8

THE TELEVISION ACTOR Rodzianko used some of his precious Max Factor (a gift from Mister Dancho!) for the occasion. But no photographers have turned up and he is annoyed now at having wasted it.

‘Could you speak up, please,” the Prosecutor commands.

“Sure, sure,” Rodzianko replies quickly. He twists in the witness box toward the three judges. Directly behind them is a floor-to-ceiling portrait of Lenin arriving at the Finland Station. The geography of the courtroom is such that a witness is made to feel as if he is speaking directly to Comrade Lenin.

“Like I was saying, he stops by my table over at Krimm, see — “

“The he’ in question being the defendant, Dancho,” the Prosecutor interrupts. He points his finger at Mister Dancho, who is lounging, a guard on either side of him, in the defendant’s box. Dancho is wearing a blue blazer and light gray slacks, and is adjusting his cuffs.

Without glancing at Dancho, Rodzianko nods. “Dancho, right.” When he makes no move to continue, the Prosecutor prompts:

“You were up to where he stopped by your table at Krimm.”

“So he stops by my table over at Krimm, right, and he leans close to me so no one will hear, see, and he gives me a tip on the Paris, France, stock market.”

“That’s a lie, of course,” Mister Dancho points out coolly. The Lady Judge wags her finger at him, and he laughs and closes his mouth.

“And after he gave you the tip on the stock market?” the Prosecutor demands.

“After” — Rodzianko looks lost — “he says …”

Rodzianko’s voice fades. The three judges lean forward to hear better, and the Prosecutor coos:

“Could I trouble you to talk more distinctly, Witness Rodzianko.”

“Louder. Right.” Rodzianko takes a deep breath. “After he gives me the tip on the Paris, France, stock market, he tells me he’s going to cable his broker in the morning. Naturally, this surprises me, right, because I know what everyone knows, which is that speculating like this is strictly illegal. So I ask him how he can cable his broker without getting into trouble. And he says he is going to cable him in code”

“Shame, shame,” cries Octobrina from her bench in the back of the courtroom. The Racer, sitting next to her, whispers in her ear and she sinks back.

Dancho’s Defense Attorney, a polite old man with thick-lensed spectacles, approaches Rodzianko and peers up into his face. “Have you known Mister Dancho a long time, Witness Rodzianko?”

Rodzianko plays to the audience. “Everyone in Bulgaria’s known Mister Dancho a long time.” Some in the court start to laugh, but the Lady Judge looks sharply in their direction, and they stop instantly.

“Have you known Mister Dancho to joke a lot; put people on — I believe that’s what you call it these days. Have you known him to do that sort of thing?” the Defense Attorney inquires.

“Sure,” Rodzianko concedes. “He’s a very funny man.”

The Defense Attorney tilts his head and in an almost apologetic tone puts another question. “Did it ever occur to you that his remark about sending a cable in code was a joke?”

Rodzianko hesitates. He looks at the judges, who stare back at him, and then at the Prosecutor, who is busy shuffling notes. The overhead fan that hangs from the ornate ceiling stirs the warm air in the courtroom. Sunlight splashes the sill. “No,” Rodzianko murmurs. “It never occurred to me.”

Mister Dancho snorts loudly and one of his guards puts a hand on his shoulder.

Punch, Dancho’s portrait-painter friend who has switched to landscapes, takes the stand next. He closes his eyes and tells the judges that Mister Dancho tried to commission a portrait of the Czechoslovak revisionist Dubek. His eyes still shut, he goes on to describe how Dancho produced small Czechoslovak flags from the bosom of an actress.

“And what was the tone with which he produced these flags?” the Prosecutor asks.

“Mister Dancho is a magician,” the Defense Attorney objects. “He has been producing odd things from odd places for twenty years. How is it that one of his performances can be described as having a tone?”

The three judges whisper among themselves. Then the Lady Judge, who is also the chief judge, says:

“The witness is directed to respond to the question.”

The portrait painter steals a look at Mister Dancho. Dancho smiles at him and nods. The portrait painter clamps his eyes shut again. “He produced the Czechoslovak flags in a way that indicated his support for the counterrevolution taking place in that country.”

“Czechoslovakia is a Socialist ally,” Mister Dancho calls. He can’t keep from sneering. “How is it you can make a crime out of producing the flag of a Socialist ally?”

The next witness never takes his eyes off Mister Dane ho from the moment he enters the courtroom. “Now it’s my turn,” he mutters as he limps past the box containing the accused.

“Who is it?” Octobrina whispers to the Racer.

“It’s the Police Informer Dancho ridiculed in the Milk Bar. He was carrying a violin case then, remember?”

“State your name and occupation,” the Prosecutor orders.

The witness identifies himself as a violinist with the Sofia Philharmonic.

“Were you in the Milk Bar on Rakovski Boulevard on or about — “ The Prosecutor names a day and an hour.

“I most certainly was.”

“Can you tell the court why?”

