Roza folded up the paper and laid it with the others on the table.
All eyes in the court were upon her. She was the only person standing, now Madam Czerny and Mr Fischer had resumed their seats, superfluous to the drama in which they’d played a part. Brack glared from the dock, paralysed and unnaturally dark — from rage or confusion or from the choking realisation that the trial was coming to an end. Roza addressed her final words to him.
‘I was going to return your bullet, Otto,’ she explained, conversationally ‘But I’m glad the court took it from me. I’d be worried that when you left here a free man you might use it, and I’d only blame myself.’
Without any further acknowledgement to the court, or even the dismantling of her own — she left the table covered with editions of Freedom and Independence, for anyone who might want a copy — Roza began walking from the hushed room, plastic bag in hand, as if she could, at last, get to the market and catch those two-for-one bargains that weren’t really bargains.
‘I had hopes, too,’ shouted a strangled voice. Brack was upright and wavering; a fist punching at the air. But Roza wasn’t listening; she just kept strolling towards the courtroom entrance, frowning to herself as if she’d forgotten to bring a shopping list. Brack stumbled forward, pushing Mr Fischer aside. ‘I have a story, too, about birds shot from a tree, Yes, tell that to the Shoemaker… come back… I have a right to be heard… I demand it. Come back…’
But Roza had gone: the door had swung shut behind her with a soft thud. The trial was over. Or rather, the two trials had ended. Only Roza had spoken. She’d achieved the inconceivable: she’d condemned a man with mercy.
There was no doubting Roza’s victory — at least in the minds of those who understood her — but no celebration took place; and not because Brack’s technical acquittal was a matter of regret in several quarters. There was no party because Roza did, in fact, go to the market — the biggest in Eastern Europe, on the Praga side of the river. It was just another day it seemed. Sebastian, subdued and defeated, went back to work, leaving Anselm, John and Celina in a crowded bar near the court sipping Zubrowka.
‘Who was that bizarre woman?’ asked Celina. ‘The one that wouldn’t leave?’
‘Some crackpot,’ offered John, who’d only heard the rumpus.
‘Eventually the ushers called the police… it took three of them
…’
Anselm had watched uneasily from on high. As the court had emptied Irina had simply stood there, like someone in the cheap seats who hadn’t understood the play The allusions had gone over her head. People had to push past her while she stared at the empty stage and the vacant chair that Brack had occupied; from which he’d walked a free man. She’d been forcibly escorted from the building.
‘She was a victim,’ said Anselm with a snap.
The memory of Irina’s ejection haunted him: she was the only person left behind in Breughel’s hell. She’d fallen outside of Mad Meg’s raid on the underworld. Anselm had tried to talk to her in the street, but her disappointment had imploded; she’d drifted away unseeing, just like that young woman outside Mokotow He was still thinking of her, dishevelled and disorientated, when the phone rang in his bedroom later that evening. He’d been wondering whether to call round, unannounced, bringing more flowers and a pizza, with something fizzy and sweet for the son.
‘Father, there’s someone here,’ began Krystyna, tentatively For once she wasn’t cheery. ‘They want to know if you’ll hear their confession.’
Chapter Fifty
There were no appropriate quiet corners. There were no small rooms available. Every conference facility was booked, even the Warsaw Hall, a 15,000-square-foot auditorium large enough for two thousand delegates. But the place wasn’t occupied for the moment. The management had authorised its use, for an hour or so, with apologies for the lack of intimacy Amused and perplexed at the same time, Anselm followed a suited porter to the lift, up to the second floor of the hotel and through a half open door.
On stepping inside, Anselm froze.
Light fittings like coronets cast a phosphorous glow upon a red carpet patterned on loops like rows of tabletops without their legs. Rank upon rank of seats faced a small wooden podium with a microphone. Just beyond, to one side, sat Otto Brack, waiting to address the plenum. Unmoved and unmoving he watched Anselm’s slow approach to the front row.
‘You were responsible for that fiasco, weren’t you?’ His German was low and hoarse as if he’d been shouting. The glasses, dark in reaction to the light, made his eyes look like deep brown holes in his head. ‘I’m told there’s been a meddling priest who wanted to understand why I shot men and tortured women.
He pointed to a facing seat and Anselm sat down. They were six feet apart, sitting on either side of a circle in the carpet.
‘I never had Frenzel’s loathing for you lot,’ continued Brack. A thin arm moved woodenly in the loose brown suit, shoving aside his colleague’s aversions. ‘I just thought you were too concerned about the next life and interfered too much with this one. There was work to be done. Great work.’
‘What do you want?’ asked Anselm. To his own surprise, he wasn’t afraid. People who link their fate to greatness always appear small.
‘The truth.’
‘You’ve had it.’
‘No, I haven’t; and neither has Roza. She thinks I had some scheme to escape laws written by the victors. There was no scheme. ‘He appraised Anselm through those strange openings in his head.
‘You and I hold two parts of one story. Together they make the truth that the court didn’t hear. Because of your interfering, they didn’t come together. This is what I propose: I’ll explain the crime, if you explain the mercy The result will be the trial I never had. Is it a deal?’
Anselm didn’t have the opportunity to walk away from the negotiating table, because Brack opened up — his pitch low and grating, the phrases cold and prepared — implementing his side of the bargain. Frenzel had evidently said nothing of the file. He’d given his boss a tip-off, a taster, knowing it would send him to the priest; knowing it would flush out an old mistake.
‘Have you ever seen a city reduced to a heap of stones? Have you seen the dead bodies of children floating in a sewer? Have you seen the world you know stamped on and beaten flat?’ Brack rasped his authority. He knew about desolation. He’d seen things that set him apart. When he saw that Damascus wasn’t there any more, he’d heard an unearthly voice. ‘Of course you haven’t. Few have. But I did. I’ve seen it and I’ve felt the ash in my hands afterwards.’ The indignation and self-aggrandisement poured out like the complaint of a servant who’d never been properly thanked. ‘That’s what I faced in forty-five,’ he said, stabbing his leg with a bony finger. ‘I looked around and all I could see was a bare horizon.’