The Schooldays of Jesus (18 page)

The judge-in-chief opens his eyes. ‘So,' he says. ‘It is not contested that the deceased Ana Magdalena met her end as a result of the actions of the accused Dmitri. The court now calls upon Dmitri to tell his story, the story of the fourth of March as seen through his eyes; and for the purposes of the record let it be known that Dmitri's narrative will be designated a plea in exculpation. Speak, Dmitri.'

‘When the fox has the goose by the throat,' says Dmitri, ‘he does not say, “Dear goose, as a sign of my grace I am going to give you a chance to persuade me you are not a goose after all.” No, he bites off her head and tears open her breast and eats her heart. You have me by the throat. Go on. Bite off my head.'

‘You are not a beast, Dmitri, nor are we beasts. You are a man and we are men, entrusted with the task of achieving justice or at least an approximation to justice. Join us in that task. Put your trust in the law, in the tried and tested protocols of the law. Tell us your story, beginning with the deceased Ana Magdalena. Who was Ana Magdalena to you?'

‘Ana Magdalena was a teacher of dance and the wife of the principal of the Academy of Dance. The Academy of Dance occupied the floor above the museum, where I worked. I saw her every day.'

‘Go on.'

‘I loved Ana Magdalena. I loved her from the very first moment I saw her. I venerated her. I worshipped her. I kissed the ground she trod on. But she would have nothing to do with me. She found
me uncouth. She laughed at me. So I killed her. I violated her and then afterwards strangled her. That is all.'

‘That is not all, Dmitri. You venerated Ana Magdalena, you worshipped her, yet you raped her and strangled her. We find that hard to comprehend. Help us. When the woman one loves spurns one, one's feelings are hurt, but surely one does not react by turning upon her and killing her. There must have been some added cause, something that happened on the day in question that drove you to action. Tell us more fully what happened that day.'

Even from where he stands he, Simón, can see the flush of rage that creeps over Dmitri's face, the intensity with which he grips the microphone. ‘Sentence me!' he bellows. ‘Be over with it!'

‘No, Dmitri. We are not here to obey your commands. We are here to render justice.'

‘You cannot render justice! You cannot measure my guilt! It is not measurable!'

‘On the contrary, that is exactly why we are here: to measure your guilt and decide on a sentence that fits it.'

‘Like a hat to fit a head!'

‘Yes, like a hat to fit your head. To render justice not only to you but to your victim.'

‘The woman you call my victim does not care what you do. She is dead. She is gone. No one can bring her back.'

‘On the contrary, Dmitri, Ana Magdalena is not gone. She is with us today, here, in this theatre. She haunts us, you most of all. She will not go away until she is satisfied that justice has been done. Therefore tell us what happened on the fourth of March.'

There is a distinct snap as the casing of the microphone in
Dmitri's hands cracks. Tears well from his clenched eyes like water squeezed from a stone. He shakes his head slowly from side to side. Strangled words emerge: ‘I can't! I won't!'

The judge pours a glass of water and motions to the guard to take it to Dmitri. He sips noisily.

‘Can we proceed, Dmitri?' asks the judge.

‘No,' says Dmitri, and now the tears flow freely. ‘No.'

‘Then we will take a break to allow you to recover yourself. We will reconvene this afternoon at two p.m.'

There is a growl of dissatisfaction from the spectators. The judge bangs sharply with his gavel. ‘Silence!' he commands. ‘This is not an entertainment! Bethink yourselves!' And he stalks offstage, followed first by the two assessors, then by the guard, propelling Dmitri before him.

He, Simón, joins the crowd flowing down the stairs. In the foyer he is astonished to come upon Inés's brother Diego, and with him David.

‘What are you doing here?' he demands of the boy, ignoring Diego.

‘I wanted to come,' says the boy. ‘I wanted to see Dmitri.'

‘I am sure Dmitri finds it humiliating enough without having children from the Academy here to gape at him. Did Inés give you permission to come?'

‘He wants to be humiliated,' says the boy.

‘No, he doesn't. This is not something a child can understand. Dmitri doesn't want to be treated like a lunatic. He wants to be left with his dignity.'

