Michalec, crouching to the old man’s ear. “They’re ready,” Todescu whispered.
“Good,” said Michalec. “Send them in. I’m sick of waiting.”
Todescu left again. Up front, Pankov was shaking his guard’s hand off his shoulder and sitting down on his own.
Behind Gavra, three officers-two colonels and a lieutenant general-entered and walked around the edge of the chairs toward the table at the end of the room. A soldier switched on the video camera that faced the Pankovs. The couple whispered animatedly, shaking their heads, but the crowd was silent, watching the men approach the bench and stand behind their chairs. The lieutenant general, in the center, spoke, his voice sounding strained and awkward. “I call this session of the trial of Tomiak and Ilona Pankov to order.” Then he patted his damp forehead with the back of his hand. The man was terrified.
Before the lieutenant general could continue, Tomiak Pankov leaned forward and spoke loudly. “I only recognize the Grand National Assembly. I will only speak in front of it.” He planted his fist on the table to punctuate his statement, and Gavra could see his wife rubbing his knee under the table in encouragement.
Pankov was ignored.
A young man in the front row stood, shaking his head, and turned to look at the audience. He wore an elegant Western suit and held an open notepad. “In the same way he refused to hold a dialogue with the people,” he said, glancing at his notes, “now he also refuses to speak with us.”
It all sounded very rehearsed to Gavra.
“He always claimed to act and speak on behalf of the people, to be a beloved son of the people, but he only tyrannized the people all the time.” This, then, was the prosecutor. He examined his notes again. “You are faced with charges that you held sumptuous celebrations on all holidays at your house. The details are known. These two defendants,” he said, motioning toward them with a broad sweep of his hand, “procured the most luxurious foodstuffs and clothes from abroad. They were even worse than the king, the former king. The people received only two hundred grams per day, and only with an identity card.”
“Eating,” muttered Ilona Pankov, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Is that what they’re accusing us of?”
The prosecutor stopped in the center of the floor-outside the reach of the camera, Gavra noticed-and pointed at them. “These two defendants have robbed the people, and not even today do they want to talk. They are cowards. We have data concerning both of them. I ask the chairman of the prosecutor’s office to read the bill of indictment.”
Another man in the front row-tall, lanky, with coarse cheeks and mouth-stood and read directly from his pages, without flourish or any hint of showmanship. His voice, like that of the president of the court, quivered. “Esteemed chairman of the court, today we have to pass a verdict on the defendants Tomiak Pankov and Ilona Pankov, who have committed the following offenses: crimes against the people. They carried out acts that are incompatible with human dignity and social thinking; they acted in a despotic and criminal way; they destroyed the people whose leaders they claimed to be-”
“Is this a joke?” said Ilona as Tomiak squeezed his arms tighter across his chest.
The chairman of the prosecutor’s office paused, then continued. “Because of the crimes they committed against the people, I plead, on behalf of the victims of these two tyrants, for the death sentence for the two defendants. The bill of indictment contains the following points: genocide, in accordance with Article 356 of the penal code-”
Perhaps it was the mention of the death sentence that drew To-miak Pankov’s head up and made his wife briefly cover her eyes.
“Two,” continued the chairman of the prosecutor’s office. “Armed attack on the people and the state power, in accordance with Article 163 of the penal code. The destruction of buildings and state institutions, undermining of the national economy, in accordance with Articles 165 and 145 of the penal code. They obstructed the normal process of the economy.”
“You don’t even know what normal process of the economy means,” hissed Ilona Pankov.
The prosecutor, who had remained standing, crossed his own arms over his chest and turned to them. “Did you hear the charges? Have you understood them?”
“I won’t answer,” said Tomiak Pankov. “I will only answer questions before the Grand National Assembly. I do not recognize this court.” He leveled a stiff finger at the prosecutor. “The charges are incorrect, and I will not answer a single question here.”
“Note,” said the prosecutor, raising his own finger. “He does not recognize the points mentioned in the bill of indictment.”
Gavra squeezed his hands between his knees to stop them trembling. He’s since tried to explain it to me, but I honestly can’t imagine what it was like to be in that room, watching this display. People in other countries might compare it to having their president or prime minister prosecuted and sitting in the courtroom aisle and watching, but that’s nothing. In those countries average citizens speak daily about how their leaders should be put in jail. They openly say that they would be happy to turn the lock on their cell and would voluntarily keep guard. Those are entirely different places.
Tomiak Pankov was a man whose portrait graced the walls of every public building and many private homes. His volumes of collected speeches were de rigueur purchases. Four times a week, documentaries praising the life and life-works of this peacemaker and friend of the environment were aired on television. We knew everything about him, from his humble beginnings on a farm outside Uzhorod to the boxes full of medals he’d received from the queen of England, from America, from African countries only we had heard of, because by then they were our only allies.
And when the food shortages began, when the Maternity Laws came into effect, when the petrol and coffee ran out, we didn’t run through the streets screaming for his blood. We stayed inside with our faulty heaters and waited for something to change for the better. Because Tomiak Pankov was like an abusive father. After all the years together, you can’t help but feel some anguished love for him, but that doesn’t temper the fear. One wrong word, and you’ll be faced with rage you might not survive.
Gavra, who’d known only this Great Leader, felt as if he were a witness to, and participant in, patricide.
“I will not sign anything,” said Pankov.
“This situation is known,” the prosecutor continued, pacing comfortably as if, by his example, he could ease the tension in the room. “The catastrophic situation of the country is known all over the world. Every honest citizen who worked hard here knows that we do not have medicines, that you two have killed children and other people in this way, that there is nothing to eat, no heating, no electricity.”
“What? What’s he talking about?” said Ilona Pankov. Her husband didn’t bother answering.
“All right, then,” the prosecutor said. “Who ordered the bloodbath in Sarospatak?”
Tomiak Pankov squeezed himself tighter and shook his head.
“Who gave the order to shoot in the Capital, for instance?”
“I won’t answer.”
The prosecutor was at the edge of their table, but still beyond the camera’s view, his voice rising to a shrill pitch. “Who ordered the shooting into the crowd? Tell us!”
Dryly, Ilona said to her husband, “Forget about them. There’s no use in talking to these people.”
The prosecutor feigned exasperation. “Do you not know anything about the order to shoot?”
The old couple wasn’t even looking at him.
“What about the order to shoot?” he persisted. “There’s still shooting going on. Fanatics, whom you are paying. They’re shooting at children; they’re shooting arbitrarily into apartments. Who are these fanatics? Are they the people, or are you paying them?”
Tomiak Pankov peered beyond his interrogator to the far wall, directly into the video camera with its red power light burning. “I will not answer. I will not answer any question.” He held his head rigidly toward the lens. “Not a single shot was fired in Victory Square. Not a single shot. No one was shot.”
The prosecutor shook his head and raised his finger again. “By now, in the Capital, there have been forty-four casualties.”
“Look!” said Ilona. “And that they’re calling genocide!”
The prosecutor continued, his patience beginning to wear. “In every municipal capital there is shooting going on. The people were slaves. The entire intelligentsia of the country ran away-they escaped. No one wanted to do
