EXCERT FROM THE COURT MINUTES,
WITH THE TESTEMONIES OF WITNESSES
IN THE DR. ABU KABIR MUAWIA MURDER CASE
Istanbul
October 18, 1982
Virginia Ateh, waitress at the Kingston Hotel, witness in the case of Dr. Dorothea Schultz, approached the bench and made the following statement:
On the said day (October 2, 1982) the weather was sunny and I was very upset. Veins of salt air were coming in from Bosporus, and with them, rapid thoughts snaked their way into slow thoughts.
The Kingston Hotel garden, where breakfast is served in fine weather, is quadrangular. One corner is sunny, the other has a cultivated bed with flowers, the third is windy, and in the forth corner there is a stone well and beside it a pillar. I usually stand behind the pillar, because I know that guests don't like being watched when they eat. It's no wonder. I, for instance, know immediately, when watching a guest have breakfast, that a soft-boiled egg will sustain him to bathe before noon, fish will go to Topcisaray before nightfall, and a glass of wine to smile before bed, a smile that will never reach the nearsighted mirrors of the hotel room. From this spot by the well, you can see the steps leading into the garden and you can always keep your eye on who's coming and going.
It has one more advantage. Just as all water from the surrounding drainpipes pours into the well, so al voices from the garden also reach it, and if you tilt your ear a bit toward the well opening, you can quite clearly hear every word spoken in the garden. You can hear when a bird pecks a fly, or a shell cracks on a boiled egg; you can recognize the forks calling out to one another always in the same and the glasses each in a different voice. Since before calling the waitress guests usually mention in conversation the reason why they want me, I am able to satisfy their wishes before they inform me of them, because I have already heard them from the well. And to know something a few seconds before others is a great advantage and always of benefit.
That morning, the first to come to the garden were the guests from room 18, the Van der Spaak family, with Belgian passports, father, mother, and son. The father is elderly; he plays nicely on an instrument made of white tortoiseshell, and in the evening its music could be heard. He's a bit eccentric and always eats with his own two-pronged fork, which he carries in his pocket. The mother is a young pretty woman, which is why I took a closer look at her. And that is how I noticed she was marked by a defect--there was no partition in her nose. Everyday she would go to St. Sofia's, where she would make lovely copies of the wall paintings. I asked her whether these pictures served as notes for her husband's songs, but she didn't understand. Her nearly four-year-old boy probably had a defect of his own. He always wore gloves, even at meals. But it was something else that upset me. That sunny morning I watched the Belgians come down said steps to breakfast. And I saw the following: the old gentleman's face was unlike other faces.
Judge: How do you mean?
Witness: Join two left sides of the same face on a photograph and of a handsome man and you will make a monster. Double up the sides of the soul and you will get not a complete but rather two monstrous halves of the soul. Like a face, the soul has a right and left side. You cannot make a two-legged person out of two left sides. The old gentleman's face had two left sides.
Judge: And that was why you were upset that morning?
Witness: Yes.
Judge: The court warns the witness to confine her testimony to the truth. What happened next?
Witness: I served the Van der Spraaks, telling them not to pick up pepper and salt with the same hand, and after their meal they left, except for the boy, who stayed behind to play with his chocolate milk. Then Dr, Dorothea Schultz, present here, entered the garden and sat at her table. Before I managed to wait on her, the now dead Dr. Muawia went to her table and sat down. You could see that her time was trickling like rain and his was falling heavily like snow. He was already covered up to his neck. I noticed that he wasn't wearing a tie, and that she sneaked a revolver out of her handbag, but after exchanging a few words with Dr. Muawia she put her hand out and he gave her a small bundle of papers. All this upset me even more, Dr. Muawia had a childlike smile trapped in his beard that resembled an insect in amber and was singed by the green of his melancholy eyes. As though drawn by that smile, the boy from the Belgian family went up to Dr. Muawia's table. I remind the court that the child was not yet four. Thee was nobody else in the garden. The boy was wearing gloves, as usual, and Dr. Muawia asked why he didn't take them off.
"Because this place makes me sick," the boy replied.
"Sick?" asked Dr. Muawia. "Sick of what?"
"Of your democracy!" said the boy--word for word.
Then I moved closer to the well and listened to their conversation, which seemed increasingly strange as it went on.
"What kind of democracy?"
"The kind you and your ilk protect. Look at the results of this democracy of yours. Before, big nations used to oppress small nations. Now it's the reverse. Now, in the name of democracy, small nations terrorize big. Just look at the world around us. White America is afraid of blacks, the blacks are afraid of the Puerto Ricans, Jews of Palestinians, the Arabs of the Jews, the Serbs of the Albanians, the Chinese of the Vietnamese, the English of the Irish. Small fish are nibbling the ears of big fish. Instead of minorities being terrorized, democracy has introduced a new fashion: now it's the majority of this planet's population that's being burdened... Your democracy sucks..."
