anything for you anymore.”
“Excuse me,” said an eager voice from among the observers, but Gavra, through his blurred vision, couldn’t make out who it was. Not an officer. “Mr. President, I would like to know something. The accused should tell us who the mercenaries are. Who pays them? And who brought them into the country?”
“Yes,” said the prosecutor, nodding. “Accused, answer.”
Tomiak Pankov restated his now-famous defense as his wife whispered into his ear. “I will not say anything more. I will only speak at the Grand National Assembly.”
“Ilona has always been talkative,” said the prosecutor. She halted her whispers and glared at the young man. “But otherwise she doesn’t know much. I’ve observed that she is not even able to read correctly, but she calls herself a university graduate.”
Ilona Pankov, in an instant, became all venom. She banged her small, red-knuckled fist against the table. “The intellectuals of this country should hear you-you and your colleagues!”
This was the kind of display the prosecutor wanted to provoke. He shook his head playfully. “More than her talkativeness, she’s well known for all the titles she’s always claimed to have. Scientist, engineer, academician-yet she doesn’t know how to read. An illiterate, inadequate academician.”
“The intelligentsia of the country will hear what you’re accusing us of!” She threw herself back into her chair, as if the incredible force of her will could silence all further debate.
The prosecutor looked up from his notes. “Tomiak Pankov should tell us why he doesn’t answer our questions. What prevents him from doing so?”
Perhaps realizing how he looked on camera, Pankov straightened. “I will answer any question, but only at the Grand National Assembly, before the representatives of the working class.” He looked into the camera lens. “Tell the people that I will answer all of their questions. All the world should know what’s going on here. I only recognize the working class and the Grand National Assembly-no one else.”
The prosecutor smiled. “The world already knows what’s happened here.”
“I will not answer you putschists,” he said firmly, again crossing his arms.
“The Grand National Assembly has been dissolved.”
Tomiak Pankov looked caught off guard by that, as if he had been basing all his hopes on the National Assembly, which throughout his long reign had never said no to him. “This isn’t possible. No one can dissolve the National Assembly.”
“We now have another leading organ,” said the prosecutor. “The Galicia Revolutionary Committee is now our supreme body.”
The trembling continued, and Gavra felt sick. He wanted to run out of the room, because he kept being invaded by memories of this old man at the hunting lodge in the Carpathians. There was something almost charming about those memories. But the prosecutor hadn’t lied: Pankov was a murderer. Indirectly, perhaps, but a murderer nonetheless. Yet the prosecutor himself, by being allied with Jerzy Michalec, who was grinning beside him, was a murderer as well. Off to the right, in the next row up, he saw Nikolai Romek gaping at the courtroom with the awe of a fan at a soccer game. The whole room stank of corruption.
Tomiak Pankov waved his hand. “No one recognizes that organ. That’s why the people are fighting all over the country. This gang will be destroyed,” he said, tapping a finger on the table to signify the whole room. “They organized the putsch.”
“The people are fighting against you,” said the prosecutor. “Not the new forum.”
“No. The people are fighting for freedom and against the new forum.” He shook his head. “I do not recognize the court.”
The prosecutor slid back, closer to the audience and farther from the camera’s reach. “Why do you think people are fighting today? What do you think?”
“As I said before,” Pankov said evenly, “the people are fighting for their freedom and against this putsch, against this usurpation. And this putsch, as you know, was organized and financed from abroad, which the people will not stand.”
No one in the room was able to take his eyes off the old man.
“I do not recognize this court. I will not answer anymore.” He tried to return the collective gaze but looked confused suddenly. “I am now talking to you as simple citizens, and I hope you will tell the truth. I hope that all of you aren’t also working for the foreigners and for the destruction of our nation.”
The prosecutor threw up his hands in a maudlin expression of capitulation and turned to another young man in the front row, who had not yet spoken. “Ask him. Ask Pankov if he knows he’s no longer president of the country. Does he know this? Does he know as well that Ilona Pankov has lost all her official state functions? And does he know, further, that the entire government has been dissolved?”
The small man he’d been speaking to stood slowly. He rubbed his mustache, which looked damp, but before he could pose the questions, the prosecutor pivoted on his heel and faced the president of the court, who was still sweating. “I ask this to find out on what basis this trial can be continued. It must be cleared up for everyone,” he said, touching his palm with every other word, “whether Pankov wants to, should, must, or can answer at all. How are we to know how to proceed?”
The president of the court stared impotently back at the prosecutor, then settled his dull eyes on Tomiak Pankov. He checked his watch, then cleared his throat. The damp-mustached young man approached the Pankovs’table. “Do you,” he said with a thin, wiry voice, “Tomiak and Ilona Pankov, know the aforementioned facts- namely, that you are no longer president, and that you have lost all your official functions?”
Pankov didn’t. “I am the president of this country. I am the commander-in-chief of the army. No one,” he said, emphasizing it with a loud, clear rap on the table, “can deprive me of these functions.”
“But not of our army,” said the prosecutor, stepping forward. “You are not commander-in-chief of our army.”
“I do not recognize you.” Pankov shook his head. “I am talking to you as simple citizens, and I tell you: I am the president of this country.”
“What are you really?” said the prosecutor.
“I repeat: I am the president and the commander-in-chief. I am the president of the people. I will not speak with you provocateurs anymore, and I will not speak with the organizers of the putsch and with the mercenaries. I have nothing to do with them.”
“Yes,” said the prosecutor, “but you are paying the mercenaries.”
“No. No.”
“It’s incredible what they’re inventing,” Ilona Pankov said. “Incredible.”
“Please, make a note,” said the prosecutor, turning back to the audience. “Pankov does not recognize the new legal structures of power in the country. He still considers himself to be the country’s president and the commander-in-chief of the army.”
Then he spun again on his heel, pointing at the couple. He seemed to be enjoying himself now.
“Why did you ruin the country?” He moved closer. “Why did you export everything? Why did you make the farmers starve? The produce the farmers grew was exported, and farmers came from the most remote provinces to the Capital and other cities in order to buy bread. They cultivated the soil in line with your orders and had nothing to eat. Why did you starve the people?”
“I will not answer this question. As a simple citizen, I tell you the following: For the first time I guaranteed that every farmer and every worker received two hundred kilograms of wheat per person, not per family, and that he is entitled to more. It’s a lie that I made the people starve. A lie, a lie in my face,” he said, his voice rising. “This shows how little patriotism there is, how many treasonable offenses have been committed.”
The prosecutor, full of himself, could easily match Pankov’s pitch. “YOU claim to have taken measures so that every farmer is entitled to two hundred kilograms of wheat. Why do they then buy their bread in the Capital?” He reached into his pocket for the notepad, flipped to a page, and read aloud from Tomiak Pankov’s own words, words that described his program for feeding the country. Then he looked up again. “We have wonderful programs.” He shook the pad at Pankov. “Paper is patient. Why are your programs not implemented? You’ve destroyed the villages and the soil. What do you say? As a citizen?”
Pankov leaned forward, addressing the whole room. “As a citizen, as a simple citizen, I tell you the following: At no point was there such an upswing, so much construction, so much consolidation in the provinces. I guaranteed that every village had its schools, hospitals, and doctors. I have done everything to create a decent and rich life for
