Judgment on Deltchev

by Eric Ambler

  ‘What is it you want me to do?’

  ‘To deliver a letter for me.’

  ‘What letter?’

  She took a letter from her blouse pocket.

  ‘Can’t you post it?’

  ‘I am not permitted. Besides-’ She hesitated.

  ‘You just want me to post it for you?’

  ‘To deliver it, Herr Foster.’

  ‘Why can’t I post it?’

  ‘There is internal censorship.’

  ‘Where is it to be delivered?’

  ‘Inside the city, Herr Foster,’ she said eagerly. ‘Near the station.’

  ‘Who is it to?’

  She hesitated again. ‘A young man,’ she said.

  ‘Supposing I’m caught with it?’

  ‘You will not be, Herr Foster. Rana said that when she opened the door the guards were friendly to you. Please, Herr Foster.’

  I thought for a moment of the guards and of their friendliness. The muscles in my shoulder had stiffened slightly.

  ‘All right, Fraulein. A pleasure.’

  ‘Thank you, Herr Foster.’

  I took the letter and glanced at the envelope. The address was in block letters and quite clear. I put it in my pocket.

  Her smile was replaced suddenly by a look of anxiety. ‘When will you deliver it?’

  ‘Tomorrow sometime. When I can.’

  She would have liked to ask me to deliver it that night, but I was not going to do that. I made as if to go.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said again. ‘I will show you out now if you wish.’

  She had a small hand-lamp. We went out and across the dark courtyard to the door in the wall. She undid the bolts.

  ‘Good night, Herr Foster,’ she whispered, and then, standing behind the door so that she could not be seen from outside, she opened it.

  The beam of a powerful flash shone in my face, blinding me. I stepped through the wall, and the door closed behind my back. I stood still.

  ‘Papieren,’ said a remembered voice.

  I got out my wallet and opened it with the press permit showing. The Private was holding the flashlight. The Corporal came into the beam of it. He glanced at the permit without touching it and then, smiling at me grimly, he nodded and with his thumb motioned me on my way. He said something and the Private laughed. They were pleased that I had so quickly learned my lesson.

  It was only as I walked away up the street and the beating of my heart began to return to normal that I realized that, for a moment or two, while the light had been shining on my face and while I had wondered if they might be going to search me after all, I had been very frightened. I fingered the pocket with the letter. It crackled faintly. I smiled to myself. I was childishly pleased. I did not know that I had just performed one of the most foolish actions of my life.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  As usual now, I had breakfast with Pashik. ‘Last night, Mr Foster,’ he said, ‘I telephoned your hotel.’

  ‘I was out.’

  ‘Yes. It does not matter.’ In his brown eyes was the faint hostility of the lover determined not to be possessive. ‘It was to tell you that Monsieur Brankovitch, the Minister of Propaganda, has called a foreign-press conference for this evening. We, of course, have been invited.’

  ‘Oh?’ What Petlarov had said about the tactics of the Propaganda Ministry came into my mind.

  ‘Monsieur Brankovitch will speak and also answer questions,’ said Pashik solemnly. ‘It will be very interesting. The food and drink will be excellent.’

  ‘And there will be a collection taken for the poor of the Parish.’

  ‘I beg pardon.’

  ‘Nothing. A bad joke.’

  ‘The conference will be in the state rooms of the Ministry at six o’clock.’

  ‘Good.’

  He dabbed his bread in his coffee. ‘Have you seen Petlarov again, Mr Foster?’

  ‘Yes. I thought you’d rather not know about it.’ For a moment I wondered if I should also tell him that I had been to see Madame Deltchev, and then decided not to.

  ‘As long as there is no indiscretion, Mr Foster.’

  ‘He comes privately to my hotel room. The reception clerk does not know him.’

  He sighed unhappily. ‘No doubt he will be discreet for his own sake. Is he still of interest to you?’

  ‘Yes. He is an intelligent man, don’t you think?’

  ‘If he had used his intelligence, Mr Foster, I should be more sympathetic towards him.’

  ‘You mean if he had played ball with the regime?’

  ‘Of course. That is the realistic attitude.’

