The Porcupine

  Really, thought Solinsky, as he leafed through Ganin’s report, this is trivial stuff. It did not surprise him that the Department of Internal Security had had a file on the President’s daughter, that a certain well-placed assistant in the Ministry of Culture reported on a monthly basis, or that the Minister’s relationship with that gymnast who had won a silver medal in the Balkan Games should have been closely watched. The gymnast, he seemed to remember, had got offensively drunk at a banquet some weeks after Anna Petkanova’s death, and shortly afterwards had been permitted to emigrate, the standard phrase for being woken at dawn and driven to the airport without a change of clothes.

  Stoyo Petkanov had declared a week of national mourning for his daughter. They had been very close. After her appointment as Minister of Culture she was increasingly seen at his side, replacing her invalid mother, who apparently preferred to stay in one of the country residences. It was rumoured that Petkanov had been grooming his daughter to succeed him in office. It was further rumoured that the President’s daughter had grown so stout because on one of her foreign trips she had become addicted to American hamburgers, and after unsuccessfully trying to instruct the presidential cooks in their manufacture, had taken to having them flown in. Frozen hamburgers in bulk, courtesy of the diplomatic bag.

  These rumours were all more or less confirmed by Lieutenant-General Ganin’s file, along with the detail that the President’s wife had, in her declining years, paid secret visits to the little wooden church in her native village, and that her invalidism was largely caused by vodka. But all this had become history. Anna Petkanova 1937–1972 was dead. So was her mother. Stoyo Petkanov was currently answering the nation on various charges, but having a drunken priest-kissing wife was not one of them. And the gymnast? As far as Solinsky could remember, he had lived in Paris for a while, where his career had not prospered, then had taken a coaching job in a mid-western American city. They said that one night, drunk again, he had stepped out in front of a truck and been killed. Or had that been someone else?

  It was all a long time ago. The Prosecutor General pushed aside the file and looked up from his desk. The sun was beginning to set, and its rays were catching the bayonet on the Statue of Eternal Gratitude to the Liberating Red Army. Yes, of course, it was there that he had first set eyes on Anna Petkanova. One May Day the serious-minded chemistry student with eye pressed inspiringly to microscope had accompanied her father to the wreath-laying. He recalled a stocky figure, a serious, rather pug face, and hair coiled rope-like on top of her head. At the time, of course, she had seemed unimaginably glamorous, and he would have died for her.

  In one respect, the trial was like most other trials that had taken place here over the previous forty years: the President of the Court, the Prosecutor General, the defence counsel and the accused – most of all the accused – knew that anything other than a verdict of guilty was unacceptable to higher authority. However, apart from this concluding certainty there were no fixed points, and no legal tradition to follow. In the old days of the monarchy a cabinet minister had occasionally been impeached, and a couple of prime ministers dismissed from office by the roughly democratic method of assassination, but there was no precedent for such a public, open-ended trial of a deposed leader. And although the actual charges were tightly drawn to minimise the possibility of the defendant evading conviction, the President of the Court and his two assessors felt an implied permission, bordering on a national duty, to let the proceedings sprawl. Rules of evidence and questions of admissibility were broadly interpreted; witnesses could be recalled at any time; counsel were allowed to pursue hypotheses beyond normal legal plausibility. The atmosphere was more that of a market than of a church.

  Stoyo Petkanov, the old horse-trader, did not mind. In any case, he was rarely interested in procedural minutiae. He preferred the broad defence and the even broader counter-accusation. The Prosecutor General had similar powers to range widely in his cross-examinations and general speculation; all the bench had to do was ensure that this representative of the new government was not too obviously humiliated by the former President.

  ‘And did you, on the 25th of June 1976, grant, or instruct to be granted, or permit to be granted, to the said Milan Todorov, a three-room apartment in the Gold section of the Sunrise complex?’

