Eric Ambler - Judgment on Deltchev

‘All nerves in this house,’ she said, ‘are greatly strained, Herr Foster.’

‘Yes, I can imagine.’

‘For my daughter it is perhaps most difficult.’ She went on, ‘Unfortunately she is in political disagreement with my husband. She sympathizes with that section of the Agrarian Socialists which blames Yordan for the present situation. So her love for her father is in conflict with her feelings toward the man who betrayed his party. It is difficult for her and I cannot help much.’ She handed me some tea. ‘You see, Herr Foster, it is not without reason that I avoid speaking to journalists. I do not guard my tongue. The regime would be glad to use the fact that Yordan’s own children oppose him politically. But Petlarov says that you are friendly and to be trusted.’

‘I was wondering, madame, what there was about Petlarov’s motives to be understood.’

She took her tea back to her chair. ‘Petlarov is a good friend,’ she said. ‘Even after his disagreement with Yordan he remained a friend. When he was released from prison I was able to see him for a short while and I asked his advice about the press. We were already an object of interest, you see. He told me that I should see no one until he sent somebody who could be trusted.’

‘That is very flattering, but, frankly, I do not see the reason for his choice.’

‘Did you not read his letter?’ She held it up.

‘I’m afraid I couldn’t.’

‘Oh yes, the language.’ She looked at the letter. ‘He says that you are going to write a series of articles about the trial and sentence which will be published in America and England. He says that your articles will be well written and acceptable and that although they will be politically naïve-’ She broke off and looked at me apologetically. ‘He means, of course, that he does not regard you as primarily a political person.’

‘He’s right.’

She smiled. ‘So many of our circle would be offended.’ She returned to the letter. ‘… although they will be politically naïve, their simplification of obvious issues and the evident sincerity of their indignation will be admirably suited to the campaign against the outcome of the trial.’ She folded the letter. ‘Petlarov is interesting, is he not?’

‘Very.’

‘So very wise, and yet not a whole man.’ She picked up her tea reflectively. ‘His nerves were never strong enough for power.’

‘Unlike your husband’s.’

She looked up, a little sharply, as if I had interrupted a train of thought. ‘Yes, let us talk about Yordan,’ she said, ‘and about the trial. That is why you are here.’

‘I don’t wish to distress you, but I should like you to know about something that happened today.’

She nodded. ‘Yordan made one of his demonstrations. I already know about it.’

‘It wasn’t in the official bulletin.’

‘No. Every evening since we have been under house arrest an old friend of our family has come to see us. Every evening he is searched by the sentries and every evening the sentries find some money in his handkerchief. They let him pass.’

‘I see. The demonstration was moving.’

‘Yes, I was told that. It is a great relief. After this they will not dare to withhold his insulin injections.’

There was a curious lack of emotion in the way she said it. We might have been discussing a mutual acquaintance.

‘Do you think that was all he hoped to gain from it?’

‘What else is there, Herr Foster? Please do not think that you must spare my feelings. Yordan will be condemned.’

‘Petlarov had another explanation. He said that your husband seized the chance of discrediting the evidence of the prosecution.’

‘Yordan is a good lawyer.’

‘From the way your husband used his opportunity Petlarov deduced that there might be some evidence against him that can only be dealt with by discrediting it.’

She looked slightly puzzled. ‘Evidence that can only be dealt with by discrediting it?’ she repeated.

‘Yes.’

She shrugged. ‘There will no doubt be many things too absurd even for denial.’

‘There is no true evidence that can be brought to support any of the charges?’

She looked surprised. ‘Of course not.’

‘No facts at all that could be twisted into evidence of corrupt negotiations in 1944?’

‘Most facts can be twisted, Herr Foster.’

‘But in this case not credibly?’

‘No.’

‘That would be true also of the alleged association with the Officer Corps Brotherhood?’

‘Doubly so. The idea is absurd. My husband was the man primarily responsible for the destruction of the Brotherhood.’

‘You think that false evidence will be brought?’

‘They have no alternative,’ she said with a touch of impatience.

‘Then it will be easy for your husband to disprove the evidence?’

‘If he is allowed to do so, yes. But I do not follow the trend of your questions, Herr Foster. The charges are obviously absurd.’

‘That is what troubles me, madame. If there is no vestige of a case to support them, they are too absurd. As Petlarov points out, if they had to fake evidence, there were less fantastic charges available.’

‘Petlarov is sometimes too clever. It is perfectly simple. Association with the Brotherhood is a capital offence and today also a disgrace.’

‘You do not expect to be surprised by any of the evidence?’

‘Nothing that the People’s Party can contrive would surprise me.’

For a moment or two I sipped my tea. There was something difficult I wanted to say. She was sitting attentively waiting for me to go on. The sun was dying and in the faint after-light her face was astonishingly youthful. I might have been looking at the young schoolteacher whom the lawyer Deltchev had married, the young woman of Greek family whose lips may have had even then the same gentle, inflexible determination that I saw now.

‘Madame Deltchev,’ I said, ‘when you were speaking of your daughter you referred to your husband as the man who betrayed his party.’

‘I was representing him as my daughter sees him.’

‘But you do not see him that way?’

‘I understand him better than that, Herr Foster.’

‘That might not be a reply to the question, madame.’

‘Is the question important for your understanding of the trial?’

‘I do not know your husband. It seems to me important that I should.’

She sat back in her chair. She had just put her tea down on the table beside her, and her hands rested lightly on the chair arms. There they could reveal nothing.

‘You saw my husband in court today. You could see the evidence of most of the qualities you wish to know about — his courage, his cleverness, his sense of timing, his determination. One thing the circumstances would not let you see — his absolute integrity, and I, who know his heart, will vouch for that.’

The light was very dim now, and in the shadow of the chair her face was difficult to see. Then she leaned forward and I saw her smile.

‘And in case you wish to ask me about his weaknesses, Herr Foster, I will tell you. He cannot accept people as they are, but only as his reason dictates they should be. Feeling he suspects, reason never, and the idea that in him the two may be connected he rejects completely. Therefore he is often mistaken about people and just as often about himself.’

I was silent for a moment. Then I got up to go.

‘May I come and see you again, madame?’

‘Of course, Herr Foster, please do.’ Then she paused. ‘I shall in any case be here,’ she added.

‘Afterwards, if you are allowed to do so, will you leave the country?’

‘When Yordan is dead, do you mean?’

‘When there is no more to be done here.’