Judgment on Deltchev

CHAPTER TWENTY

The parade began at two o’clock.

It was only a quarter of a mile or so from the hotel to the Square, but the crowds along the route of the parade and in the streets approaching the Square were dense. It took me a long time to get through. The day was very warm and I felt tired and ill and frightened. I had not eaten any lunch. My legs were like paper and I kept thinking that I had lost something valuable. The sensation was curiously familiar. I had felt like that once before. And then I remembered: it had been when I was walking back to a hotel in Seville after seeing my first and only bullfight.

The press box was in a wooden stand built over the cathedral steps and at right-angles to the front of the palace. The parade would pass below it, then bear left to march past the saluting base halfway up the palace steps. There a waist-high balustrade had been erected. It was draped with flags, and on the step below, flowers were banked to give an appearance of depth to the structure. Behind and above it were the crowded boxes of the lesser dignitaries. The whole Square was a mass of flags and brilliantly coloured flowers. The façades of the buildings that formed the square were mostly of a honey-coloured stone, but the paving had been spread with white sand, and in the bright hot sunshine the effect was dazzling.

It was five minutes to the hour when I got there, and all but a few seats in the box were already filled. I could see the back of Sibley’s head near the front. Nearly everyone had sunglasses, but I had forgotten mine, and the glare from the sand was painful. Somewhere a military band was playing, and every now and then a section of the crowd would raise a cheer. Heads would turn at the sound, but the cheer would die away. I looked at the rooftops. There was a canopy over the stand I was in and I could see only a small section of them. From there to the saluting base was a little over two hundred yards. At that range even a recruit could hit a man with one burst from an automatic gun. Perhaps even now an eye was peering through sights at the palace steps.

I wiped my face and neck with my handkerchief and looked at the official programme. A duplicated translation had been slipped into it for the benefit of us foreigners. The parade would symbolize the plough and the sword in harmony together. First would come the floats carrying the tableaux of the various industries and crafts. Then the massed representatives of sport and culture. Finally the parade of military and air power. The whole parade would be led by a special tableau depicting the victory of the People’s Party. This tableau would halt before the Ministry of the Interior to summon the Party leaders to witness the parade, the visible demonstration of the triumph of their work for the Motherland.

I had seen this float lurking in a side street just off the square. It was a huge affair mounted on a platform carried by an aircraft transportation truck. Art, Science, Industry, Agriculture, and Armed Might, each with its subsidiary tableau, were grouped round a white flag-decked plinth supporting a huge Winged Victory in wood and plaster. The subsidiary tableaux had the usual props: for Industry there was an anvil, for Science a retort on a bench, for Agriculture a plough and so on. There were brackets and ledges jutting out from the sides of the plinth obviously for the use of the girls in voluminous white robes who would presently drape themselves round the feet of the Victory.

At eight minutes past two another band entered into the Square and formed up round the statue in the centre. Then the bodyguards marched in with machine pistols at the ready and to the accompaniment of excited cheers took up their positions on the steps below the saluting base. The stage was being set. At two eleven a squadron of cavalry clattered round from the far side and halted in line beneath the stand I was in. An order was shouted. The cavalry drew their sabres, and a single note on a bugle sounded. With a crash the bands began to play the national anthem. All those who had seats rose to their feet. Then with a roar of cheering, a waving of flags and hats, and another crash of music the Winged Victory float began to move into the square.

My heart was beating so quickly and the blood was thudding so violently in my head that the din of brass bands and cheering was like a continuous rushing sound. I sat down, but it was no better. I stood up again. A man’s voice came through the loudspeakers. He was talking very quickly — giving a description of the tableaux, I suppose. The Victory, preceded by a small detachment of troops on foot, turned jerkily and passed our stand. The statue was wobbling as it moved along and the girls posing on the plinth wobbled with it; but I had no desire to laugh. I found myself staring at the tableau of Industry on one corner of the platform. A man in a leather apron had a sledgehammer raised above the anvil as if to strike. His arms were already feeling the strain and I watched the head of the hammer gradually getting lower. Then the float began to turn again and he was out of sight. On the far side of the square, troops presented arms as the Victory came into view. It crawled on until it was nearly level with the centre statue, then swung across to the foot of the steps exactly facing the saluting base and stopped. The girls on the plinth took up a new pose so that they all faced the palace.

