Face Me When You Walk Away

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ protested Stanswell, his voice strained.

  ‘For a Nobel prize book, printed in time for the presentation? I think not,’ argued Josef. ‘It’s very modest, in fact. With simultaneous publishing, you’ll make a fortune.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You get a sensational book that will sell in record amounts,’ stressed Josef. ‘The potential is enormous.’

  Stanswell shook his head, determinedly. ‘The second contract isn’t acceptable,’ he said. ‘If it becomes the Nobel prize book, it will have to be a coffee-table production. To recover anything like the outlay, we’d have to sell for three or four pounds. Maybe more. You’ll have to improve your offer.’

  Josef sighed. ‘What would you accept?’ he probed. Always leave an opening. That was another rule.

  Stanswell shrugged, unhappy at having to list his demands.

  ‘I’d want some of the paperback rights,’ insisted the publisher.

  ‘What percentage?’

  ‘Sixty for you, forty for me.’

  There was just a little too much hope in the man’s voice.

  ‘Eighty-twenty,’ countered Josef. ‘And that’s a big concession. My government instructed me to retain full rights.’

  ‘Seventy–thirty,’ tried Stanswell.

  Still a little too much hope, judged Josef. And the other man hadn’t been able to suppress a smile at the first offer. Adamantly, Josef shook his head. ‘I can’t go below eighty,’ he said, in the voice of a man being pushed too far. ‘Even with that, you’ll make a fortune.’

  ‘The Publishers’ Association would object.’

  ‘Who’s going to tell them?’ rejected Josef.

  Stanswell made a calculation in his wallet notebook.

  ‘Both contracts will be in writing?’ he asked.

  I’ve won, decided Josef. Always, it was the best moment. Outwardly, he remained unmoved.

  ‘Legally drawn up,’ he confirmed.

  ‘Copyright?’

  ‘We’d insist on supervising and approving the translation, but you’d have the translation copyright, in the normal way.’

  Stanswell smiled.

  ‘Agreed,’ he said, offering his hand. Josef took it. Perhaps, he thought, he was worrying unduly. Perhaps the whole thing was going to be as easy as this. In the negotiations to pump Siberian natural gas to the west coast of America, he’d argued a fortnight over one-eighth of one per cent. And won, of course.

  *

  Josef had met Herbert Blyne six years before, at a United Nations cocktail party, when the man had been a new director at Hartner, Edwin and Elper, anxious to prove himself. He had pursued Josef throughout the function, imagining a book based on Josef’s life. The Russian had been offended then by the man’s pushful Jewishness, his refusal to be rebuffed first by coldness and then by deliberate rudeness, Josef remembered Blyne as an artists’ model for the successful American executive, diet trim, a lapel breadth ahead of fashion, a wife and two brace-toothed children in a white-painted Colonial home in Scarsdale and a mistress on 60th and 2nd.

  The encounter was very different from that with Stanswell. Blyne was late calling, hoping Josef would be the first to make the approach. The Russian waited, confidently, and when the phone went thirty minutes after the appointed time, he allowed it to ring for several minutes before picking it up. Blyne was just unable to subdue the anxiety. Josef smiled, satisfied.

  Blyne would have disliked discussing business over a meal-table, Josef guessed. So he invited the man to his suite. Agreeing to it as the venue was another small psychological concession. Apart from his weight, which Josef estimated had gone up by about half a stone, the American managing director was as Josef remembered. He was quite small and very dark, almost arabic, with short, nervous gestures about which he seemed embarrassed, as if to indicate apprehension showed weakness. He probably carries pills in his briefcase, too, thought Josef, and pays fifty dollars a week to a psychiatrist. They shook hands, recalled their earlier meeting, laughed about it and then sat, regarding each other.

  ‘I knew we’d get together eventually,’ began Blyne. ‘I see the wheat deal came off.’

  Either he reads financial newspapers, thought Josef, or he’s had someone prepare a dossier on me. Probably the latter.

  ‘I was lucky,’ said the Russian, modestly.

  Silence grew between them.