  We went off to the trial.

  That day, the third, six witnesses were heard. All of them had been members of the Committee of National Unity, and all, except one, were members of the People’s Party. The exception was a man named Lipka, and he was a member of the anti-Deltchev section of the Agrarian Socialists.

  For the most part, the evidence consisted of repetitions of the assertions made by Vukashin the day before. A mass of documents, including the minutes of the Committee meetings for the critical period, was produced, and there was a great deal of pseudo-legal fuss about which documents could and which could not be admitted as exhibits. The minutes were naturally well to the fore. As minutes they were quite often worse than useless, but as ammunition for the Prosecutor they were just the thing. I remember one typical item: ‘After some discussion the Committee agreed that Y. Deltchev should meet again with the Anglo-American representatives and urge them to delay the final decision on the proposals previously made.’ The prosecutor’s witnesses declared that the ‘discussion’ in question had been an effort by Deltchev and his henchmen to stampede the Committee into accepting a set of Anglo-American proposals it had not even seen and that the Committee’s decision had made Deltchev ‘grind his teeth with rage’. The judges had a word or two to say and even the defendant’s counsel, Stanoiev, felt it safe to join in this sort of argument. At one point, indeed, there was a fair simulation of a legal battle between the two advocates — a battle between two clowns with rubber swords — and, in the approved fashion, high words were exchanged.

  The only effective witness was Lipka. He was one of those angry, embittered men who bear the news of their defeat in their faces; prepared always for hostility, they succeed in provoking no more than weary impatience. A talentless but ambitious man, he had been an Agrarian Socialist deputy for many years without achieving office, and his membership on the Committee had seemed to him the long-awaited recognition of his worth and the beginning of his period of fulfilment. In fact, his value to the unconstitutional Committee had resided simply in his status as an elected deputy, and when posts in the Provisional Government were being allotted he had been passed over without a thought. From that moment he had nursed an almost pathological hatred of Deltchev. At one time that hatred had been something over which people smiled and shrugged. Now, at last, the People’s Party had turned it to account. His mode of attack was stupid but damaging.

  Most of those whose work is directly related to the moods and behaviour of the public are inclined to refer to it on occasion in disparaging, even insulting terms. But, while a gibe at popular stupidity from a harassed bus conductor may be amusing, the same gibe from the mouth of a leading politician has, for many, an uglier sound. What Lipka did was to quote Deltchev’s private comments on various matters and contrast them with public utterances made by him at the same time.

  ‘Papa’ Deltchev had made a speech officially regretting an incident in which some peasants, misunderstanding or ignoring a Red Army order to keep out of a certain area, had been shot down by Russian sentries. In private he had said, ‘It might not be a bad thing if a few more of the damn fools were shot.’ After a speech congratulating the farmers on their public-spirited efforts to send more food to the towns ‘Papa’ Deltchev had said privately, ‘Thank God, they’ve had sense enough at last to find the black market.’ On his own proposals for dealing with t
he fuel shortage ‘Papa’ Deltchev had remarked, ‘And if they’re still cold we can always print a few more copies of the regulations for them to burn.’

  There were altogether about a dozen examples given of the prisoner’s ‘contemptuous disregard of the welfare of the people whose interests he pretended to have at heart’. No doubt there were, as Lipka claimed, many others that could have been quoted. The muttered asides of an overworked Minister of State grappling with administrative chaos are unlikely to be distinguished for their sweetness or reason, and if he is an impatient man with crude notions of humour, they may be better forgotten. Certainly they cannot fairly be used as evidence of his true mind and intentions.

  In his only interruption of the day Deltchev made this point himself. He said, ‘The doctor called out in the middle of a cold night may privately curse all mankind, but that curse does not prevent his doing his best for the patient.’

  This remark was immediately excluded from the record as irrelevant. It had its effect in court, but I was beginning to see that it was not in the court that Deltchev was being tried.

  Petlarov’s comments were not reassuring.