  Petkanov did not answer at once. Instead, he let an expression of amused exasperation seep into his face. ‘How do I know? Do you remember what you were doing fifteen years ago between two sips of coffee? You tell me.’

  ‘I am telling you then. I am telling you that you made or permitted to be made such an order in direct contravention of the rules governing behaviour of state officials in respect of housing.’

  Petkanov grunted, a sound which normally preluded an attack. ‘Do you have a nice apartment?’ he suddenly asked the Prosecutor General. When Solinsky paused for thought, he was hustled. ‘Come on, you must know, do you have a nice apartment?’

  [‘I have a shitty apartment. Correction. I have twenty per cent of a shitty apartment.’]

  Solinsky had hesitated because he didn’t particularly think he did have a nice apartment. He certainly knew that Maria was dissatisfied with it. On the other hand, it came hard, the idea of openly denigrating where you lived. So finally he said, ‘Yes, I have a nice apartment.’

  ‘Good. Congratulations. And do you have a nice apartment?’ he asked the court stenographer, who looked up in alarm. ‘And you, Mr President of the Court, I expect a nice apartment comes with the job? And you? And you?’ He asked the deputy judges, he asked State Defence Advocates Milanova and Zlatarova, he asked the chief militia officer, and he didn’t wait for an answer. He pointed around the courtroom, there, there, there. ‘And you? And you? And you?’

  ‘That’s enough,’ the President of the Court finally ordered. ‘This is not the Politburo. We are not here to be harangued like dummies.’

  ‘Then do not behave like dummies. What are these piddling charges? Who cares whether fifteen years ago some struggling actor was permitted to live in two rooms rather than one? If this is all you can find to accuse me of, then I cannot have done much wrong in thirty-three years as helmsman of the nation.’

  [‘He said “helmsman” again. I think I’m going to choke.’ Instead, Atanas spat cigarette smoke over Stoyo Petkanov.]

  ‘You would rather be charged’, Solinsky felt free to suggest, ‘with the rape and pillage of this nation, with economic vandalism?’

  ‘I have no bank account in Switzerland.’

  [‘It must be somewhere else then.’]

  ‘Answer the question.’

  ‘I have never taken anything out of this country. You talk about rape and pillage. Under Socialism we benefited from a rich supply of raw goods from our Soviet comrades. Now you invite the Americans and the Germans here to rape and pillage.’

  ‘They invest.’

  ‘Ha. They put a small amount of money into our country in order to take a larger amount out. That is the way of capitalism and imperialism and those who allow it are not only traitors but economic cretins.’

  ‘Thank you for your lecture. But you have not told us yet what you would prefer to be charged with. What crimes are you prepared to admit to?’

  ‘How easy it is for you to talk of crimes. I admit I made mistakes. Like millions of my fellow-countrymen, I worked and I erred. We worked and we erred, and the nation advanced. Isolated facts cannot be taken to charge the head of state out of the context of the age, the time. So I am here defending not just myself but also those millions of patriots who worked selflessly for all those years.’

  ‘Then perhaps you would tell the court about these “errors” which you deign to admit, but which are, it seems, conveniently less than crimes?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Petkanov, startling the prosecutor. He had thought the defendant incapable of such a simple word. ‘I take responsibility for the pre-October 12th crisis, and I am willing for my share of that responsibility to be clarified. I thin
k, perhaps,’ he went on, in his most statesmanlike tone, ‘I think perhaps I should be tried for the nation’s foreign debt.’

  ‘Ah, you are at least responsible for something. You actually remember something and you are also responsible for it. And what do you think might be the appropriate sentence for someone who runs up the nation’s foreign debt in a final attempt to hold on to power, so that it now represents two years’ salary for every man, woman and child in the country?’

  ‘Much of that is your doing,’ replied Petkanov easily, ‘since the rate of inflation is I understand currently running at forty-five per cent, whereas under Socialism inflation did not exist, since we used scientific methods to combat it. Naturally at the time of the pre-October 12th crisis, I consulted the leading economic experts of the Party and the State, on whose written reports I relied, but I am willing for my share of the responsibility to be clarified. And then, of course,’ he went on with more evident complacency, ‘it would be a matter for the judgement of the people.’