Suddenly there was a tremendous roll of drums, and over the entire Square the crowd fell silent. The drums ceased abruptly. Then the bands began to play the People’s Party marching song. All heads were turned toward the palace portico and the aisle of steps that ran down between the upper boxes to the saluting base. Through the loudspeakers came the sound of a choir singing the song. The crowd joined in. The air seemed to quiver with the sound. Then, as the song reached its climax — the great shout of affirmation that came on the final note — Vukashin appeared at the top of the steps and the cheering began.

He was wearing a black suit and had a cloth cap in his hand. For a moment he stood there motionless. Then he raised a hand in salute and began to walk down the steps toward the saluting base, while the cheering swelled up. When he was about two steps down, a man in the uniform of a marshal stepped from the group behind him and began to follow. The Minister of the Interior came next. And then Brankovitch started down.

He, too, was dressed in black, but very neatly, and he wore a grey Homburg. He walked down slowly and deliberately as if he were unaware of what was going on in the square below. As he passed the upper boxes, the occupants of which were clapping, he nodded casually to someone he knew there.

Vukashin had reached the base. Now he walked forward to the balustrade and looked down. A fresh storm of cheering greeted him. The marshal and the Minister of the Interior moved to left and right of him. Brankovitch moved to the balustrade beside the Minister of the Interior and said something to him. The latter smiled and pointed to the Victory. By this time the whole length of the balustrade was occupied. There were two or three uniforms, but most wore dark suits with grey Homburgs. There was only one cloth cap — Vukashin’s. On the other side of Brankovitch was a stout man who held himself as if he had a boil on his neck. They were about a foot apart. Brankovitch turned sideways to say something to him.

Vukashin raised his hand in acknowledgment to the Victory tableau, and with a jerk it set off again. At the same moment the bands struck up and the main procession began to move in.

It was headed by a detachment of men in white dungarees marching eight abreast. But I barely noticed them. My eyes were on Brankovitch. He was still talking to the man at his side.

As clapping and cheering broke out again, I began desperately to try to reassure myself. It just could not be! I had been listening to the babblings of a lunatic. Or — better, far better! — the verdict of Passaic and Oakland and Hagerstown had been that those things which were God’s should be rendered unto God, that Article something-or-other-of-the-Constitution-of-the-United-States-of-America — nobody can do anything that affects the life, liberty, or person of anybody, without the aforesaid democratic procedure — is properly and faithfully observed, and that the best thing Georghi Pashik could do would be to get his fat arse the hell out of it and send that suit to the cleaner’s.

I was suddenly sure that it was going to be all right. At any moment now Pashik would appear beside me, businesslike, courteous, and all for playing ball with the regime. I almost laughed with relief. The time was two nineteen.

And then it happened.

The head of the parade had curved into the straight in front of the saluting base and Brankovitch turned to look at them. For a second or two he stopped talking and was absolutely still. The next moment the toneless, tearing rattle of a burst of Spandau fire echoed round the Square. And almost, it seemed, before the echo of the first had done one leg of its journey, a second burst came.

I had my eyes on Brankovitch. There must have been some sort of stool or bench behind each of them to rest against during the parade, for he lurched back as if he were falling and then stopped for a moment. I saw the second burst hit him in the neck. Then he turned slightly sideways as if he were going to talk to the Minister of the Interior again and crumpled out of sight behind the balustrade.

The man with the boil was the quickest witted. He took cover behind the balustrade a second after Brankovitch fell. There might, after all, have been other bullets on the way. The Minister of the Interior just stood staring. Vukashin gave one quick look round, then went as if to help Brankovitch. I think that for about ten seconds only a very few of the spectators realized that there was anything amiss at the saluting base. Most of them had just shifted their attention to the parade. But someone screamed. At the same moment men began shouting above the noise of the bands, and the bodyguard closed in defensively round the saluting base with their guns pointed at the crowd. Then a wave of panic came. All at once everyone seemed to be shouting or screaming. The bands stopped and the parade slowed uncertainly. The Winged Victory, now on the far side of the Square, jerked to a standstill. I saw one of the girls fall off the plinth as a great mass of people trying to get out of the Square surged forward round the thing. A man near me in the press box was shouting like a maniac. I was very near the exit. I stumbled to it and got down the steps. An official coming up shouted something and tried to stop me, but I pushed past him and made for the narrow street that ran between the cathedral and the adjoining building in the Square. This street had been closed by the police and made to serve as a main entrance for box-ticket holders and I thought that if I could get behind the cathedral before the crowds in the Square were completely out of control and the surrounding streets impassable, I might reach the hotel in time to finish what I had to do.

