Face Me When You Walk Away (15 page)

‘What happened?' demanded Josef.

‘I was talking with the Swedish trade minister, when Balshev began dropping glasses. The man's behaving like a fool,' said Sukalov defensively.

‘Thank God there aren't many who can understand Russian,' said Josef.

‘He wants a lavatory,' interceded one of the two attendant Russians.

‘Take him,' ordered Josef. liven inside a cubicle.'

Distastefully, the diplomats edged Nikolai towards the door.

‘Your concern is too obvious,' warned Sukalov. He was a tall, white-haired man, elegant in evening dress, an odd, malacca cigarette-holder held between them, like a demarcation line. Long ago, Josef remembered a picture of the man with his father. It had been at a Washington reception for Roosevelt, just before his father had become ambassador there.

‘I'm terrified of the acceptance speech,' confessed Josef.

The author returned from the lavatory. He had been sick, Josef knew. His face was yellow-looking. And wet, of course. Why did he perspire so much, wondered the negotiator. Fear, he supposed, even through drunkenness. The writer was almost comatose when he reached them, unaware of what was going on around him. He was guided unprotesting on a slow farewell to the door. In the embassy car, he slumped, eyes closed until they almost reached the hotel. Suddenly, he lurched forward and vomited on to the floor of the vehicle.

‘Oh God,' said the ambassador. He wound down the window, straining out. Nikolai had to be almost carried into the hotel, the two attachés walking with their arms locked behind him. Before they put him to bed, Josef insisted they bathe him,

Sukalov and Josef went into the adjoining suite, an embarrassed atmosphere between them, like friends who discover they are sleeping with the same woman.

‘I pity you,' said Sukalov, as Josef poured him vodka.

‘I pity myself,' said Josef, with equal sincerity. The ambassador turned, ignoring the drinks for the moment.

‘Is it that important?' he asked, stopped by the tone of Josef's voice.

‘Yes,' said Josef.

‘Then I really pity you.'

For the first time for several days, Josef relaxed. He leaned back, closing his eyes. If he felt so tired, why couldn't he sleep? No one could feel as he did and lie, sleepless, for hour after hour each night. How good a holiday would be. A fortnight – a week even – just sleeping and relaxing somewhere nobody knew him. Just a few days of blissful anonymity. Just good food. Walks maybe. And sleep. Normal, easy sleep. No nightmares, no blocked, strangled breathing. No sleeping pills. Oh yes, and Pamela. Of course. Pamela.

‘Are you all right?'

Josef opened his eyes. ‘I'm sorry,' he apologized.

Sukalov shrugged.

‘It's a strain …' began Josef, but Sukalov raised his hand, stopping him.

‘I don't want an explanation. And I mean that.'

‘It's nothing that could embarrass you,' assured Josef.

‘I still don't want an explanation.'

My father would not have said that thought Josef. He would have recognized somebody in need of help. He would have come forward at the trial, too, not held back as Sukalov had done.

‘It hasn't gone well, so far,' admitted Josef.

‘I know.'

‘I'm not sure I can do it.'

‘That isn't something you should say to me,' cautioned the ambassador.

‘Will you report it?'

‘No. So you're lucky, but you're not thinking enough, Bultova If it's important you're making too many mistakes.'

‘And I could die because of it,' said Josef. Immediately, the theatricality of the remark embarrassed him.

‘Rubbish,' threw back Sukalov. ‘No one would have behaved as you did tonight, abandoning someone like Balshev, if his life depended on it.'

More than a nuisance now, thought Josef. She was a danger to his life. A risk of a labour camp again. The barracks with beds like shelves; cold, mist-layered landscapes; brick trucks on their never-ending circle. Swill; whips; and guards, laughing, jeering guards. Had Medev managed to die? He'd wanted to, Josef remembered. Towards the end, he'd spoken constantly of dying.

‘I made a mistake,' confessed Josef. Admitting errors was a relief. Sukalov was a good man, he decided.

‘Your father died because he made small mistakes.'

I'll never make that error, thought Josef. I'm aware of so many difficulties I'm building phantoms out of shadows.

One of the attachés came through the linking door, interrupting them. He looked damp and irritable.

