my stomach than tobacco.’

‘Of course.’ I went to my suitcase. ‘I have no chocolate, but here are some biscuits.’

I had a box, bought in Paris for the train journey and then forgotten. I opened it. The biscuits were the kind with pink icing sugar on them.

‘Not very good for a bad stomach,’ I remarked.

He took one with a polite smile. ‘Oh yes. Excellent.’ He nibbled at it with very white false teeth.

‘Pashik gave me your piece on Deltchev to read,’ I said.

‘Oh, yes? It was considered unsuitable for publication.’

‘By Pashik?’

‘Yes, but I was not surprised or upset. I knew that it had been commissioned in the belief that because I had had a difference of opinion with Yordan I would therefore write about him in an unfavourable way. If Pashik had asked me, I would have told him what to expect. Fortunately he did not ask.’

‘Fortunately?’

‘If he had known he would not have commissioned the article, and I needed the money.’

‘Oh, I see. I have a bottle of whisky here. Would it be safe to ask the floor waiter for some glasses?’

‘I think not. Perhaps I may have another biscuit.’

‘Of course, please help yourself. You know, Herr Petlarov, I came here to write a series of articles about the trial of Deltchev. But Pashik seems afraid that I shall offend the censor if I do them here.’

‘He is probably right,’ he said calmly. ‘He is usually right about these thing. Yes, I can see. If you offend he will be blamed.’

I must have looked disbelieving. He took another biscuit. ‘I will tell you a little story about the regime. A member of the People’s Party wrote a novel about the fight of a group of workmen with the capitalists who wished to close a factory. It was a naive story in which the capitalists were all monsters of evil and the workmen’s leader a People’s Party man. The Propaganda Minister, whose name is Brankovitch, would not, however, allow its publication. He said that the hero was not positive.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘The author had not demonstrated that the hero member of the party was a good man.’

‘But surely that was inferred.’

‘Brankovitch would say that you were in intellectual error, Herr Foster. Inference is not positive. The public must be instructed that the man is good, as they must be instructed in all things.’

‘You must be exaggerating.’

‘In London or New York I would be exaggerating. Here, no. The sequel to this is that the writer was angry and made a little propaganda of his own. He has now been sent to forced labour. Pashik does not see that fate for himself. You see, Herr Foster, those who must be persuaded to obey are no longer important, for shortly we shall cease to exist. Our liquidation has begun.’ He smiled significantly.

‘What do you mean?’

He took another biscuit and held it up. ‘This is the third biscuit I have taken,’ he said. ‘There are twenty-one left in the box. I can eat nine more.’

‘You can have the box.’

He inclined his head. ‘Thank you. I had hoped that you would give it to me. I had based my calculations on your doing so. If I eat nine more I shall have eaten twelve. That will leave twelve for my wife. Luckily we have no children to share with us.’

I was silent.

‘I will explain. It is quite simple. Persons who are listed as untrustworthy are not allowed to work at anything but manual labour. I tried that, but I am not strong enough. So, as I cannot work, my wife and I may not have ration cards. We are, of course, very often hungry, and that can make a good argument for obedience.’

I got up and went to the wardrobe for the whisky. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him reaching for another biscuit. He glanced over his shoulder at me.

‘Please do not distress yourself, Herr Foster. A bad conscience can, I know, be as unpleasant in some ways as an empty stomach, and the person with the biscuits so often has a bad conscience. The trouble is that most of us with empty stomachs also have bad consciences. That combination will prove deadly.’

‘I have a metal cup,’ I said, ‘and also a toothglass. If you like whisky-’

‘I tasted it once,’ he said courteously. ‘I thought it better than schnapps and more interesting than our plum brandy. You need not fear, however, that I shall insist on taking it away with the biscuits.’

I gave him the toothglass. He took a small sip and looked at me. ‘I know that you will forgive my telling you that before I came to see you this evening I looked up your name in an English reference book I have.’

‘You’d like to know what a playwright is doing writing articles about a political trial?’

