IT IS A MEASURE of their mood that Popov never once turns down his hearing aid.
“If trouble comes,” he asks, squinting through his pince-nez and running two fingers under his starched collar, “can the Minister be far behind? Sssssssss.”
They are seated around the table at Krimm, taking bets on when the Minister will show up. Octobrina thinks he will be discreet: he’ll wait a day or two, she predicts, and then make small talk for half an hour before he comes to the point. The Dwarf is sure he’ll send a deputy to do his dirty work. But the Flag Holder, who knew the Minister long before he ever dreamed of becoming a minister, agrees with Popov: he will turn up in person that night, he says, and he will come straight to the point. The point being Mister Dancho.
In the event, the Flag Holder knows his man.
“About Dancho,” the Minister begins as he settles into the first vacant seat he comes to; it is, of course, Mister Dancho’s.
“How is he getting on,” the Racer inquires, “in that hotel of yours?”
“He is in high spirits,” the Minister reports. “They tell me he’s fabricating paper flowers out of toilet paper to toss at people — as he did to you, dear Octobrina. His jailers, who are nothing if not conventional, want to put a stop to it. Their handbooks warn that flowers in whatever shape or form are subversive. But I instructed them to let Dancho have his fun. Was there a message in Dancho’s flower? I ask you, you have my solemn word on it, out of nothing more than curiosity.”
Octobrina remembers the Minister’s curiosity from the war; his soft-skinned peasant boot kicking curiously at the corpses of some German officers who preferred suicide to capture by the Communist partisans. “As a matter of fact, there was a message,” she acknowledges. Her usually musical voice is almost metallic. She plucks Dancho’s toilet paper flower from her handbag and twirls it in her long, wrinkled fingers. Then she peels back a single petal and reads:
“ ‘A Communist is someone who, when he smells roses, looks around for the coffin.’ “
She looks up and smiles sweetly. “By that standard, even you could pass for a Communist.”
“When I smell flowers,” the Minister retorts evenly, “I sneeze. I have hay fever.”
“Workingmen of the world unite,” snaps Octobrina, “you have nothing to lose but your allergies.”
Stuka approaches with a menu, but the Minister ignores him and he backs out of the room. The Minister looks around the table. They are all, in a sense, old friends. In the famous photograph, in which he can be seen marching alongside the Flag Holder, the Minister’s eyes are darting off to one side, proud and flashing; now they appear dull and steady, the eyes (according to Octobrina, who specializes in eyes) of a professional poker player.
“About Dancho,” the Minister says agan. This time nobody interrupts. “I put it to you frankly: what are we to do with him? He’s been terribly naughty, but I’m ready to concede that the judges were a bit eager on this one. Five years” — the Minister runs the tip of his forefinger over his lips, which are chapped — “five years is a long time to put Dancho on ice, wouldn’t you agree?”
When nobody says anything — there is almost a conspiracy to manufacture strained silences — the Minister leans forward and runs his fingers over his lips again. In another context, it could be a sensuous gesture. “Come now, let’s not beat about the bush. Dancho’s appeal sits on my desk even as we speak here. No matter what you think of me, I am a Communist, and being a Communist implies a certain — how to phrase it — solicitude for mankind — “
“People who have difficulty relating on a one-to-one basis usually compensate for this by exhibiting a solicitude for mankind,” Octobrina lectures him.
The Minister reddens at the neck. “The trouble is,” he tells them, “your idea of Communism is not my idea of Communism.”
“Your idea of Communism, Comrade Minister, is not Communism,” the Flag Holder retorts, looking him in the eye.
The Minister is not accustomed to being baited. He leans forward, flushed now, and speaks sharply:
“And what is it, in your opinion, about my idea of Communism that is not Communistic?”
The Flag Holder smiles thinly. “There does not exist, within your scheme of things, the clash of ideas necessary for practice to make perfect.”
“If you’re speaking about the bourgeois notion of a clash of ideas — “
“I’m speaking about the Marxist notion of thesis versus antithesis — “
“But my dear Lev, surely we must have done something right. We are, after all, members of that small group” — he gestures vaguely to the photograph above the Flag Holder’s head — “who have succeeded in making a revolution.”
“Taking power, or for that matter staying in power, does not make a revolution successful” the Flag Holder says.
“What does, then?”
“To call a revolution successful, it must make some lasting contribution to human dignity.” And he adds:
“This was something you knew before you became a minister.”
The Minister has a sense that the exchange has gone as far as it ought to, so he cuts off the conversation with a wave of his hand.
“About Dancho,” he begins a third time. “Let me be unmistakably clear about it; his arrest and trial were intended as a warning to all of you in this room. I tell you as a friend, there were some who felt that your escapade of the other morning demanded a bolder response. The Soviet Ambassador, who is normally the soul of mildness, was beside himself when he heard of the affair. But there were others, myself among them, who argued that a bolder response was precisely what you were looking for, indeed, what you had calculated on. And so it was decided not to play into your hands, to warn you instead with a rap on the knuckles — “
“You dare to call a five-year prison sentence a rap on the knuckles!’’ Octobrina explodes.
“My dear Octobrina, when you consider the rumors that have reached my ears” — the Minister pauses for effect — “you must surely take Dancho’s arrest as a rap on the knuckles.” He massages his lips thoughtfully. “No, no, no, someone has to tell you. You have made the error of thinking that this unfortunate business in Czechoslovakia is an area in which you can play your usual games with us. I am here to correct this misconception.”
The Minister appears to be growing bored with the conversation. “If you were going to make waves, you should have done so years ago when we collectivized agriculture, or when we expropriated the private sector.”
“Those were things we agreed with,” Tacho says coldly. “You forget, Comrade Minister, that we are not dissidents — we are Communists.”
The Minister looks at Tacho, amused. To everyone, he says:
“I require your word that you will not repeat the escapade of the other morning. Give it to me and Dancho will be free to return to his silly tricks and his silly women and his silly friends. But be clear about it: No more manifestations.”
Tapping his foot impatiently, the Minister turns to the Flag Holder. The others look toward him too. The Flag Holder sucks on the butt of a Rodopi for what seems like an eternity. Then he nods to himself as if he has just explained something to himself, and looks up. He is about to speak when the Rabbit pushes through the curtain into the room.
“Oh, Lev,” she cries. She takes a deep breath — she has obviously been running. “Georgi’s back.”