That was my real mistake. Had I been a stronger man and killed him in 1948, there would have been no son to shoot in the leg, and Lena, Gisele, and the others from that list would still be alive.
I heard the screen door open. Ferenc lumbered through the darkness toward me. He had a solemn expression on his face; I didn’t know if it was because of Lena or because Magda had discussed her threat to kill me.
No. She was too much of a prole to talk about what didn’t need to be said.
“Mag tells me this Rosta Gorski’s responsible for Lena.”
“Him and his father.”
“Father?”
“Jerzy Michalec.”
Ferenc frowned, then remembered. He’d been around that year, but we weren’t close yet, and what he knew of that case was hearsay, much of it rehashed from our nostalgic beers on his back porch.
He put a heavy hand on my shoulder. He was going through mixed emotions-a revolt he’d put the last ten years of his life into had come to fruition, and that ecstatic joy was running head-on into Lena’s death and my depression. “Well, then,” he said, “let’s go get the bastard.” It was all he could think of to say.
I shook my head. “You’re busy enough. Besides, I don’t want anyone else dying.”
“Take Bernard. He’s a lousy son-in-law anyway.”
He seemed to be smiling in the darkness, but it was hard to tell.
“Did you ever tell Magda or Agota about him?” I said. “About those Ministry reports?”
“No. We came to our agreement, and he stuck to it.”
“Good.” That’s when I noticed my teeth were chattering.
“Come inside,” said Ferenc. “It’s freezing out here.”
Halfway through the pork Magda had baked with apples, Ferenc shook his head at what I’d been telling him. “That’s impossible. We own the town now, and the whole country looks to Patak for direction. They’re not looking to the Capital anymore.”
“You’re being naive,” said Bernard. Sanja was propped on his knee while Agota, beside him, fed the child soft apple mush. “All you’ve seen is Patak, day after day. There’s a lot more country than that town. And they’re watching television. Television comes from the Capital.” He shrugged. “It just makes sense.”
I didn’t want to press the point, because Ferenc was already frustrated being put in his place by his son-in-law. He poked a fork around his plate. “You think it’s true what they said in that paper?” “What did they say?”
“That the Americans have recognized the Galicia Committee?” I nodded. “Gisele Sully believed it. I trusted her.” “Even if it’s a lie,” said Magda, “it makes no difference.” Ferenc glared at her. “Of course it makes a difference!” She smiled at her husband. “You know better than that. If they announce to a whole country that President Bush is behind them, then President Bush would look like a coward if he said he never made the phone call. Particularly after the lie encouraged France and England to follow suit.” She shook her head. “No, the Americans aren’t going to be the last ones to congratulate the revolution they’ve been pushing us to make the last forty years.”
“The Soviets still haven’t recognized the committee,” said Agota, grinning close to Sanja’s face.
“Of course they haven’t,” said Ferenc. “They’re trembling in their boots.”
“They’re not,” I said, then told them about the secret telegram I’d found in Romek’s house. “Pankov thought they were behind the revolution. They said they weren’t, but they also refused to help put it down.”
That earned a collective moment of silence, as each person readjusted his position in regard to Moscow.
After dinner, Agota took me to the guest bedroom and showed me endless black-and-white photographs she’d taken of the revolution in Sarospatak: candlelight vigils in 25 August Square; dark faces lit from below; men climbing on statues; lone fists in the air; young people on tanks and facing lines of soldiers; abandoned Kalash-nikovs on a sidewalk; blurry shots of panic during the massacre; women crying with bloodstained hands; a dead man surrounded by furious demonstrators; an empty 25 August Square, littered with lost hats, shirts, a shoe, and splashed with blood.
Going through them was like reading a story I hadn’t been around to witness. Frozen instants from events that were defined by their very motion. They didn’t seem to do the revolution justice, but what could?
“Here,” she said and passed over a series of large color photographs of an old, bald man in an Italian suit, sitting with one leg crossed over a knee, looking sternly, then smiling, at the camera. It was Tomiak Pankov. Those final portraits of the man are now famous and have been seen in so many newspapers that they’ve lost their effect. But that evening, seeing them for the first time, I was in shock. Unlike the kinetic shots of the revolution, these were immobile, stolid. Pankov was a statue that no amount of wind or rain could damage. He was eternal.
I lost my breath just looking at them and had to turn the photographs facedown against the pillows. I sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed my face. Agota settled beside me and rubbed my back, then held on to me. She could tell I needed it.
TWENTY-FOUR
Harold and Beth showed Gavra more smiles when they left, and Beth leaned her frail body down to kiss his cheeks. Even Michalec smiled as he followed them out and locked the door. Gavra was again alone.
Around ten in the evening, he noticed increased activity out in the corridor. His guard had been changed, and though the new one wasn’t as large as Balint, he was still a significant chunk of man. Gavra peered over his shoulder to see soldiers carrying electronic equipment in the direction of the classrooms. Microphones, video cameras, power cables. He wondered if all this was for him, for the single act of pointing a gun at an old couple and killing them.
