Is this truly your choice?
The witness stand was directly in front of the judicial bench. It resembled a lectern, inherently serious. Roza would stand there and tell her story. Then Brack would do the same thing. A year earlier, at the other end of the phone, Sebastian had listened to Anselm, clicking his biro open and shut.
‘He’ll tell the court how Pavel Mojeska betrayed his wife, his friends and his country. If he wants, he can make it up as he goes along, because no one else was there. He’s going to spring a defence out of the files. He’ll produce evidence that Pavel collaborated with the Nazis — a crime the IPN would prosecute now, if he was living. He’ll make those executions into rough justice — unpleasant, brutal, and lacking ceremony… but legitimate actions of the State nonetheless. Brack’s not going down, Sebastian, he doesn’t play to lose; he never has done.’
Sebastian’s pen had clattered against a wall.
‘What have I done?’ he’d said, faintly ‘I’ve brought her to this.’
‘What have we all done?’ Anselm had replied.
Drawing that thick long line between ‘then’ and ‘now’ had never seemed more prudent. Shortly after that telephone conversation Sebastian had carefully explained to Roza what was likely to happen when Brack opened his mouth, and she’d listened with that disconcerting quietness that absorbed any and all disappointment. When he’d finished, she’d simply said, ‘At least I didn’t remain quiet.’
She was now sitting with John and Celina in a room set aside for prosecution witnesses. She was wearing a sober dress from Jaeger with a silvery Paisley design. The lime cardigan — an old friend, worn at the elbows — appeared, by association, both refined and expensive. Sebastian was right, though: she’d aged. She’d taken in too much. Her movements were slow and heavy, her spine rounded. But she had a most haunting allure, a curious effect of soft skin and eyes that Anselm couldn’t meet for long without turning away Inexplicably they’d remained vulnerable.
Looking down through the window, Anselm scanned the court as if there might be any familiar faces, not expecting to find any But he did. He found one. And it wasn’t Bernard Kolba’s. They’d already met in the corridor (he was there representing the family; his parents couldn’t face the strain). Anselm’s eyes had alighted upon a fine bone structure, frizzy greying hair and round glasses. Irina Orlosky was in the public gallery, her dark, shapeless coat held tight by folded arms. Her eyes were on Brack, the man whose life she’d saved.
Once the jury were installed Madam Czerny came to her feet. Her voice had alarming, deep cadences, the translation in Anselm’s ear skilfully matching tone with content, keeping a sort of distance from the primary speaker. Somehow, the prosecutor was addressing Anselm without intermediary. Throughout, her right hand held the bifocals, elegantly as if it were a glass of Muscat.
‘This case concerns the Terror,’ she said, deadly gentle. ‘The time of denunciation and disappearing, of imprisonment upon a whim, of routine violence, pathological suspicion, false accusations and forced recantations. The epoch of complicity. The age of exile and executions, co-ordinated to secure the imposition of Soviet socialist realism.’ Madam Czerny’s gaze moved around, indomitable. ‘Roza Mojeska is one ordinary woman who, despite the overwhelming presence of fear and the crushing pressure to conform, said, “No”. As a consequence she was brutally tortured. Pavel Mojeska, her husband, also said, “No”. He was brutally murdered. They’d said the one word that millions dared not speak. They’d brought a free word to Warsaw’ She seemed to have finished but then, confiding and soft spoken, she made a reluctant declaration. ‘The accused, Otto Brack, said, “Yes”. He got up every morning, looked in the mirror and said “Yes”. No one twisted his arm. He made his own free choice. And it is this profound affirmation of terror — its implementation and consequences — that now falls to be judged.’
To that end the prosecution would call evidence from experts to present the context within which the alleged crimes took place. An historian would describe the architecture of Stalinism in general and the Terror in particular; another would explain the organisation, powers and objectives of the secret police; yet another would outline the crucial importance of underground printing as a means of preserving an independent culture. The line of attack was clear:
Madam Czerny would lead the court down to the foundations of a forgotten time, that it might better understand Brack’s place in the cellar.
Then it would be Roza’s turn.
‘She will be on her own, as she was, once, long ago,’ said Madam Czerny ‘There is no other living witness to what took place in that prison. She will tell you what she saw’
After lunch on the second day of evidence, Anselm sent a message to the translator: owing to a previous engagement, he wouldn’t be attending the hearing that afternoon — apologies for having forgotten to mention it sooner. In fact it was a spontaneous decision. He’d been listening, hour after hour, tormented by the sight of Brack’s leather document case; he’d fidgeted constantly watching Brack make rushed notes while a professor from Krakow mocked, with scholarly detachment, the acclamation of Stalin as a ‘Philologist of Genius’ and the ‘Greatest Man of All Times’ (two of 300 unctuous tributes that had appeared in the national press in 1949 to mark his seventieth birthday); he’d been troubled by the growing certainty that even the prosecutor’s evidence formed part of Brack’s final scheme to escape the power of a rightly constituted court.
Outside, away from the growing tension, Anselm went to a fishmonger’s and bought a fresh oyster.
Chapter Forty-Six
‘Well… Hail, Mary,’ said Frenzel, with a wave, full of surprise. ‘Or should that be Our Father?’
Anselm shut the door and came to the edge of the desk. Frenzel’s eyes were alight with pleasure at the swiftness of his jokes.
‘If I’d known you wanted all the stuff to have a swipe at Brack, well, you could’ve paid by monthly instalments. I felt sorry for him, mind, when I saw him on the telly Made me think of those show trials in the fifties. You know, the hype and the conceit. Hypocrites, the lot of you. What was it? Whited sepulchres or something? When I saw that bitchy prosecutor-’
His gaze settled hard on the oyster. Anselm had placed it carefully in the middle of his desk.
‘Sorry, I can’t. Last time round I ate a dodgy one. Sick as a dog I was and I vowed never to-’
‘I want Brack’s personnel file. Not just the first page and not just the last. I’d like the lot.’
Frenzel’s pink lips made a curve analogous to a smile. He didn’t speak at first, preferring to nod a kind of dawning avuncular support for the workings of Anselm’s mind. He approved.
‘It makes sense, I suppose,’ he murmured, scratching his paunch. ‘You lot always want the pearl of great price.
He picked up the phone, dialled and waited. After a second’s thought he seemed to spew into the receiver from a height, keeping it well away from his mouth as though it were dirty. He was talking to Irina’s son, presumably He left a message from his mother. It took an effort of will for Anselm not to lean over and thump that sagging jaw Frenzel wouldn’t expect that from someone who was meant to turn the other cheek. He clenched his fists, feeling the guilt of a bystander watching back-street violence — the frenzied kicking of the racist and homophobe.
‘You played that one well,’ Frenzel said with a wink, cleaning his hands on a wet-wipe pulled from a shiny plastic packet. ‘If you’d started off asking for the earth, you’d have paid through the nose. But you’ve shown some good footwork. Made yourself look stupid when you weren’t. Now you’ve got Brack on his knees, you want his file. Smart move. Well, you can have it for nothing. I’d like to contribute to his execution. I’ll have it sent over. Where are you staying? Don’t tell me! Same place?’ He nestled deeper into his chair. ‘Thought so. You’re all the same. Nothing ever changes.’ He paused to lick his lips. ‘You’ll be getting a brown box… Don’t go just yet, I thought we might talk about old times, you know, the days of wine and roses. What did you make of the pierogi? If you want my view, when all’s said and done, you can’t do much with a dumpling.’