  ‘After sitting for three days in that courtroom,’ he said, ‘you may realize that not one single piece of evidence that could be called evidence in a civilized court of law has been offered in support of the charges and that the only piece of sense uttered has been supplied by the prisoner in his own defence. And yet already much damage has been done. The grocer I now visit again — thanks to you, my friend — is an intelligent man and a supporter of Deltchev. He detests the People’s Party and suspects what he reads in the controlled press. Yet the trial is important to him, and as he cannot attend in person, he must read the official reports in the newspapers. He reads with great suspicion, of course, and he discounts much of what he reads. But where is his standard of measurement? How can he discriminate? He reads that Minister Vukashin’s evidence proves conclusively certain accusations against Deltchev. Can he ask by what rules of evidence Vukashin’s statements are held to constitute a proof of anything except their own dishonesty? Of course not. He is a cautious man and hard to convince, but when I asked him today what he thinks, he is uneasy and does not like to meet my eye. “Evidently,” he says to me, “there was much evil that we did not know about. Even if these pigs must find it out, it is best that we know. We are in a mess all right.” And you know, Herr Foster, for the Vukashins and the Brankovitches, that is success. The disillusioned do not fight.’

  ‘I thought that it was the possible truth of some of the allegations that was worrying you.’

  ‘The foreign press is not so easily disturbed by official bulletins, as my grocer. What did Madame have to say about the Brotherhood?’

  ‘She said quite confidently that the charges were absurd.’

  ‘Did you believe her?’

  ‘I believe she sincerely thinks they are absurd.’

  ‘You were impressed, eh?’

  ‘Yes. She said she thought you were being over-clever.’

  ‘It is possible. I hope so. But remember that the only parts of his indictment which make statements that can be proved or disproved are those referring to the Brotherhood. You may create a haze of misrepresentation to prove that a man had evil intentions and cast doubts on his denials; but if you claim that on a certain date he went to a certain place and saw a certain person and he can prove that he did not, you are lost. Because the court invites your contempt, do not suppose that Prochaska and Brankovitch are fools.’

  ‘What does Katerina Deltchev do?’

  ‘She was an art student.’

  ‘Was?’

  ‘Is, for all I know. But of course she cannot attend classes at present.’ He looked at my wrist watch. ‘It is time for you to go. You must not miss Brankovitch.’

  I went to the press conference in a gloomy frame of mind.

  The Ministry of Propaganda occupied one of the wings of what had once been the royal palace. It had been built, during a period of national prosperity toward the end of the eighteenth century, to the design of an Italian architect who had seen Versailles. Only a quarter of the building planned had been completed, but the resultant structure was imposing and quite large enough to contain three ministries and the national bank. The Propaganda Minister’s press conference took place in a large stateroom with a painted ceiling and two vast chandeliers. Chairs had been ranged in a semicircle round the marquetry desk at which the Minister was to stand. To one side there was a long table arranged as a buffet, with napkins covering the food on it.

  Among the American and British correspondents Brankovitch was known as Creeping Jesus; he had a peculiar way of walking with his head and shoulders slightly in front of the rest of his body while his arms remained at a position of attention at his sides. By the French correspondents it was said that the posture was imposed upon him, as, in his imagination, Brankovitch carried two portfolios under his arms: that of his own ministry on one side and that of the head of the government on the other. He was a pale, dark man with a massive head and supercilious eyes. A graduate of Warsaw University, he had once been a mining engineer and his connection with politics had begun with pamphleteering. He had made a name for himself before the war as the arch-opponent of the foreign oil companies. He was a clever, ambitious man who never missed a chance of referring most emphatically to his loyalty to and admiration of Vukashin. They were many jokes made about these fulsome references to his leader; but it was said that, while he did not laugh at the jokes when they were reported to him, neither did he frown. It was believed that Vukashin disliked him personally but respected his judgment.

  There were about sixty persons in the room; about half of us were foreigners. Brankovitch came in briskly, followed by two male secretaries bearing files and notebooks, and those who had been standing about talking took their seats. Brankovitch waited, looking round, until the movements had ceased. Then he began.

