Perhaps it was this darkening weather which made Constantin impatient of Malek’s slowness in seeing the point of his argument, and he made his first suggestions that Malek should transmit a formal request for a re-trial to his superiors at the Department of Justice.
‘You speak to someone on the telephone every morning, Malek,’ he pointed out when Malek demurred. ‘There’s no difficulty involved. If you’re afraid of compromising yourself — though I would have thought that a small price to pay in view of what is at stake — the orderly can pass on a message.’
‘It’s not feasible, Mr Constantin.’ Malek seemed at last to be tiring of the subject. ‘I suggest that you—’
‘Malek!’ Constantin stood up and paced around the lounge. ‘Don’t you realize that you must? You’re literally my only means of contact, if you refuse I’m absolutely powerless, there’s no hope of getting a reprieve!’
‘The trial has already taken place, Mr Constantin,’ Malek pointed out patiently.
‘It was a mis-trial! Don’t you understand, Malek, I accepted that I was guilty when in fact I was completely innocent!’
Malek looked up from the board, his eyebrows lifting. ‘Completely innocent, Mr Constantin?’
Constantin snapped his fingers. ‘Well, virtually innocent. At least in terms of the indictment and trial.’
‘But that is merely a technical difference, Mr Constantin. The Department of justice is concerned with absolutes.’
‘Quite right, Malek. I agree entirely.’ Constantin nodded approvingly at the supervisor and privately noted his quizzical expression, the first time Malek had displayed a taste for irony.
He was to notice this fresh leit-motiv recurringly during the next days; whenever he raised the subject of his request for a retrial Malek would counter with one of his deceptively naive queries, trying to establish some minor tangential point, almost as if he were leading Constantin on to a fuller admission. At first Constantin assumed that the supervisor was fishing for information about other members of the hierarchy which he wished to use for his own purposes, but the few titbits he offered were ignored by Malek, and it dawned upon him that Malek was genuinely interested in establishing the sincerity of Constantin’s conviction of his own innocence.
He showed no signs, however, of being prepared to contact his superiors at the Department of Justice, and Constantin’s impatience continued to mount. He now used their morning and afternoon chess sessions as an opportunity to hold forth at length on the subject of the shortcomings of the judicial system, using his own case as an illustration, and hammered away at the theme of his innocence, even hinting that Malek might find himself held responsible if by any mischance he was not granted a reprieve.
‘The position I find myself in is really most extraordinary,’ he told Malek almost exactly two months after his arrival at the villa. ‘Everyone else is satisfied with the court’s verdict, and yet I alone know that I am innocent. I feel very like someone who is about to be buried alive.’
Malek managed a thin smile across the chess pieces. ‘Of course, Mr Constantin, it is possible to convince oneself of anything, given a sufficient incentive.’
‘But Malek, I assure you,’ Constantin insisted, ignoring the board and concentrating his whole attention upon the supervisor, ‘this is no death-cell repentance. Believe me, I know. I have examined the entire case from a thousand perspectives, questioned every possible motive. There is no doubt in my mind. I may once have been prepared to accept the possibility of my guilt but I realize now that I was entirely mistaken — experience encouragcs us to take too great a responsibility for ourselves, when we fall short of our ideals we become critical of ourselves and ready to assume that we are at fault. How dangerous that can be, Malek, I now know. Only the truly innocent man can really understand the meaning of guilt.’
Constantin stopped and sat back, a slight weariness overtaking him in the cold room. Malek was nodding slowly, a thin and not altogether unsympathetic smile on his lips as if he understood everything Constantin had said. Then he moved a piece, and with a murmured ‘excuse me’ left his seat and went out of the room.
Drawing the lapels of the dressing gown around his chest, Constantin studied the board with a desultory eye. He noticed that Malek’s move appeared to be the first bad one he had made in all their games together, but he felt too tired to make the most of his opportunity. His brief speech to Malek, confirming all he believed, now left nothing more to be said. From now on whatever happened was up to Malek.
‘Mr Constantin.’
He turned in his chair and, to his surprise, saw the supervisor standing in the doorway, wearing his long grey overcoat.
‘Malek—?’ For a moment Constantin felt his heart gallop, and then controlled himself. ‘Malek, you’ve agreed at last, you’re going to take me to the Department?’