‘Oh no. I see the connection. I was putting myself in your place for a moment. You have been in this city for two or three days perhaps. You do not know the country or the people. You are present at a trial which is like a game played for counters of which you do not know the value. Yet you have to interpret it for Western eyes.’

‘Something of the kind has already been said to me once today.’

He nodded calmly. ‘As a guide you have Pashik, a man so preoccupied with a problem of his own — self-preservation possibly, but we cannot be sure — that he can lead you only to the counter of the Propaganda Ministry.’ He took another biscuit. ‘Have you seen the official bulletin of the trial today?’

‘This?’ I took it out of my pocket. ‘They gave out copies as we left the courtroom.’

‘They will do so every day. Tell me, Herr Foster, what will there be in your articles that a clever, malicious journalist sitting in London could not contrive for himself from a set of these reports?’

‘I’m sure you have your own answer ready.’

‘Ah, I have offended you.’ He smiled. ‘But not seriously, I think, if you reflect. What I am suggesting to you, Herr Foster, is that you might find it useful to employ my services.’

‘Yes, that’s what I thought you meant. How?’

‘As a guide. I make this suggestion without embarrassment. You were kind enough to invite me to tell you some things about Yordan and of course I will do so.’ He touched the biscuit box. ‘I should have been well paid for that. But I think that I could be of further use to you.’ His haggard eyes looked up at me with a cold little smile in them. He licked a crumb off his lower lip.

‘I’m sure you could,’ I said, and waited.

‘For instance,’ he went on, ‘I wonder if you have considered that some of the evidence against Yordan Deltchev might not be as stupid as the Prosecution makes it.’ He looked into the toothglass.

An unpleasant suspicion crossed my mind. ‘Your difference of opinion with him,’ I said, ‘was over his radio speech approving the election, wasn’t it?’

He was very quick. He said calmly, ‘If I were an enemy of his I would not need to beg a gift of biscuits, Herr Foster. I should be a witness at his trial. And if, as your caution may suggest, I am here as an emissary of the Propaganda Ministry to try to corrupt your judgment, then you cannot yet have identified the man whose task it will be to do so.’

‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about. What man?’

‘Our friend Brankovitch has been forced to admit a number of hostile foreign journalists for the purpose of reporting this trial. Do you suppose that while they are here he will make no attempt to neutralize their hostility? Of course he must try. I can even tell you the procedure he will adopt. Tomorrow perhaps, or the next day, after Vukashin’s evidence has been heard, Brankovitch will call a foreign press conference and answer questions. Then, perhaps the next day, someone will approach you privately with a great secret. This person will tell you that he has discovered a way of getting uncensored messages out of the country. He will let you persuade him to share the discovery. Of course, your messages will not be sent, but they will serve as a guide to your intentions, which can then be anticipated in the official propaganda. Brankovitch likes, for some reason, to use agents provocateurs.’ He looked at me sardonically. ‘I know his sense of humour. It was I who recommended him to Yordan for a place on the Committee.’

I offered him a cigarette again. He hesitated. ‘If I might take two?’ he said.

‘One for your wife?’

‘Yes.’

‘Please take the packet.’

‘Thank you.’

It was not quite full. He counted the cigarettes in it carefully.

‘How did you meet Deltchev?’ I asked.

He looked up. ‘He was my partner,’ he said. He seemed surprised that I did not know.

I gave him a box of matches and he lit a cigarette.

‘Thank you.’ He blew smoke. ‘When Yordan first practised as a lawyer, I was his clerk. Later I became his partner. When he was appointed Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, I became his assistant and secretary. I was also his friend.’

‘What sort of man is he? Superficially, I mean.’

‘Quiet, deliberate, very patient. A sound lawyer. If you were a journalist interviewing him in his office, you would probably be irritated by a habit he has of looking past you when he is talking. He keeps his desk very tidy and empties the ashtray as soon as you have put your cigarette out. Yet polite. He would tend to put words into your mouth — criticisms of himself — and then answer them. A bad habit for a lawyer, that. A man with a family — wife, son, daughter — of whom he is very fond, but not a family man. A good man, but not at ease with himself.’

