Face Me When You Walk Away

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘You more than anyone else,’ agreed the deputy Minister.

  ‘So don’t hurry me.’

  ‘Remember, keep in touch, from Stockholm and other places.’ He handed Josef a card. ‘It would be better if you telephoned me at this number, rather than at the Ministry.’

  Josef took the card and wedged it into his wallet.

  ‘I hope you make the right decision, Josef.’

  ‘So do I,’ agreed the negotiator.

  *

  The flat needed no attention, but Pamela had performed the charade for two hours after Josef left until she tired of rearranging small pieces of furniture that would be replaced in their original position the following day. She sighed, touring the immaculate rooms, touching things, examining ornaments intently, as if they contained some hidden message. She considered washing her hair and discarded the idea. She’d set aside the afternoon for that. She didn’t want to rob that part of the day of its activity. A fortnight-old copy of Newsweek lay on the table. She resisted the temptation. Tonight. After supper. She decided on a walk. In fact, she had determined upon it before Josef had left, but relapsing into the game she played with herself, she had pushed the decision to the back of her mind, so that it could arrive fresh. The concierge looked at her expressionlessly as she approached the exit from the apartment. Pamela smiled and said ‘Good morning’ in Russian. The woman continued to stare, just slightly deflecting her head in acknowledgment. Sour old cow, thought the girl. Outside the apartment, she turned left. One hundred and twenty steps to the main junction, she reminded herself, like a blind person. Consciously, she lengthened her stride and reached it in one hundred and eighteen. A miscount. Tomorrow she’d have to count it again to see which was right. Another game. Two hundred steps before reaching the next turning. This time she walked normally. Two hundred steps later, she reached the intersection. No mistake here. No need for a recount. She found herself approaching the giant Gum department store, as she’d known she would the moment the walk had occurred to her. It was the place Western visitors knew, because it was in all the guidebooks. It was convenient when photographing the Kremlin became boring. She might meet somebody there. Somebody to talk to. Perhaps she’d become really friendly and invite them back to the apartment for lunch and then they could spend all afternoon gossiping about London or New York or wherever they came from. In the evening there would be washing up to be done. Her hair could be put off until tomorrow. It would be good to have something planned for the next day. Happy at the fantasy, she bustled into the store, looking around expectantly, as if she had an appointment.

  The tourist season was virtually over, so the store was not as crowded as it was in the summer. Most of the people were Russian, she decided. There were a few who could have been European, but they all seemed intent and assured, with none of the uncertainty of casual visitors. Probably from an embassy. No point in trying to become friendly with embassy personnel. They certainly wouldn’t accept a casual invitation to lunch in a Russian apartment, definitely not when they discovered she was the wife of Josef Bultova.

  She encountered the two Americans on the far side of the ground floor, in the children’s section. They were giggling over matryoshkas, the traditional wooden dolls, where one is lifted to reveal another replica, until the family are uncovered. Both women were deep into plump middle age, white, carefully ridged hair clamped under freshly purchased Russian winter hats, heavy coats obviously bought from America and inadequate for the Russian winter. Fur boots, an attempt to match the hats, swathed their feet and the lower parts of their legs. Pamela thought they looked like an illustration from Goldilocks and the Three Bears book she had had as a child.

  ‘For three dollars, it’s got to be a bargain,’ said the slightly older of the two. She made a calculation on a presents list. ‘And we can afford it, easily.’

  ‘They’re authentic,’ stupidly agreed the second, moving towards the conviction of her companion.

  ‘Don’t look,’ snapped the first woman. ‘But we’re being approached.’

  The unconvinced one immediately looked around wildly, then locked her attention back on to the dolls.

  ‘What!’

  ‘There’s a Russian woman, across the counter. She’s watching us.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘I’m not silly. She is staring at us. Remember what they said at the embassy.’

  ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘Ignore it. That’s what they said. And refuse to sell any money, no matter how good the rate.’

  Each was trying to talk without moving her lips.

  ‘I don’t see …’

  ‘For God’s sake, Anne. Don’t you remember what the counsellor said. They get friendly, then trap you into some indiscretion.’

  Pamela hurried from the store, actually colliding with a man at the entrance in her anxiety to get out. Disregarding the need to occupy time, she continued to hurry, even running the last few yards to the apartment block. The concierge stared at her bustled arrival, still expressionless.

  Pamela slipped the burglar lock into place immediately she entered the apartment, leaning back against the door, breathing heavily. Safe, she thought, quite irrationally. I’m safe. She checked the time. Eleven forty-five. She opened Josef’s ward-robe-like liquor cabinet, poured a sherry and then carried the bottle with her to the writing table in the bedroom.

  ‘Dear mother,’ she wrote. ‘I’m still very happy here. Moscow stays as fascinating and interesting as ever. I met two charming women from Des Moines today. They came to lunch. Guess what they told me …’

  12

  Bad weather delayed the Aeroflot flight for seventy minutes and despite the warmth of the V.I.P. lounge, the welcoming committee were clearly disgruntled. Nikolai was almost mumbling his fear, clutching child-like at the negotiator’s arm as if afraid the older man would abandon him. He shuffled through the formal greetings, hand extended before him, his head nodding like a puppet to every word that was said, twitching slightly every time a flash-bulb exploded. Josef was unwilling for an airport press conference, but knew they had to give one. He compromised, pleading that Nikolai was travel sick, which was hardly an exaggeration, and insisting the encounter should be limited to ten minutes. The conference room was packed, heavy with cigarette smoke and pebbled with discarded coffee cartons. Josef and the author sat on a slightly raised dais, staring out unseeing into the glare of television lights. A disembodied voice asked, ‘How does Comrade Balshev feel at winning the Nobel prize?’