“Yes, yes, of course I can tell you why. I was asked to drop by on my way home by my block captain. Apparently there has been a good deal of illegal gambling going on there, and the block captain asked me, as a loyal Party member, if I could — “

“Did you encounter the accused during the course of your visit there?”

“I most certainly did. I have done reporting for the Party on a number of occasions. Apparently that … that … that magician knew about my contribution.” The witness leaps to his feet. “He held me up to public ridicule. He made me the butt of his humor. He incited them against me—”

“That will be all — “

“He ridiculed me for my loyalty to the Party — “

“Thank you,” the Lady Judge says. “You can step down — “

“He s-s-s-s-tarted to 1-1-1-1-laugh — “

The old waiter Stuka shuffles toward the witness box after the Police Informer has been helped from the courtroom. He starts to say something to Dancho as he passes.

“It’s all right, old man,” Mister Dancho tells him gently. “I understand.”

“The accused will refrain from speaking to the witness,” the Lady Judge warns.

“How long have you been a waiter in the restaurant Krimm?” the Prosecutor begins.

Stuka glances at Mister Dancho. “Twenty-seven years, sir.”

“You know the accused Dancho?” Again the Prosecutor points theatrically toward the defendant.

“Mister Dancho is a great man,” Stuka insists.

“No doubt. No doubt. Now, on a great number of occasions, Mister Dancho has made you the object of one of his — how shall we call them — tricks. Can you describe that for us?”

Stuka clenches his lips shut.

“Perhaps he hasn’t heard the question,” the Lady Judge coaxes.

The Prosecutor moves closer to Stuka. “I asked you to describe for us the so-called tricks that Mister Dancho was always pulling on you.”

Still nothing from Stuka. Finally Dancho tells him quietly:

“Go ahead and tell them, old man. It’s all right.”

Stuka looks at Mister Dancho, who nods encouragingly again. “Mister Dancho would put his hand in one of my jacket pockets and pull out money …” Stuka’s voice trails off.

“Pull out a thick wad of bills — is that not correct?”

“ — pull out a thick wad of bills, yes.”

“And he would pretend he discovered the money in your pocket?”

“And he would pretend he discovered the money in my pocket, yes, that it was my tip money.”

“What kind of bills were they?”

Again Stuka peers at Dancho. Again Dancho nods. “United States of America money. Great Britain money. There were others I didn’t recognize.”

“But they weren’t our own Bulgarian leva?”

“No, sir.”

The Lady Judge has a question. “Were you aware, when the accused pulled these bills out of your pocket, that possession of foreign currency is a violation of Article Twenty-eight, subletter B of the Revised Penal Code?”

“Article Twenty-eight …” Stuka looks around in confusion.

“Were you aware that possession of foreign currency is against the law?” the Prosecutor explains patiently.

“If you say so,” Stuka replies.

“That will be all,” the Prosecutor says. When Stuka makes no move to leave, he repeats:

“You can go now.”

The three judges order a midmorning recess. When the trial resumes, the clerk calls the name of the next witness. “Maya Drakanova.” Mister Dancho looks blank; he can’t place the name. A tall girl with her hair tied up in pigtails, and wearing clothes that emphasize her youthfulness, makes her way to the witness box.

“Who is she?” Octobrina whispers to the Racer.

“I never saw her before in my life,” he replies. He looks pointedly at Dancho, but Dancho only shrugs.

“You are Maya Drakanova?” the Prosecutor asks.

The girl nods shyly.

“What is your age?”

She answers in a low voice, barely glancing up at the Prosecutor. “Sixteen come next month, your honor.”

“Do you know the accused, Mister Dancho?”

The girl turns angrily toward Dancho. “I’ll say I know him. He’s the one what made indecent advances at me.”

There is a murmur from the audience. The Lady Judge lets it go on for a few seconds, then gavels for silence.

“It was this way,” the girl explains without being prompted. “Me and my girl friends was hanging around the lobby of the Balkan like we sometimes do to get autographs, which is our hobby — autographs, I mean — and Mister Dancho here, he walks in. I seen him on TV, and right off I asked him for his autograph.”

Mister Dancho remembers her now and rolls his eyes skyward.

“And did he give it to you, this autograph?”

“I’ll say he did! He unbuttoned my shirt down to here” — the murmur from the audience rises to a growl — “and wrote his name on my chest with his pen”

“Pervert,” someone in the courtroom calls.

“I never been so humiliated in my whole entire life as when he done this thing to me.” Maya has her claws out now, and the illusion that she is an innocent child is rapidly vanishing. “I mean, I jus’ hope — “

“You can step down,” the Prosecutor interrupts, but she plunges on:

“ — you do something to him so he learns real good he can’t go ‘round humiliating innocent people like they was animals or something. I mean, who the hell” — her voice turns shrill — “who the hell does he think he is anyhow?”

“She appears to be aging at the rate of a month a word,” Mister Dancho observes dryly.

“Next witness,” the Prosecutor calls, and the clerk reads out the name of the film director Poleon.

“Poleon!” The Racer starts out of his seat. “That spineless son of a bitch.”