  ‘I think you’re going to be pleased we opened discussions,’ tried Josef.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘We think Nikolai Balshev is going to get this year’s Nobel prize,’ he said, matching the bluntness he’d practised with the Briton.

  ‘I figured something like that,’ said Blyne, unimpressed. ‘All this secrecy crap and flights to Europe.’

  It was a good reaction, judged Josef. He wondered how difficult it would be to unsettle him.

  ‘But the Soviet Union are delighted at the prospect,’ offered Josef.

  ‘What’s that mean?’ asked Blyne, nudging the lure.

  ‘That immediately after the presentation in Stockholm, he’ll be allowed to tour the West, for personal appearances.’

  For several moments, the American sat completely still, only his hands moving around his lap in those gestures that embarrassed him.

  ‘You mean to New York, right after the ceremony?’

  Josef nodded. ‘I won’t let him go out on those incredible author’s tours,’ he warned. ‘Fourteen cities in fourteen days, or anything stupid like that. But there will be some personal appearances.’

  Blyne nodded slowly. He’d recovered, decided Josef, and was calculating the potential.

  ‘You will be the only American publishing house in history to bring out, with permission and therefore with the full approval of the Soviet Union, one of their Nobel prizewinners,’ said Josef. He paused, gaining effect. ‘… And that would be quite a coup for a publisher to pull off, wouldn’t it?’

  Blyne smiled and Josef was happy he had isolated the man’s thoughts.

  ‘There’s something else, of course,’ said Josef.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I would imagine,’ continued the Russian, ‘that a publisher selected by the Soviet Union to publish one work would find other material forthcoming.’

  ‘Are you giving me an undertaking?’ demanded Blyne, excited.

  ‘No,’ said Josef.

  ‘A hint?’ Blyne was stretching almost too far.

  ‘No,’ repeated Josef. ‘I’m just expressing a Russian train of thought.’

  Blyne smiled. ‘It wouldn’t be possible to put those thoughts into some sort of written document, would it?’ he pressed.

  People should learn that negative questions prompt negative responses, thought Josef.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘A great deal will have to be on trust.’

  ‘But there could be a definite contract for Walk Softly on a Lonely Day?’

  ‘If the terms are right.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Two million dollars advance,’ said Josef. ‘A different-from-normal paperback division. And I retain Canadian rights.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ dismissed Blyne.

  ‘It’s not bullshit and you know it. A million was paid for a Howard Hughes phoney. That was bullshit. This is kosher.’

  ‘There’s nothing in it for me.’

  ‘Now you’re talking bullshit. What about the paperback rights?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I’ll split with you, seventy-thirty. In the last three years there have been three cases of a paperback sale going for two million dollars plus. This book will exceed any of those. The moment you put your signature on a contract, you’re into profit. And there’s the investment for the future. And you know as well as I do that any publisher with access to Russian literature is being given the key to a gold mine.’

  ‘I want to think about it,’ said Blyne.

  ‘No time. And no reason,’ argued Josef.

  ‘I can publish simultaneously wit
h the news of the award?’

  Josef nodded. It was getting close.

  ‘But there must be no advance release,’ cautioned the Russian. ‘If there is, the deal is off. And I’ll also undertake to re-negotiate if Nikolai fails to get the award.’

  Uninvited, Blyne poured himself a drink from the bar Josef had in the room, needing the time.

  ‘We will work together again?’ he pressed.

  ‘I can only give you my word.’

  ‘It’s a deal,’ announced the American. Again, the brief feeling of contentment wrapped itself around the Russian.

  ‘Why allow Balshev out when you made it so fucking difficult for Solzhenitsyn?’ demanded Blyne, bluntly.

  Josef weighed the question, unhappy the man had to swear. It was another indication of his uncertainty. How the obscenity of the camp, the constant, unremitting cursing until the men knew no other words and so lost yet another aspect of their self-respect had angered his father, he remembered.

  ‘He has no political conviction,’ replied Josef, simply. ‘His writing is completely untainted.’

  ‘So an unpolitical farm boy is being allowed to come to the West where nothing he will do will embarrass the Soviet Union?’