Whether or not the Pankovs deserved it, Gavra was still unwilling to pull the trigger. But Michalec had been right-you give a man enough time, and he stops reacting instinctively to a proposition. He has hours to turn it over in his head, examine the pros and cons, and measure the repercussions of the threat to kill his best friend.
Gavra had met Karel Wollenchak in September of 1980, through one of his cases. Someone in Karel’s building who wanted Karel’s apartment had been meticulously fabricating evidence to suggest that he was in contact with spies from West Germany. Gavra was called in to examine the evidence and soon saw through the pitiful attempt. A year later, he had joined Karel in the apartment, which had once been owned by Karel’s grandmother.
Though he never introduced me to his friend, I could tell when I first saw them together at my apartment that they were very close. When men make close friendships over the years, and particularly when they live together, the bond can be similar to that of a romantic relationship. Your friend becomes your other half; you begin to share weaknesses and strengths; you suddenly can’t imagine your life without the other person.
That’s what Gavra felt as he considered the possibility that Karel would be murdered if he didn’t go through with the executions.
I go into all of this because it’s vital that people understand why Gavra Noukas did what he did. He was not serving the interests of Jerzy Michalec, Rosta Gorski, or the Galicia Revolutionary Committee. What he ended up doing, he did for his own reasons, and for the good of others.
But he still wasn’t convinced. Weighing the fate of his closest friend against the fate of the country was not enough to set his mind in any one direction. He needed to know more. He needed to see, hear, and feel more to decide what to do. Jerzy Michalec knew this.
That’s why, at midnight, as the racket in the corridor reached its peak and he heard the faint beat of helicopter blades outside, the new guard opened his door, and Michalec stepped in.
“Come on, Gavra.” He held out a hand, waving to lead him on. “There’s something I want you to see.”
24 DECEMBER 1989
SUNDAY
TWENTY-FIVE
He led Gavra dow
n the corridor, which by now had become oneway. Everyone rushing with files, papers, and cameras followed the same path toward the classrooms.
“You only want me to see something?” said Gavra.
“For now, yes. By the way, you’ll be happy to know Karel’s doing fine. He’s agitated, for sure. Keeps asking where you are. But he’s safe, has a soft bed and food.”
“Where? Here?”
“An apartment. Somewhere.”
Gavra imagined a cramped tenement bedroom, Karel terrified, sitting on the edge of a bed, while in the living room a man cleaned his pistol and watched television, waiting for a phone call.
“But all isn’t roses,” said Michalec, his tone suddenly changing. “Seems your friend Emil Brod has shot my son.”
Gavra stopped and stared at him. “Is he dead?”
Michalec shook his head. “Not a fatal shot. He’ll be fine, though he’ll probably walk with a limp the rest of his life.” He paused. “Any idea where Brod is now? We’re having a hell of a time tracking him down.”
It pleased him that I’d put a bullet in Rosta Gorski. “I’m surprised he didn’t kill your son. The man’s responsible for Lena’s death.”
Michalec waved him on and, before they reached the room, admitted that he was surprised as well. “But it turns out Brod goes in for theater. He told Rosta that the bullet was part of a message. The message is that he’s going to come after me. And kill me. Think I should be scared?”
“I think you should be very scared.”
“Thought you’d say that.” Michalec winked and placed a hand on Gavra’s shoulder. “Let’s go inside.”
This classroom was larger than the others, probably for meetings where the entire barracks needed to listen. The walls were yellow and hadn’t been washed in some time, and on the ceiling two incandescent bulbs flickered. There were no children’s desks here, just rows of metal folding chairs where people-some in uniform, some not-were settling down and chatting in a steady murmur. The chairs faced the end of the long room where three tables were set up, each with a single microphone. The table against the back wall had three empty chairs. The one against the left wall had two chairs, and opposite, against the right wall, was another table with two chairs. In these chairs sat Tomiak and Ilona Pankov, a Kalashnikov-toting guard on either side.
“It’s a trial,” Gavra said involuntarily.
“There’s a new thing called due process,” whispered Michalec, guiding him to a chair in the back. “It’s all the rage in America.”
Ilona Pankov, wrapped in a fur coat with a white babushka over her hair, looked cold in this unheated room. Her nose was red, and she clutched a handkerchief against her hollow cheek, sometimes rubbing her nostrils. Tomiak Pankov, in the greatcoat that was a few sizes too large, didn’t seem to mind the cold. He sat stiffly in his chair, arms folded over his chest, looking around. He sometimes leaned over to whisper to Ilona, who nodded vigorously and followed the finger he used to point out people he recognized. Their disgusted expressions made no attempt to hide their feelings.
Against the two side walls a few soldiers stood with wheeled metal racks holding recording equipment connected to two video cameras on tripods. The cameras each faced the side table against the opposite wall. There was no camera pointing at the table against the rear wall, presumably the bench.
The front row of chairs was filled with a mix of young people and the senior citizens he’d seen earlier. Beth and Harold were among them, whispering excitedly. Some sat straight and stared bitterly at the Pankovs.
Suddenly, Pankov stood and pointed across to the door, shouting, “Traitor!”
Gavra turned; it was Andras Todescu. The ex-presidential advisor reddened, then quickly came over to Michalec, crouching to the old man’s ear. “They’re ready,” Todescu whispered.