‘He wants a sleeping pill,' reported the man.

Josef took some seconal from his briefcase and handed it to the attaché.

‘It's going to be difficult for you, personally, elsewhere,' predicted Sukalov.

‘I've realized that,' assured Josef. The Washington ambassador had been one of the chief prosecution witnesses at the trial.

The second attaché came from the adjoining suite and said Nikolai was asleep.

‘I suppose you'll have to report this,' said Josef.

‘If I don't,' said Sukalov, nodding towards where the man had disappeared, ‘one of them will. It will sound better, coming from me.'

Endelman must have been waiting in the lobby for the ambassador to leave, Josef realized. The telephone went within five minutes of the diplomat's departure.

‘It's Endelman,' announced the photographer.

‘I know,' said Josef. The other man had a soft voice, inclined to sibilance.

‘How is he?'

‘Better, thank you.'

‘Good. He was very drunk tonight, wasn't he?'

Josef could not remember seeing the photographer at the reception.

There was a pause. Then Endelman offered, hopefully, ‘I don't think too many people noticed.'

‘I'm glad,' said Josef. The man was trying very hard to be sympathetic. Josef wondered if it were a trick, like remembering names.

‘Have you heard from Moscow yet?'

‘No.'

‘Oh,' said the photographer. The disappointment sounded very genuine. ‘Have you spoken to Blyne?'

It was a clever guess that he would have called New York.

‘He wants you to come with us,' said Josef. ‘Perhaps I'll talk to Moscow this evening to try to get a decision.'

‘I'd appreciate that,' said Endelman.

After the call, Josef dictated his nightly report, then paused, wondering about the photographer. Was Endelman one of the small mistakes about which Sukalov warned? In the pocket of his evening jacket he detected a cube of cheese affixed over a piece of pineapple. He pulled out the fluff-flecked canape surviving from the reception, carefully removed the debris from the lining of his jacket and nibbled it, enjoying the faint flavour of the fruit. The nightly account finished and despatched, he searched his pockets in case he had hoarded more than one piece. He hadn't, he realized. Pity. They were really quite nice.

It took an hour for the call to come through to the number that Illinivitch had given him. Very carefully, he outlined Endelman's request, refusing to be cut off by the deputy chairman's interruptions that he had considered the overnight contents of the diplomatic pouch. It was all right, Illinivitch assured him. The Ministry felt it fitting that one of the world's best-known photographers should record the tour and accordingly every facility should be made available. Josef's doubts were dismissed almost flippantly.

‘Why wasn't it discussed before I left Moscow?' demanded Josef.

‘Devgeny,' replied Illinivitch, immediately. ‘He knew you'd realize your mail was being intercepted and be unsettled by it. He wants you to know you're expected to fail and be constantly worried, so that you'll make more mistakes. Your only hope is to support me openly.'

It was wrong, decided Josef, when the call had finished. Instinctively, he felt that the inclusion of Endelman would create problems.

14

Nikolai's artificial groans disturbed Josef before seven a.m. The writer was very child-like, he thought. Nikolai was lying on his back when Josef went into the room, his eyes closed but obviously not asleep.

‘What's the matter?'

Nikolai moaned, slowly opening his eyes and squinting against the light.

‘It's no good, Josef. I shan't be able to go to the rehearsal. I'm too ill. I've even vomited blood.'

‘Oh,' said Josef, unsympathetically.

‘Call a doctor,' demanded the writer.

Josef ordered coffee and orange juice in the room and had showered by the time it was served. He returned to Nikolai's suite carrying the larger of the two briefcases.

He offered coffee to the prostrate author, who grimaced and turned his head away.

‘Leave me alone, Josef.'

‘Nikolai,' said Josef, gently. ‘You've got a hangover. Probably a bad one. But you deserve it.'

He opened his briefcase and handed Nikolai three paracetamol tablets.

‘These will get rid of the headache,' he promised. Nikolai took them, staring at the orderly arrangement of bottles and phials inside the briefcase. Josef took another bottle from its holder.

‘This will make you feel more confident about the receptions and the rehearsals,' he added, handing the writer two of the chlordiazepoxide tablets he had acquired in Austria.

