Free The Porcupine by Julian Barnes

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 defencecounsel 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. ‘Howdo 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