“Good,” said Michalec. “Send them in. I’m sick of waiting.”
Todescu left again. Up front, Pankov was shaking his guard’s hand off his shoulder and sitting down on his own.
Behind Gavra, three officers-two colonels and a lieutenant general-entered and walked around the edge of the chairs toward the table at the end of the room. A soldier switched on the video camera that faced the Pankovs. The couple whispered animatedly, shaking their heads, but the crowd was silent, watching the men approach the bench and stand behind their chairs. The lieutenant general, in the center, spoke, his voice sounding strained and awkward. “I call this session of the trial of Tomiak and Ilona Pankov to order.” Then he patted his damp forehead with the back of his hand. The man was terrified.
Before the lieutenant general could continue, Tomiak Pankov leaned forward and spoke loudly. “I only recognize the Grand National Assembly. I will only speak in front of it.” He planted his fist on the table to punctuate his statement, and Gavra could see his wife rubbing his knee under the table in encouragement.
Pankov was ignored.
A young man in the front row stood, shaking his head, and turned to look at the audience. He wore an elegant Western suit and held an open notepad. “In the same way he refused to hold a dialogue with the people,” he said, glancing at his notes, “now he also refuses to speak with us.”
It all sounded very rehearsed to Gavra.
“He always claimed to act and speak on behalf of the people, to be a beloved son of the people, but he only tyrannized the people all the time.” This, then, was the prosecutor. He examined his notes again. “You are faced with charges that you held sumptuous celebrations on all holidays at your house. The details are known. These two defendants,” he said, motioning toward them with a broad sweep of his hand, “procured the most luxurious foodstuffs and clothes from abroad. They were even worse than the king, the former king. The people received only two hundred grams per day, and only with an identity card.”
“Eating,” muttered Ilona Pankov, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Is that what they’re accusing us of?”
The prosecutor stopped in the center of the floor-outside the reach of the camera, Gavra noticed-and pointed at them. “These two defendants have robbed the people, and not even today do they want to talk. They are cowards. We have data concerning both of them. I ask the chairman of the prosecutor’s office to read the bill of indictment.”
Another man in the front row-tall, lanky, with coarse cheeks and mouth-stood and read directly from his pages, without flourish or any hint of showmanship. His voice, like that of the president of the court, quivered. “Esteemed chairman of the court, today we have to pass a verdict on the defendants Tomiak Pankov and Ilona Pankov, who have committed the following offenses: crimes against the people. They carried out acts that are incompatible with human dignity and social thinking; they acted in a despotic and criminal way; they destroyed the people whose leaders they claimed to be-”
“Is this a joke?” said Ilona as Tomiak squeezed his arms tighter across his chest.
The chairman of the prosecutor’s office paused, then continued. “Because of the crimes they committed against the people, I plead, on behalf of the victims of these two tyrants, for the death sentence for the two defendants. The bill of indictment contains the following points: genocide, in accordance with Article 356 of the penal code-”
Perhaps it was the mention of the death sentence that drew To-miak Pankov’s head up and made his wife briefly cover her eyes.
“Two,” continued the chairman of the prosecutor’s office. “Armed attack on the people and the state power, in accordance with Article 163 of the penal code. The destruction of buildings and state institutions, undermining of the national economy, in accordance with Articles 165 and 145 of the penal code. They obstructed the normal process of the economy.”
“You don’t even know what normal process of the economy means,” hissed Ilona Pankov.
The prosecutor, who had remained standing, crossed his own arms over his chest and turned to them. “Did you hear the charges? Have you understood them?”
“I won’t answer,” said To
miak Pankov. “I will only answer questions before the Grand National Assembly. I do not recognize this court.” He leveled a stiff finger at the prosecutor. “The charges are incorrect, and I will not answer a single question here.”
“Note,” said the prosecutor, raising his own finger. “He does not recognize the points mentioned in the bill of indictment.”
Gavra squeezed his hands between his knees to stop them trembling. He’s since tried to explain it to me, but I honestly can’t imagine what it was like to be in that room, watching this display. People in other countries might compare it to having their president or prime minister prosecuted and sitting in the courtroom aisle and watching, but that’s nothing. In those countries average citizens speak daily about how their leaders should be put in jail. They openly say that they would be happy to turn the lock on their cell and would voluntarily keep guard. Those are entirely different places.
Tomiak Pankov was a man whose portrait graced the walls of every public building and many private homes. His volumes of collected speeches were de rigueur purchases. Four times a week, documentaries praising the life and life-works of this peacemaker and friend of the environment were aired on television. We knew everything about him, from his humble beginnings on a farm outside Uzhorod to the boxes full of medals he’d received from the queen of England, from America, from African countries only we had heard of, because by then they were our only allies.
And when the food shortages began, when the Maternity Laws came into effect, when the petrol and coffee ran out, we didn’t run through the streets screaming for his blood. We stayed inside with our faulty heaters and waited for something to change for the better. Because Tomiak Pankov was like an abusive father. After all the years together, you can’t help but feel some anguished love for him, but that doesn’t temper the fear. One wrong word, and you’ll be faced with rage you might not survive.
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