Nikolai smiled up at the negotiator.

‘Thank you, Josef,' he said. ‘You're a true friend.'

He gulped the analgesic tablets, waited for thirty minutes, as Josef instructed, then took the chlordiazepoxide. An hour before their first appointment, Nikolai was more relaxed and confident than Josef had ever seen him.

Josef had telephoned Endelman, telling him of the overnight decision by Moscow, and the photographer arrived at their suite at nine. Nikolai was taking the bath upon which Josef was now insisting, so Josef served coffee while they waited.

‘I'm glad it's worked out,' said Endelman.

‘I'm surprised,' admitted Josef. ‘But I don't like the idea. So let's understand one thing. If it becomes awkward, the arrangement ends.'

‘Sure,' agreed Endelman, easily.

He doesn't think I mean it, thought Josef. Nikolai was surprised and at first retreated into his shell of reserve. But gradually, as the day developed, with Nikolai being introduced to other Nobel Laureates, Josef noticed the writer smiling more often at Endelman's efforts to communicate. The photographer had made a joke, in the hotel suite, of his Russian, which Josef thought quite good.

‘Jimmy and I have made a pact,' announced Nikolai, at lunch. ‘He's going to speak to me only in Russian and I'm going to reply only in English. That way we both improve our language.'

Just like the arrangement between himself and Pamela, thought Josef. He looked over the writer's head, to Endelman.

‘See,' said the photographer. ‘I told you it would work.'

Josef didn't return the smile. Again the thought returned that Illinivitch's decision was wrong. He wondered if it had been made by the Ministry or by the deputy Minister alone. If the Ministry had been involved, then there would be an official record.

The afternoon rehearsal in the concert hall was strange, like a funeral without a body, Josef thought. He had anticipated Nikolai's request and brought more chlordiazepoxide which he had given him as lunch was ending.

It was the first time Josef had seen Endelman work. He was very professional, decided the Russian. None of the Nobel Laureatesj encased in their own nervousness, seemed aware of him.

The ceremony dictated that Nikolai be officially conducted into the hall by two members of the Literary Committee. Lev Krantz, whom Josef recalled from the reception at which Nikolai had got drunk, was one of his attendants. The other was a man called Noedstrom, whose Christian name Josef had missed. Names were becoming a problem for him, he realized.

For nearly two hours they went over the ceremony, beginning with the entrance from the Oxtorgsgatan, into the committee rooms and then, after the trumpet calls and royal hymn that would indicate the arrival of the royal party, the entry through the centre doors to their places on the right hand side of the platform. There were cocktails after the rehearsal. Nikolai, Josef noticed, moved immediately to Endelman and the two became immersed in conversation, apparently oblivious to people around them.

Krantz smiled and came up to the negotiator, nodding towards Nikolai.

‘He seems better today,' he said.

‘I'm afraid he was nervous the other evening.'

‘They often are,' said the Swedish Jew. ‘I have known many literary winners. Always they are frightened. Writers are private people. They shouldn't be exposed to public view.'

Josef nodded, but could not think of a reply. Ballenin could get on well with the man, he thought.

‘It is a sad occasion, this year,' filled in Krantz.

‘Oh?'

‘You are unaware of our tragedy?'

‘I'm afraid …?'

‘This year we are avoiding the salutatory oration that would have come from Count von Sydon.'

‘Oh yes,' recalled Josef. ‘A sad loss.'

‘Indeed,' said Krantz. ‘You never met, I suppose?'

‘No,' said Josef. ‘Never.'

‘A remarkable man,' said Krantz. ‘Really remarkable.'

Nikolai, thought Josef when they got back to the hotel, was an enigma. His moods swung like a pendulum from one extreme to the other and Josef was unable to decide how much was genuine. A great deal of Nikolai's behaviour, he thought, was calculated, like a man glancing sideways into a shop–window reflection to gauge his appearance. The early part of the day had gone without difficulty and Nikolai had built an icing-sugar confidence from it. As they prepared for the ceremony, Josef heard him whistling in the adjoining room. The negotiator went through the linking doors, into Nikolai's rooms. The writer swirled in his hired evening-dress and Josef realized he had bathed for the second time.