A stranger, a thin, bird-like young man carrying a satchel, has

been listening in. Now he intervenes. ‘But surely the man must be sick in the head,' he says. ‘How could anyone commit such a crime unless his mind is twisted? And he keeps demanding the heaviest sentence. What normal person would do that?'

‘What counts as the heaviest sentence here in Estrella?' asks Diego.

‘The salt mines. Hard labour in the salt mines for the term of one's life.'

Diego laughs. ‘So you still have salt mines!'

The young man is puzzled. ‘Yes, we have salt mines. What is so strange about that?'

‘Nothing,' says Diego. But he continues to smile.

‘What is a salt mine?' asks the boy.

‘It is where they dig up salt. Like a gold mine where they dig up gold.'

‘Is that where Dmitri is going?'

‘It is where they send the bad apples,' says Diego.

‘Can we visit him? Can we go to the salt mine?'

‘Let us not get ahead of ourselves,' says he, Simón. ‘I don't believe the judge will send Dmitri to the salt mines. That is my sense of the way things are going. I believe he will rule that Dmitri has a sickness of the head and send him to a hospital to be cured. So that in a year or two he can re-emerge a brand new man with a brand new head.'

‘You don't sound as if you think much of psychiatry,' says the young man with the satchel. ‘I am sorry, I haven't introduced myself. My name is Mario. I am a student at the law school. That is why I am here today. It is an intriguing case. It raises some of
the most basic issues. For instance, it is the mission of the court to rehabilitate offenders, but how far should the court exert itself to rehabilitate an offender who does not want to be rehabilitated, like this man Dmitri? Maybe he should be offered a choice: rehabilitation via the salt mines or rehabilitation via the psychiatric hospital. On the other hand, should an offender be allowed any role in his sentencing? In legal circles the resistance to such a course has always been strong, as you can imagine.'

Diego, he can see, is beginning to fret. He knows Diego, knows that he is bored by what he calls clever talk. ‘It's a nice day, Diego,' he says. ‘Why don't you and David find something more interesting to do?'

‘No!' says the boy. ‘I want to stay!'

‘It was his idea to come here, not mine,' says Diego. ‘I could not care less what happens to this Dmitri person.'

‘You don't care but I care!' says the boy. ‘I don't want Dmitri to get a new head! I want him to go to the salt mine!'

The trial recommences at two p.m. Regathered, the audience is considerably smaller than before. He and Diego and the boy have no trouble finding seats.

Dmitri is brought back onto the stage, followed by the judge and assessors.

‘I have before me a report from the director of the museum where you, Dmitri, were employed,' says the judge. ‘He writes that you have always performed your duties faithfully and that, until these recent events, he had every reason to think of you as an honest man. I also have a report from Doctor Alejandro Toussaint, a specialist in nervous diseases, who was commissioned by the
court to evaluate your state of mind. Doctor Toussaint reports that he was unable to carry out his evaluation because of violent and uncooperative behaviour on your part. Do you wish to comment?'

Dmitri is stonily silent.

‘Finally I have a report from the police doctor on the events of the fourth of March. He writes that completed sexual intercourse took place, that is to say, intercourse ending in ejaculation of the male seed, and that this took place while the deceased was still alive. Subsequently the deceased was strangled, manually. Do you contest any of this?'

Dmitri is silent.

‘You may ask why I rehearse these last distasteful facts. I do so to make it clear that the court is fully aware of how terrible a crime you have committed. You violated a woman who trusted you and then killed her in the most pitiless way. I shudder, we all shudder, to think what she went through during her last minutes. What we lack is some understanding of why you committed this senseless, gratuitous act. Are you an erring human being, Dmitri, or do you belong to some other species, without a soul, without a conscience? I urge you again: explain yourself to us.'

‘I belong to a foreign species. I have no place on this earth. Do away with me. Kill me. Grind me under your heel.'

‘That is all you will say?'

Dmitri is silent.

‘It is not enough, Dmitri, not enough. But you will not be required to speak again. This court has bent over backwards in its efforts to do you justice and you have resisted at every step.
Now you must bear the consequences. My colleagues and I will retire to confer.' He addresses the guard. ‘Remove the accused.'