Judge: The court warns the witness not to make implausible statements. The witness is fined. You claim under oath that all this was said by a child who is not yet four years old?
Witness: Yes I do, because I heard it with my own ears. The I wanted to see what I was hearing, so I moved to a spot where I could watch from behind the pillar in the garden. The child grabbed Dr. Schultz's revolver from the table, spread-eagled his legs, crouched , and, holding the gun with both hands like a professional, aimed at Dr. Muawia, shouting:
"Open your mouth so your teeth won't be ruined!"
Stunned, Dr, Muawia really did open his mouth and the child fired. I thought it was a toy gun, but Dr. Muawia toppled over on his chair. Blood gushed, and then I saw that one of Dr. Muawia's trouser legs was already dirty--he had one foot in the grave. The child threw down the weapon, went back to his table, and proceeded to finish his chocolate milk. Dr. Muawia didn't move and the stream of blood tied itself into a knot under his chin. I thought then, "There, now he has a tie..." Just before that, Mrs. Schultz let out a scream. Everyone knows what followed. Dr. Muawia was pronounced dead, his body was removed, and Dr. Schultz reported the death to another guest at out hotel, Dr. Isailo Suk...
Prosecutor: "I thought then, 'There, now he has a tie...' " I would like to express to the court my profound indignation at the way the witness expresses herself. What are you by nationality, Miss--or is it Mrs.? Ateh?
Witness: That's hard to explain.
Prosecutor: Try, please.
Witness: I am Khazar.
Prosecutor: What did you say? I've never heard of a nation like that. What passport do you carry? Khazar?
Witness: No, Israeli.
Prosecutor: So that's it. That's what I wanted to hear. How can you be a Khazar and have an Israeli passport? Did you betray your people?
Witness: (laughing) No, one might saw just the opposite. The Khazars assimilated with the Jews and, along with everybody else, I accepted Judaism and an Israeli passport. What's the point of being alone in the world? If all Arabs became Jews, would you remain an Arab?
Prosecutor: No comment is necessary, and here I ask the questions. Your testimony is calculated to help the accused, who carries the same passport as you. I have no more questions. Nor, I hope, has the jury...
Next to take the stand was the Van der Spaak family from Belgium. They agreed on three things. First, it is ridiculous to believe the story that a three-year-old child ostensibly committed the murder. Second, that the investigation had established that Dr, Muawia was killed by a weapon bearing the fingerprints of only one person, Dr. Dorothea Schultz, and had also established that the said weapon (a .38-caliber model 36 Smith & Wesson) with which Dr, Muawia was killed belonged to Dr, Schultz. Third, Mrs. Spaak, as the main witness for the prosecution, claimed that Dr. Schultz had a motive for the murder of Dr. Muawia, and had come to Istanbul to kill him, which she did. Namely, the investigation established that during the Egyptian-Israeli was Dr. Muawia had seriously wounded Dr, Dorothea Schultz's husband. The motive is clear: murder in revenge. The testimony of the Kingston Hotel waitress could not be accepted as reliable. That was all.
On the basis of the evidence, the prosecutor asked that Dr. Dorothea Schultz be declared guilty of premeditated murder, entailing political motivations as well. The accused was brought before the court. Dr. Schultz made a very brief statement. She was not guilty of Dr. Muawia's death, and she could prove it. She had an alibi. Asked by the judge what kind of alibi, she replied: "At the time of Dr. Muawia's murder, I was murdering someone else--Dr. Isailo Suk. I smothered him with a pillow in his bedroom."
During the investigation it had been established that Mr. Van der Spaak had also been seen in Dr. Suk's room that morning, at the time of his death, but Dr, Schultz's confession absolved the Belgium of any responsibility.
The trial ended and the verdict was pronounced. Dr. Dorothea was acquitted of the charge that she had killed Dr. Abu Kabir Muawia in and act of premeditated murder and revenge, and was condemned for the murder of Dr. Isailo Suk. Dr. Muawia's murder remained unresolved, while the Van der Spaak family was set free. Virginia Ateh, the waitress at the Kingston Hotel, was fined fro trying to deceive the court and mislead the investigation.
Dr. Dorothea Schultz was sentenced to six years' imprisonment in the casemates of Istanbul. She writes letters to her own name in Cracow. All the letters are examined, and they always end with the same incomprehensible sentence: "Our false victim saved us from death."
The search of Dr. Suk's room turned up no books or papers. All that was found was an egg cracked at one end. The dead man's fingers were caked with yolk, indicating that last thing he had done in life was to crack the egg. Also discovered was an unusual gold-handled key that, strangely enough, fitted the lock of a room belonging to a Kingston Hotel employee. The room of waitress Virginia Ateh.
Found on the Van der Spaak family's table, and enclosed as evidence, was a bill written on the back of a sheet of hotel stationary. It said:
1689
+ 293
= 1982