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 the 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.