  ‘Mr Prosecutor General,’ said the President of the Court, ‘I think it is time we returned to more immediate business.’

  ‘Very well. Now, Mr Petkanov, did you or did you not, on the 25th of June 1976, grant, or instruct to be granted, or permit to be granted, to the said Milan Todorov, a three-room apartment in the Gold section of the Sunrise complex?’

  Petkanov sat down and flapped a dismissive hand. ‘Do you have a nice apartment?’ he asked of no-one in particular. ‘Do you? And you? And you?’ He turned on his hard chair and addressed the motherly wardress standing behind him. ‘And you?’

  [‘I have a rotten apartment,’ said Dimiter. ‘I have twenty per cent of a really shitty apartment.’

  ‘What do you expect? You owe two years’ salary to President Bush. Lucky not to be living with the gypsies.’

  ‘We worked and we erred. We worked and we erred.’

  ‘We certainly erred.’]

  Maria Solinska waited an hour outside the Friendship 1 block before she could get on a bus. No, I do not have a nice apartment, she thought. I want an apartment with more room for Angelina, where the electricity does not go off every two hours, where the water supply does not simply dry up as it did this morning. The whole city seemed to be breaking down. Most of the cars were off the road because of the petrol shortage. Even cars converted to gas were now under plastic shrouds since gas had been restricted to domestic use. The buses ran when a tanker brought oil, when the mechanics could push-start them, when the bandits who drove them deigned to turn up as a change from ducking for black-market dollars.

  She was forty-five years old. Still attractive, she thought, although she could make no sure deduction from Peter’s intermittent zeal. During the Changes people had been too busy, or too tired, to make love: that was another thing which had broken down. And afterwards, when they did, they were scared of the consequences. During the last statistical year, the number of live births had been exceeded both by the number of abortions and by the number of deaths. What did that tell you about a country?

  Really, the Prosecutor General’s wife should not be expected to take a bus to the office and be hemmed in by fat peasant rumps. She had always worked hard and done her best, it seemed to her. Papa had been a hero of the Anti-Fascist Struggle. Her grandfather had been one of the earliest party members, had joined before Petkanov himself. She had never met him, and for years he had scarcely been referred to, but since the letter arrived from Moscow they could be proud of him again. When she showed the certificate to Peter he had refused to share her pleasure, grumpily commenting that two wrongs did not make a right. That was typical of his recent behaviour, which was quietly, smugly triumphant.

  She had married him at twenty. Almost at once his father had done something stupid; people said he had been lucky to escape with exile to the country. And then, at almost the same age, Peter had left the Party, stupidly, provocatively, without even asking her advice. There was something unstable about him, something that sought trouble, just as his father had sought it. And then he’d applied to prosecute Stoyo Petkanov! A middle-aged professor wanting to play the hero! Pathetic. If he lost, he would be humiliated; even if he won, half the people would still hate him, and the other half would say he should have done more.

  Lieutenant-General Ganin arrived, as before, with a manila folder stuck out in front of him. Perhaps he woke up like that, and the only way to get rid of his condition was to come and see the Prosecutor General.

  ‘We trust, sir, that the course of the trial is proceeding according to your best expectations.’

  ‘Thank you. Tell me about it.’ Solinsky reached out and simply took the folder, jerking the security chief into commentary.

  ‘Yes. Report of our investigation into work done at the Special Technical Branch in Reskov Street. Mainly in the period 1963 to 1980, at which point the branch was transferred to the north-east sector. Many of the reports from Reskov Street have remained intact.’

  ‘Pride in their work?’

  ‘Who can tell, Mr Prosecutor?’ The General stood stiffly and anxiously before him, more like a provincial lieutenant than a key figure in the restructuring of the country.