Others in the boxes had had the same idea. The street was filling rapidly and most of the people were running. I began to run too. By the time I reached it, the police barrier at the end had been swept away and people were clambering over the remains of it to join the frantic stream pouring out of the square. It would have been difficult to walk then even if I had wished to, for to the shouting and screaming in the square behind us was now added the sound of shooting as the bodyguard fired over the heads of the panic-stricken crowd. Everybody ran. I must have run about a quarter of a mile before it seemed safe to walk. People had begun to sink down exhausted on the pavements. Many of them were crying. I walked on and found myself in a street of small shops. I had no idea whereabouts I was. The shopkeepers had put their shutters up for the day and I did not want to try asking anyone who knew what had happened for directions. It was not a good moment to reveal oneself as a foreigner.

I walked on aimlessly, looking for a familiar landmark. What I felt I had to do was to see Madame Deltchev and tell her about Pashik before I went. In the confusion I had had the absurd idea that I might get my bag and typewriter from the hotel, be driven to the Deltchev house in a hotel car, and go straight on to the station from there. I knew now that that was out of the question. Even if I managed to find my way to the hotel and hire a car, the chance of getting anyone that day who was willing to drive to Yordan Deltchev’s house was small. And that made me realize something else. Unless I could get to the house before news of the assassination reached the sentries on the door, the chances were that I would not be allowed in. It was twenty to three now. Almost certainly the radio had shut down the moment the thing had happened. It would be at least an hour before any official statement was issued; but meanwhile the news and wild distortions of it would be spreading all over the city by word of mouth. I would have to be quick.

I hurried on. The sun was in my eyes. If I kept on walking west I must eventually come to the wall of the

Presidential Park. Then, if I followed the wall round, I must come eventually to the quarter in which the house was.

I got there, but it took me well over half an hour and toward the end I began to think that I must be too late. The atmosphere of the city was extraordinary. Just by looking along a street you could see that something serious had happened. People stood about in small groups on the pavements outside their houses, talking very quietly. I had guessed right about the radio being off. Not a sound came from the open windows of the apartment houses. There were armoured cars about, too, parked at road junctions or slowly cruising. Vukashin must have been ready to put a standard emergency control plan into operation the instant he got back into the Ministry. As I walked along in the hot sun, I began to see that I might have difficulty in leaving the city that night.

To my dismay, there were several groups of people standing about outside the Deltchev house, and as I drew nearer, I saw that there were extra guards on the door. I wondered if Vukashin yet knew that there was no Philip Deltchev to be arrested. The chances were that, with Vukashin unable to admit to any precise understanding of the situation, things at the palace were still confused. The people waiting here in the street must have heard fantastic rumours and gravitated to the Deltchev house simply because it was the nearest place with important political associations. I could even reflect brutally that, with Brankovitch dead, the worst thing that could happen to me here now was that I would be refused admittance. The same Corporal was there. He was looking more sullen than usual and anxious. That probably meant that he knew nothing.

I went up to him and he recognized me with a nod. I produced my papers. He glanced at them doubtfully and handed them back, but made no signal to let me through.

‘I don’t know, mein Herr,’ he said in German. ‘I must await orders.’

‘What orders?’

‘Something has happened.’

‘What?’

He shook his head uneasily. ‘There are many rumours.’

‘You mean the riot?’

He looked at me keenly. ‘You know what it is?’

‘There was a riot in the Square during the parade. The troops had to fire.’

‘A riot? You are sure it is nothing more?’

‘It was very serious, I heard. Many were killed.’

‘But a riot?’ he insisted.

‘But of course. I was told by an officer ten minutes ago.’

‘An officer told you?’

‘Yes. I have said …’

He sighed impatiently. ‘These sheep!’ he exclaimed, nodding toward the waiting people. ‘These silly sheep, with their gossip! They tell me the Agrarian Socialists have attempted a coup and that a revolution has broken out. Sheep!’ He spat and then grinned. ‘A riot, you say. I know a way with rioters.’

I grinned back. He nodded to one of the sentries. The bell pealed and after a bit came the familiar sound of Rana’s sandals in the courtyard. I felt the eyes of the street upon me as I went in.

There was the same smell of furniture polish and the same slippery floors. There was the same room, and she rose from the same chair to greet me. There were the same gentle, intelligent eyes below the same broad forehead and there was the same polite smile. And yet for me nothing was the same; I saw her now in a different context.

The smile went out. ‘Herr Foster,’ she said quickly, ‘I am so glad you have come. What has happened? Something has. Rana says that there are people waiting outside in front of the house and additional guards. I don’t understand it.’