For the first time in the trial, Mister Dancho’s eyes harden. His mouth twists into a grim smile. His knuckles whiten on the handrail around the prisoner’s box.

Looking neither right nor left, Poleon makes his way to the witness box. He is all business.

“You are” — the Prosecutor calls Poleon by his real name.

“Yes, yes. My friends call me Poleon.”

“If you still have any left after today,” Mister Dancho jeers. The Lady Judge gavels for silence.

“The witness was present at a party at the home of the circus performer Angel Bazdéev on the night that allied soldiers responded to the request for assistance in Czechoslovakia?”

Poleon nods once. Without waiting for the Prosecutor to prompt him, he plunges right into his testimony. “Early in the evening in question, I heard the accused Dancho recount a slanderous anti-Soviet joke. The joke went like this. The streets around our Central Committee building are blocked off in preparation for a visit by a delegation from the Soviet Politburo. Somehow a Bulgarian citizen manages to maneuver his bicycle past the barriers. As he leans his bike against the Central Committee building, a soldier tells him: ‘You can’t do that— a high Soviet delegation is due any minute.’ The Bulgarian replies: ‘That’s all right, I’ll chain it up.’ “

Nobody in the courtroom smiles — except Mister Dancho, who bursts out:

“You can’t even tell it well, you bastard.”

“One more such outburst,” the Lady Judge admonishes Dancho, “and you will be removed from this courtroom.”

“That same evening,” Poleon continues, “Mister Dancho reached into the breast pocket of my dinner jacket and pulled out a photograph of the Czechoslovak revisionist Dubek.”

“Is this the photograph in question?” the Prosecutor demands, picking up a small poster from the table piled high with notebooks taken from Dancho’s apartment.

“Yes it is,” Poleon agrees. “He pulled it from my pocket and waved it around, and it was clear, to me at least, from the way he gloated over the picture that he supported the counterrevolutionary activities of this Granien fellow. Shortly afterward, when word of the allied intervention in Czechoslovakia spread, I heard Mister Dancho slander the Soviet leadership.”

“Do you recall his exact words?” growls the Lady Judge.

“As it happens, I do. He said they were a ‘bunch of gangsters.’ “

There are gasps from the spectators, almost all of whom have been selected for their loyalty to the Party.

The Prosecutor turns toward the audience and throws the next question over his shoulder:

“He called the Soviet leadership a group of gangsters?”

“A bunch of gangsters,” Poleon corrects him.

“Group, bunch, what’s the difference. He called them gangsters,” the Prosecutor insists.

“Gangsters, that’s correct,” Poleon says.

As Poleon passes the defendant’s box on his way from the courtroom, he looks at Dancho. “Please understand, there was nothing personal,” he says under his breath.

“Go hide in your new apartment,” Mister Dancho sneers, and he looks away in disgust.

Dancho’s attorney puts the defense’s case succinctly. He argues that the charges against Mister Dancho — producing rolls of foreign currency or Czech flags or Dubek posters — are the result of a misunderstanding. Oh, the defense is willing to concede that the “tricks” — for that is what these are, just the stock in trade of an entertainer — were in poor taste. But should a man be punished for his poor taste? Especially a man like Mister Dancho, who fought heroically in the Resistance, who has since contributed a great deal toward the building of Socialism, who has in fact been one of Bulgaria’s leading ambassadors for almost a decade. Should not these inconsequential “missteps” be put on the scale and weighed against the positive aspects of his life? One can see, Dancho’s attorney sums up, that the Prosecutor is only doing his duty in pressing charges against Mister Dancho. Vigilance, after all, is everyone’s business; witness the recent events in one of the neighboring Socialist states which shall remain nameless. But hasn’t the court already achieved its purpose by drawing attention to these “missteps”?

“I thank you.” The attorney bows and backs toward his seat.

The judges are out for forty minutes. When they file back into the room, Mister Dancho is instructed to rise and face the bench. The Lady Judge stands and reads tonelessly from a piece of paper:

“In consequence of the evidence presented this day, we the judges find you not guilty of corrupting the morals of a minor. We find you guilty of slander of a Socialist ally, which is to say, anti-Soviet agitation: slander of government policy, which is to say, counterrevolutionary activity: violation of currency regulations, which is to say, criminal activity. We hereby declare you to be a Socially Dangerous Element, and sentence you to a term of five years in prison at hard labor.”

“A fiver!” cries Mister Dancho. The blood drains from his face, and his knees buckle beneath him. The guards, experienced in such matters, catch him under his armpits, one on each side, and hold him up.

Octobrina leaps to her feet as he is being led from the courtroom. “Zaklyuchenny,” she cries — for some reason it is the Russian word for prisoner, not the Bulgarian, that springs to her lips. Mister Dancho winces, and reaches toward her with his empty hand. With a twist of the wrist, he produces out of thin air a small brown paper flower. Inclining his head gallantly, arranging his facial expression into what in happier times passed for a smile, he flicks it into her outstretched hands.