There is an uneasy stir among the crowd. Should they stay? How long is the whole business going to take? Yet no sooner have people begun to drift from the auditorium than Dmitri is led back onto the stage and the judges return to their seats.

‘Stand, Dmitri,' says the judge. ‘In accordance with the powers invested in me, I will now pronounce sentence. I will be brief. You offer no plea in mitigation of sentence. On the contrary, you demand that we proceed against you with the utmost rigour. The question before us is, does this demand come from your heart, out of contrition for your heinous actions, or from a deranged mind?

‘It is a difficult question to answer. In your demeanour there is no sign of contrition. To the bereaved husband of your victim you have uttered no word of apology. You present yourself as a being without a conscience. My colleagues and I have every reason to send you away to the salt mines and close the book on you.

‘On the other hand, this is your first transgression. You have been a good worker. You treated the deceased with respect until the day you turned on her. What malign force took control of you on that day remains a mystery to us. You have resisted every effort on our part to understand.

‘Our sentence is as follows. You will be removed from here to the hospital for the criminally insane and detained there. The medical authorities will review your case once a year and report to this court. Depending on those reports, you may or may not be called before the court at some future date for review of your sentence. That is all.'

Something like a collective sigh goes up from the citizenry. Is the sigh for Dmitri? Are they sorry for him? It is hard to believe so. The judges file offstage. Dmitri, his head bowed, is removed.

‘Goodbye, Diego,' says he, Simón. ‘Goodbye, David. What are your plans for the weekend? Am I going to see you?'

‘Can we talk to Dmitri?' asks the boy.

‘No. That is not possible.'

‘I want to!' And without warning he races down the aisle and clambers onto the stage. In haste he and Diego follow, through the wings and down a dark passage. At the end of the passage they come upon Dmitri and his guard, who is peering through a half-opened door onto the street.

‘Dmitri!' the boy shouts.

Ignoring his chains, Dmitri hoists the boy aloft and hugs him. Half-heartedly the guard tries to separate them.

‘Won't they let you go to the salt mines, Dmitri?' says the boy.

‘No, it's not the salt mines for me, it's the madhouse. But I will escape, never fear. I'll escape and catch the first bus to the salt mines. I'll say,
Dmitri here, reporting for duty, sir
. They won't dare to refuse me. So don't worry, young man. Dmitri is still master of his fate.'

‘Simón says they are going to chop off your head and give you a new one.'

The door is flung open and light floods in. ‘Come on!' says the guard. ‘The van is here.'

‘The van is here,' says Dmitri. ‘Time for Dmitri to go.' He kisses the boy full on the lips and sets him down. ‘Goodbye, my young friend. Yes, they want to give me a new head. It's the price
of forgiveness. They forgive you but then they chop off your head. Beware of forgiveness, that's what I say.'

‘I don't forgive you,' says the boy.

‘That's good! Take a lesson from Dmitri: don't ever let them forgive you, and don't ever listen when they promise you a new life. The new life is a lie, my boy, the biggest lie of all. There is no next life. This is the only one there is. Once you let them chop off your head, that's the end of you. Just darkness and darkness and nothing but darkness.'

Out of the blinding sunlight two men in uniform emerge and haul Dmitri down the steps. As they are about to bundle him into the back of their van, he turns and calls out: ‘Tell Simón to burn you know what! Tell him I will come and cut his throat if he doesn't!' Then the door slams shut and the van drives off.

‘What was that last bit about?' says Diego.

‘It's nothing. He left some stuff behind that he wants me to destroy. Pictures he cut out of magazines—that sort of thing.'

‘Ladies with no clothes on,' says the boy. ‘He let me see them.'

CHAPTER 14

HE IS shown into the office of the director of the museum. ‘Thank you for agreeing to see me,' he says. ‘I come at the request of an employee of yours, Dmitri, who would like to save both himself and the museum from potential embarrassment. On your premises, he tells me, there is a collection of obscene pictures that belongs to him. He would like them to be destroyed before the newspapers get hold of them. Will you permit this?'