  ‘General, on another matter …’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Do you happen to know … It isn’t relevant, I just wondered if you knew what became of that student, the one with the beard, who kissed you in the snow.’

  ‘Kovachev. As a matter of fact I do. He organises the visa queue for the US Consulate.’

  ‘You mean, he works for the Americans?’

  ‘No, no. Haven’t you seen them, the men in the Square of St Vassily the Martyr? They’re queuing for the US Consulate.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘They don’t want to stand in the street, outside the building. They’re ashamed, or afraid people will disapprove, or they’ll get into trouble. Something like that. So they organise their own queue in the public gardens, by the western gates. Kovachev runs it. You’re given a number, and every morning you turn up to see if you’ve reached the head of the queue. If you haven’t, you come back the next day. No-one cheats. Everyone obeys him. He’s quite an organiser.’

  ‘We need him on our side.’

  ‘He won’t come. I’ve tried. He sent me a postcard when I got these.’ Ganin automatically touched his shoulder, as if his wife had sewn two golden pips on his civilian suit. ‘It said: GIVE US GENERALS, NOT BREAD.’

  Peter Solinsky smiled. This Kovachev sounded quite a character. Unlike his stodgy general. ‘So where were we?’

  Ganin resumed his stiffness. ‘It seemed that you would be interested in our summary of the research conducted in Reskov Street as it pertained to the effects achieved in the area of the inducement of simulated illness.’

  ‘Specifically?’

  ‘Specifically, inducement of the symptoms of cardiac arrest by oral or intravenous drug.’

  ‘Anything more?’

  ‘Anything more?’

  ‘Any evidence of specific use in individual cases of this research work?’

  ‘No, sir. Not in this file.’

  ‘Well, thank you, General.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Prosecutor, sir.’

  They had spent another long afternoon getting nowhere. It was like squeezing a sponge: mostly the sponge was dry, but on the rare occasions when it wasn’t, the water ran straight through your fingers. Perfectly well-attested examples of the former President’s colossal greed, his brazen acquisitiveness, his kleptomania and furious embezzling, just seemed to vanish in open court before the eyes of several million witnesses. That farm in the north-west province? A birthday present from the grateful nation on the twentieth anniversary of his appointment as Head of State, but in any case a gift only for his lifetime, and he rarely went there, and if he did it was only in order to entertain foreign dignitaries and thus advance the cause of Socialism and Communism. That house on the Black Sea? Offered him by the Writers’ Union and
the Lenin Publishing House in acknowledgement of his services to literature and in return for his waiving of half the royalties on his Collected Speeches, Writings and Documents (32 volumes, 1982). That hunting lodge in the western hills? The Communist Party, in recognition of the fortieth anniversary of the President’s successful application for a party card, had generously voted … and so on, and so on.

  As the case proceeded, Petkanov seemed to get more unpredictable, not less. The Prosecutor General never knew, at the start of a session, if the defendant was going to respond to him with flagrant aggression, joviality, banal philosophy, sentimentality or stubborn muteness, let alone when or why he might switch from one mode to another. Was it some bizarre strategic ploy, or a true indication of a deeply vacillating personality? In his car on the way to the Ministry of Justice, bearing a folder of superficially incriminating affidavits, Peter Solinsky reflected that his plan of getting to know Petkanov, the better to predict his moves, had so far made little progress. Would he ever come to grasp the man’s character?

  When he reached the sixth floor he found the former President, as if choosing his mood deliberately to annoy, at his most buoyant. What, after all, was Stoyo Petkanov but a normal person with a normal character who had lived a normal life? And why should this not make him the very spirit of cheerfulness?

  ‘Peter, you know, I was just remembering. When I was a boy, I used to go on outings with the Union of Communist Youth. I remember the first time we climbed Rykosha Mountain. It was late October, and snow had already fallen, and you could not see the summit of the mountain from the city because of the cloud level.’