  Josef looked for the sneer, but found only a statement of fact.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, admitting the cynicism. Would there be no embarrassment, wondered Josef.

  Suddenly Blyne switched the conversation.

  ‘Balshev is going to make a lot of money,’ he said.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Josef, as if he had forgotten, which he hadn’t. ‘I’ll want the same contractual arrangement with you that I have with Britain. I want fifteen per cent paid into my Geneva account …’

  ‘Fifteen?’ queried Blyne. ‘Shit!’

  Josef produced the letter of authorization from the Ministry of Culture permitting the commission, together with Nikolai’s written agreement.

  ‘You’re an expensive man,’ remarked the American.

  ‘But good,’ responded Josef, laying out the documents upon which he had already written the method of Nikolai’s payment into Russia through the Narodny Bank. Blyne stared at the other man. There was no conceit, decided the American, no conceit at all. One day, he thought, picking up Josef’s outline agreement, that guy will make the subject of a great book.

  6

  He had telephoned from Vienna, warning of his return, so there were no customs formalities. While his luggage was being loaded into the car, he rang the dacha and was surprised to learn that Pamela had returned to Moscow. Immediately, a childlike excitement at seeing her swept through him.

  Like tombstones in a neglected churchyard, the apartment blocks reserved exclusively for leading government officials who shared their homes with no one were regimented with a view of Kutuzovsky Prospekt. Josef’s apartment formed the penthouse on the first section, externally as drab as those that surrounded it. Inside, it rivalled the dacha for indulgence. It had taken him nearly three years to furnish it satisfactorily to suit his purpose, shopping throughout the world. It was essential, above every other consideration, that he had what no others possessed in the city. And was known to have them. With the exception of the huge sunken lounge, where the walls were lined with raw Japanese silk, the apartment was largely panelled in Norwegian pine, not because he particularly liked the style, but because it was unusually modern in Moscow.

  The furniture was predominantly Scandinavian, mostly Swedish. The kitchen was almost entirely automated with electrical goods purchased in America and a book-lined study was an Aladdin’s cave of more electrical equipment. Two Xerox machines had been set into cabinets. One tape recorder was so large it occupied the whole of the specially constructed side-table, and during a visit to Tokyo two years before he had purchased two miniature recorders. Since he was a man of precise records, painstakingly kept for his own protection, one was fitted into a briefcase he took on all business trips to enable him to dictate all correspondence and memoranda at the end of each day, to be shipped to Moscow in the diplomatic pouches of whatever country in which he was working.

  Having created an apartment that would have been remarkable on New York’s Fifth Avenue and which was consequently dazzling by Moscow standards, Josef occasionally gave carefully selective dinner parties, where he served imported wines and liquor often untasted in the Soviet capital to Party executives and neighbouring officials of whose envious gossip he was assured. Until four months ago, after the natural gas negotiations in America and before he had been entrusted with chaperoning Nikolai Balshev, he had intended inviting Uli Devgeny to one such function, aware that every other guest would know the reason and that Devgeny would be humiliated whether he attended or not. Now the gas deal, like all the other successful negotiations that had preceded it, was forgotten. Now, thought Josef bitterly as he moved away from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, Devgeny’s only likely visit would be to take over the place.

  As the Zil moved slowly through the rush-hour traffic, the memory of the last night in Vienna, with the choking nightmare, forced its way into his mind. In needless reassurance, he undipped the briefcase. In the specially segregated side-pockets lay the drugs with which he had restocked while he had been out of the country. He had methalaquone, librium and valium, and in Vienna had visited a chemist he had used before, to buy a greater concentration than normal of chlordiazepoxide and diazepam.

  Her reaction was different from that he had expected. He stood just inside the lounge, waiting for her to smile, but instead she frowned at him, combing her hands through her hair, dishevelled and unkempt.

  ‘Hello, wife,’ he greeted, in anticipation. She appeared to forget their word game.

  ‘Hello, Josef.’

  ‘Is that all?’ he asked, offended by her flat greeting.

  ‘But I didn’t expect you … look, I’m a mess.’