  ‘Gentlemen of the press,’ he said in German, ‘I have invited you to meet me here with three objects in mind. First, I wish to help you as far as possible in your work by giving you certain information necessary to your understanding of the evidence soon to be given in the criminal trial you are reporting. Next, I wish to give you an opportunity of asking me questions on matters of fact, and also’ — he smiled slightly — ‘on matters of opinion to which you may feel you already know the answers. Thirdly, I wished for the pleasure of renewing acquaintance with those of you I already know and of meeting those I don’t know. But business before pleasure, as the English say. I will speak briefly and then there will be time for questions.’

  He glanced at his watch. He had a sort of brusque amiability that was not displeasing; he did not much care what we thought of him or mind if his amiability were not reciprocated. He was the busy man prepared to waste a little time on fools and so, logically, indifferent to foolishness.

  ‘Let me tell you,’ he said, ‘about the Officer Corps Brotherhood; not about its origins — I feel sure you know about those — but about its later activities and its methods. Terrorist societies are not recent institutions. Most countries have suffered from them. Many countries, including the United States of America, still do suffer from them occasionally. It is the duty of all civilized governments, when these occasions arise, to seek out and destroy the criminals. It is the duty, I say; yet, of course, the duty is not always performed. Sometimes the government is itself terrorized. In other cases the government may sympathize with the terrorists’ aims and secretly wish them well. I need hardly tell you that the Government of the People’s Party is neither intimidated by nor in any degree sympathetic to the Officer Corps Brotherhood. We will not tolerate crime of any sort. The workman who kills his mate in a moment of rage and the fanatic who kills his ideological enemy in cold blood shall have the same justice.’

  ‘From a People’s Court?’ somebody in the row behind me murmured; but if Brankovitch heard, he took no notice. He went on, ‘Under the reaction
ary governments of the pre-war years the Brotherhood became a great and terrible burden to our people. It is not known for certain how many murders it was responsible for. Without doubt the number must be reckoned in hundreds. I can tell you with more precision that the number of violent attacks on the person committed by the Brotherhood in the ten years between 1930 and 1940 was about one thousand four hundred. This figure includes only those cases serious enough to need hospital treatment. The reason for the greater precision is, of course, that those persons lived to explain what had happened. The injuries included bullet wounds — approximately six hundred cases; stabbings — approximately two hundred cases; acid-throwing — approximately thirty cases; flogging — approximately two hundred cases; and severe bruising and beating with truncheons, rods, and other weapons made up the remainder.’

  He had been referring to notes in front of him. Now he pushed them aside.

  ‘But statistics can give little idea of the emotional consequences of this state of affairs, of the hatreds and fears aroused and of the effect on the social life of the community. I will tell you, therefore, of one typical case among the known cases and leave the rest to your imaginations. It is the case of Kyril Shatev, who was prefect to this city in 1940. A man named Brodno, a criminal pervert and a member of the Brotherhood, had been arrested on suspicion of murder. There was plenty of evidence on this occasion and Shatev determined to bring this man to trial. Immediately he began to receive the usual threats from the Brotherhood. He ignored them. I will be quite honest with you; past experience told him that when the case came for trial the attentions of the Brotherhood would turn from him to the judge trying the case. The judge might yield, but that was not Shatev’s business. However, he miscalculated. The probability is that the evidence against Brodno incriminated senior members of the Brotherhood and was for them too dangerous to be heard. The Sunday before the date of the trial was to be set, Shatev, with his wife, his two young children, and two female servants, was at his house about ten kilometres out of the city. They were about to sit down to the midday meal when a car drove up and three men got out. They said they wanted water for the car. A servant unthinkingly opened the outer door and the men pushed past her, knocking her senseless with a pistol butt. Then they went into the house. Shatev tried to defend his family and was immediately shot. Unfortunately for him, he did not die at once. The men had a bayonet, and the two children were killed with it. Shatev’s wife was then forced to witness her husband’s sexual mutilation, also with the bayonet. She was then killed herself. The other servant was not harmed. She was to serve as a witness, they said, that the sentence of the Brotherhood had been carried out. She was threatened, however, that if she attempted to identify the murderers she too would be killed. The murderers were never identified and Brodno was never tried.’