‘The sort of man who would betray a principle for a bribe?’

‘Yordan has never valued money enough to be corrupt in that way. Power might have tempted him once. You speak, of course, of his actions over the election promise.’

‘Yes.’

‘If he was paid to make that radio speech, he gave up what he might value — power — to gain what he did not value — money.’ He shrugged. ‘I have had plenty of time for thinking, and much bitterness has gone. At one time I thought of killing Yordan for what he did then, but even in hate I never supposed that he had been bribed.’

‘What is your explanation?’

‘I have none. Yordan was often accused of being merely a shrewd politician. In retrospect that seems as ridiculous as the accusation now that he is a murderer. By unnecessarily bringing about the November elections he committed political suicide and betrayed all the people who were loyal to him. You ask for an explanation.’ He threw up his hands. ‘It is as easy to say that he was insane as to deny that he was bribed. When I faced him in his room that night he did not look insane. He looked strangely at peace with himself. That made me more angry, and, you know, in anger many things seem clear. “Why?” I shouted at him. “Why?” “It is better so,” was all he replied. Then, when I had finished abusing him, I said, “Papa Deltchev has gone and the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs has returned. Papa Deltchev was not strong enough to bear a people’s love!” ’ Petlarov looked across at me and smiled slightly. ‘But now I cannot remember what I meant,’ he added.

After a moment I asked, ‘Will the election matter be raised at the trial?’

He shook his head. ‘Not by the Prosecutor. For the regime, the less said about the election the better. But they might tolerate the defence’s making play with it to suggest Yordan’s fundamental sympathy with the regime.’

‘Who is defending?’

‘His name is Stanoiev. It amused me to use it here. He is the Party member appointed to defend. His arguments in mitigation will be given prominence. They will serve as the final condemnation.’ He frowned. ‘What I do not understand is this affair of the Officer Corps Brotherhood. Yordan’s attitude toward Soviet occupation — yes, that is something to argue and misinterpret, to deal with speciously. But the Officer Corps Brotherhood is another matter. They make so much of it that they must have something. Yet the idea is absurd.’

‘Surely it’s easy enough to manufacture evidence?’

‘Yes, but that is not their way. Consider the case of Cardinal Mindszenty. He was accused of an offence against the currency regulations. We know that it was only technically an offence and not committed for his own gain, but he was guilty of it and that was the reason it was used. If he had been charged as a corrupter of youth it would have made much better propaganda, and no doubt the evidence could have been manufactured. But no — the currency offence could be proved. The lie stands most securely on a pinpoint of truth.’ He took the last of his twelve biscuits and shut the box. ‘What do you want of me, Herr Foster?’

‘You have already given me a great deal.’

‘I have a suggestion. Why do you not talk to Madame Deltchev?’

‘Is it possible?’

‘Yes, for you. She and her household are under protection — that is, they are not permitted to leave the house, which is guarded — but your permits will allow you to pass. I will give you a letter to her. She will see no other journalist, I assure you. You will make a coup.’

‘Yes, I see that. What kind of woman is she?’

‘She was a schoolteacher in the town where we practised years ago. She came of a Greek family. If she had married me instead of Yordan, perhaps I should have become a Minister. But better that you should form your own opinion. If you wish, I will come here every evening at this time to give you what information and comment I can.’ He leaned forward and touched my knee with his forefinger. ‘Is it agreed?’

‘Agreed. But what is my part of the agreement?’

He hesitated. ‘Money — a little, what you consider fair — and your ration card. Not the restaurant tickets — those you will need and I could not use — but the ration card for bread, meat, butter, milk, eggs, and green vegetables. As a foreigner, you have one on the highest scale, I think.’

‘Yes.’

‘You still have it? You have not already disposed of it?’

‘No. It’s yours. I’ll get it now.’

He sighed. ‘It is as well that my wife is not here,’ he said. ‘She would weep.’

Later, when he had gone, I sat by the window and had a whisky and water in the toothglass. I was beginning to feel perceptive and understanding.

That was the point at which I should have packed my bag and gone home.