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 naive.’
‘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.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I saw the end of the Deltchev trial in the projection room of a newsreel company in London.
In the hard blacks and whites of the Propaganda Ministry’s cameramen the scene looked more real than the one I remembered. Perhaps the film gave it an authority the original had lacked. Or it may have been the sound track that produced the effect; there was no interpreter to divide one’s attention. With the six reels of film that Brankovitch’s successor had selected for foreign consumption a translation of the proceedings had been sent; but for the moment I wanted just to look at it, and to look at Deltchev.
There was not a great deal of footage that included him. Only one of the three cameras had covered the dock, and the film had been received in an edited form which favoured the judges and Dr Prochaska; but during one evident denunciation of the prisoner there was a shot that showed him frowning anxiously and shifting his position in a way that made him look guilty. Most likely, the shot had some other true explanation — boredom or some physical discomfort — but for me, as for the Propaganda Ministry, it had another significance. The Propaganda Ministry saw a scheming villain brought to book. I saw a pre-war Minister of Posts and Telegraphs struggling to be a statesman. But then, I had listened to his wife.
It was the word ‘Papa’ that defeated him.
The first time Deltchev saw the word printed in front of his name it pleased him; for, knowing his countrymen, he recognized the note of wry affection in it. It meant that they trusted him and that, although they might grumble, they would accept hardship at his hands and would not hate him too intensely. With amused pride he showed the newspaper to his wife and son. The small pang of anxiety he experienced he found unaccountable and ignored.
The nickname soon gained currency, and its use was no longer an occasion for comment; but he did not, for some reason, get used to it. On the contrary; as time went by, he began to experience discomfort whenever he saw it or heard it used. It had begun to feel to him like an accusation.
‘Yordan always invites criticism,’ his wife had said, ‘and always fears it.’
Deltchev was aware of the jokes about his motives and had hitherto thought himself a better and not more