  She wore the same jeans and shirt as that last day at the dacha, but her face had lost the well-scrubbed look.

  ‘You’re lovely,’ he said, untruthfully. He stared at her, uncertain of her mood.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘You surprised me, I wish you hadn’t arrived like this, darling, Unexpectedly, I mean.’

  ‘But I wanted to surprise you, once I learned you weren’t at the dacha.’

  ‘And I wanted to dress up properly, in a dress. And with my hair done. Not like this … like some bloody hippie.’

  ‘It was a bloody hippie I fell in love with, remember?’

  ‘And still am?’ she asked. There seemed an urgency for the compliment, he thought.

  ‘And still am,’ he reassured. He cupped her chin and kissed her. She locked her arm around his neck and held him, tightly, almost grinding her face into his.

  ‘Hello, husband,’ she said, remembering at last. Then, in a rush, she added, ‘Oh darling, I’m so glad you’re back.’

  ‘You’re crying. Your nose is red.’

  She sniffed, scrubbing her hand over her face. ‘I’m so happy to see you. I’ve been … lonely.’

  ‘I’ve missed you, too,’ he said.

  She turned away from him, sharply. ‘I need ten minutes to make myself presentable to my husband,’ she said.

  While she changed, he opened champagne, and selected tapes on the stereo-unit recessed into the wall. She came back shining from soap and rough towelling, her hair strained back into a comb, Spanish style. She wore a plain black dress, with scalloped neckline and flat heeled shoes. She pirouetted, pleased with his attention.

  ‘Now I feel able to greet you properly,’ she said. She accepted the wine, raising her glass in a silent toast.

  ‘How’s Nikolai?’ he asked.

  ‘What?’

  Josef stared at her, curiously. ‘I asked how Nikolai was,’ he repeated, mildly.

  ‘All right, I suppose. Why shouldn’t he be?’

  ‘Did you fight with him?’

  ‘Of course not. Why ask a funny question like that?’

  ‘You seemed
angry at his name.’

  She sat down opposite him in one of the low armchairs, taking elaborate care arranging the folds of her skirt.

  ‘Have you eaten?’ she asked. ‘There’s food in the freezer.’

  ‘Did you quarrel with him?’

  ‘No, of course not. He’s just not my idea of a honeymoon companion.’

  ‘If there had been a way of avoiding it, I would have done so.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  For several minutes, neither spoke, each recognizing the nearness of an argument.

  Pamela voiced the fear. ‘Please, let’s not fall out on your first night home.’

  ‘You still haven’t answered my question,’ pressed Josef.

  ‘Nikolai is like he always is,’ she said. ‘He needs to be told, every day, how good he is. It doesn’t matter who tells him, as long as somebody does. You could train a monkey to do it. And he still smells.’

  ‘So you don’t like him.’

  Pamela shrugged, holding out her glass for more wine. ‘I don’t dislike him. And I don’t like him, either. He makes me feel uncomfortable. Like birdwatchers create hides from which to spy on birds, to learn about them, Nikolai spies on people, from behind his artificial barrier.’

  ‘I think you’re wrong,’ said Josef. ‘He’s unusual, that’s all. A sort of person you haven’t encountered before.’

  Pamela made a dismissive motion with her hand, unwilling to discuss the man.

  ‘He’s anxious about you,’ she reported. ‘He wants to know about Stockholm.’

  Josef looked at his watch. He wondered if the price to prison guards had risen over the decade. Did prisoners still drug themselves with tannin and sometimes run to the wire, hoping to get shot? They never did shoot them, of course. Outside there was nowhere to go, so eventually they had to return.

  ‘I’ll speak to him tomorrow,’ he said, discarding memories. He looked at her. ‘Are you sure nothing is wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘Positive.’ She spoke over-loudly, he thought. Some wine spilled from her glass, staining her skirt, but she ignored it.

  ‘When did you come back to Moscow?’

  ‘About six days ago,’ she said. ‘I decided I’d rather be here. At least there are things I could do by myself. And get away from Nikolai watching me.’