I did not answer for a moment. Then I said, ‘If you are asking me whether Aleko has succeeded, the answer is yes.’

‘Aleko?’

‘I have a train to catch, madame. Perhaps it will save time if I tell you that Pashik and I have talked very frankly to each other and that at this moment, and because it has been difficult for Pashik to keep you fully informed, I know a great deal more about the affair than you do. I came to tell you what you don’t already know.’

She stared at me and then very calmly sat down. ‘I see. You are a messenger from Pashik.’

‘No. Pashik doesn’t know I’m here.’

‘Where is he? With my son?’

‘Your son is in Athens. Pashik is in the city somewhere.’

‘You tell me Vukashin is dead. You saw it happen?’

‘I did not say Vukashin was dead, madame. I said that Aleko had succeeded. Brankovitch was assassinated just about an hour ago.’

‘Brankovitch?’ Her hands came down on the wooden arms of the chair with a violence that would have been painful if she had been able to feel pain at that moment.

‘Yes, Brankovitch.’

‘You saw it yourself?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well? Go on.’

I went on. It was difficult, for she kept interrupting with questions to not all of which I knew the answers. I said nothing of Katerina’s visit. There was no reason to do so. She probably knew of it anyway. When I had finished, she sat back slowly and shut her eyes. Her face was very smooth and beautiful.

‘I am leaving for Athens on the five-o’clock train. That’s if they’ll let me out, of course. I’ll see Philip tomorrow. His signed statement and mine will be in New York, Paris, and London by Tuesday at the latest. That will give Vukashin two days to make a fool of himself. After that he hasn’t got a chance.’

Slowly she opened her eyes. ‘My dear Herr Foster,’ she said wearily, ‘do you suppose that you can defeat men like Vukashin with external propaganda? The conception is naïve.’

‘I rather thought it was yours.’

‘Mine?’ She stood up angrily. ‘Pashik’s, perhaps. Not mine. Don’t you understand? They have defeated us.’

‘Then you were defeated anyway.’

She shook her head. ‘No. You see, Herr Foster, we could have come to terms with Brankovitch. He would have needed the Agrarian Socialists. He would have thought he was using them.’

‘And your husband?’

She looked vague. ‘Agreement could have been reached about that. An acquittal and then temporary retirement.’

In a very short space of time a lot of things went through my mind. Above them all, however, was the memory of my own voice asking if it were not dangerous to deny the street, and of the reply, the beautiful, saintly reply, ‘For my children, yes. For me, no, for I shall not try to impose my private world upon the real.’

I was aware then of a profound dislike of her and did not trouble to keep it out of my voice.

‘Do you really believe that?’ I answered.

She turned away to the window. ‘Herr Foster,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘do you think you are safe here?’

It was very unexpected. My wretched stomach jerked unpleasantly. ‘Safe?’ I said.

‘Aleko must realize by now what has been done by Pashik. You say he has already tried to kill you once. He might guess you were here.’

I saw then. I was being punished. I laughed. ‘If Aleko realizes what has been done, he will be far too busy getting out of the country to trouble about me. I can’t hurt him. If he doesn’t know what’s happened, then he is most probably under arrest by now. In that case I don’t think he would talk until he knew whether Vukashin was going to save him or not.’

‘You are very confident,’ she said coldly. ‘I think you are unwise to stay here.’

‘Then I shall go. I should like to say good bye to your daughter if I may.’

‘I will give her your message.’

‘Is there any message you would like me to give your son?’

‘Yes, Herr Foster. You may tell him if you will that he did well and that it is not our fault, his and mine, that we are defeated. If it is possible Katerina and I will join him soon in Athens.’

‘I’ll tell him. There’s one thing I should like to know.’

‘Yes?’

‘What induced your husband to make that election speech? What had gone wrong?’

‘Nothing that would make a newspaper story, Herr Foster.’

‘It is for my own information that I ask.’

She shrugged. ‘As you please. It is no longer important, I suppose, what sort of man my husband was.’

When she had told me, I left.

I did not go back to the hotel. I reached the station with half an hour to spare. My passport got me on the train. The delay was at the frontier. It took me thirty-six hours to get to Athens, and by that time the Vukashin account of the Brankovitch assassination was out. The assassin was a man named Alexander Gatin and he, together with an accomplice named Pashik, had been shot and killed while resisting arrest.

Philip Deltchev was a pompous but amiable young man and very grateful for his mother’s message. He said that it made him feel much better about everything. He was quite sure that she would contrive to join him. He did not mention his father.