  Josef made the pretence of a muttered conversation with Nikolai, then turned back to the room, grateful at the easy opening.

  ‘Honoured,’ he replied. Then, feeling modesty was appropriate, he stupidly added, ‘And surprised. He feels there were others more deserving.’

  ‘Who for instance?’

  The question rasped from the back of the room, an unpleasant Bronx drawl. ‘Eldon,’ the questioner identified himself. ‘United American Wire Service.’

  ‘There was an American writer, we believe,’ said Josef, attempting diplomacy for the benefit of the questioner.

  ‘What about the Chinese?’

  Josef squinted, trying to isolate the man. He had tried to steer the discussion away from the other nominee.

  ‘What Chinese?’ he fielded.

  ‘Didn’t you know there was a Chinese nomination – a book by Lin Tsai-Fu?’

  Josef hesitated, feigning to consult Nikolai to gain time.

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘We hadn’t heard that. But then, the consideration of the Literary Committee is confidential.’

  ‘Despite which you knew about the American,’ came back Eldon. ‘How would you feel about a writer from Peking getting the Nobel prize?’

  The last part was careless, asked by a man who felt too confident.

  ‘Ask me when it happens,’ dismissed Josef, curtly. ‘Next.’

  ‘What does Comrade Balshev think of women’s lib?’ asked a short-haired woman in
the second row.

  Again Josef, relieved at the lightness of the inquiry, pretended to speak to the writer. Then, smiling, he said, ‘Unlike the West, the Soviet Union has always regarded women equally with men. Comrade Balshev recommends it as another example the West could learn from the Soviet Union.’

  ‘What does Comrade Balshev feel about being allowed to accept the prize when Alexander Solzhenitsyn was not? And what compromises did Comrade Balshev have to make to be allowed this concession?’

  Josef snapped up at the question. The pleasantries were over, he thought. The query had been put in Russian, so the buzz continued throughout the room.

  ‘Translation,’ somebody demanded, from the back of the hall.

  ‘Certainly,’ agreed the questioner. He stood up, quite close to the girl with the short hair. He wore a crewcut and large oval glasses, like a barbed panda. A Finn, judged Josef, as the man repeated the question in carefully enunciated English, pleased at the attention.

  ‘Yeah,’ concurred Eldon. ‘How does he feel about that?’

  The delay had given Josef the opportunity to think. He gained more time in apparent conversation with Nikolai. The author was staring at him. It was the first question he had understood and he was frightened.

  ‘Comrade Balshev knows of no compromise,’ began Josef. ‘Because none was sought. The decision not to attend the ceremony was Comrade Solzhenitsyn’s alone …’

  ‘Because he was afraid he would not be readmitted to the Soviet Union,’ shouted the persistent American.

  ‘You appear better-informed about the affairs of the Soviet Union than we are,’ responded Josef. ‘We have no knowledge of why Comrade Solzhenitsyn refused to come here.’

  It was becoming an argument, a snappy exchange of which he had been afraid.

  ‘Why are you, a spy, accompanying Comrade Balshev?’

  The question was in English again, from a sallow man in the front row.

  Josef laughed. ‘I was asked to accompany Comrade Balshev because I speak several languages and have a knowledge of the West. Stories of my being a spy are ridiculous.’

  ‘Weren’t you in a labour camp once, like Solzhenitsyn?’ asked Eldon.

  ‘I was unaware Comrade Solzhenitsyn had been convicted of any criminal offence …’

  ‘… He wasn’t.’

  The interruption came from several points and Josef stumbled. It had been a bad reply and now he was compromised.

  ‘But what other reason could there have been for his imprisonment?’ he said. Again, it was a poor recovery.

  ‘You tell us,’ said the sallow man in the front row. ‘You were wrongly accused, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Josef, quickly. ‘And as soon as the injustice was uncovered, I was released under the properly established legal system of my country.’

  ‘Jesus, doesn’t it make you sick,’ said Eldon, to the assembled journalists.

  Abruptly, Josef stood up. ‘There have not for several minutes been any questions asked of Comrade Balshev,’ he said, tightly. ‘So I assume you have enough information. I thank you for allowing a sick man to bed early.’

  ‘No.’

  The protest echoed from several parts of the room. Josef remained standing, urging Nikolai to his feet. As he bustled through the room, steering Nikolai between flowerbeds of camera flashes, he got momentary satisfaction seeing several reporters turn angrily upon the American.

  Nikolai was silent in the embassy car that took them to the Grand Hotel. Josef ignored him, locked in his own thoughts. It had been a disaster, he judged, a pointless slanging match that would be turned into damaging stories throughout the world. Worse, the whole accent would be upon him, with little reference to Nikolai. It was an appalling start.

  They had adjoining rooms, with communicating doors. Josef put the younger man immediately to bed, overriding his earlier decision to insist upon nightly baths. Less than five minutes after he had given Nikolai two seconal from his own medicine supply, the author was asleep, occasionally jerking in the grip of some dream, whimpering often. For several minutes, Josef stood at the linking door, watching him in the half light. Poor man, he thought.

  Sandwiches and coffee had already been delivered to the suite, so he was surprised at the second knock. It was light and very hesitant. Perhaps, he thought, the waiter had failed to get a bill signed. He opened the door, carelessly, then stopped. A complete stranger stood facing him, smiling hopefully.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Hello,’ said the man.

  ‘Yes?’ repeated Josef.

  ‘My name is Endelman, James Endelman.’ He stopped, expectantly. Then, when Josef did not respond, he prompted, ‘Perhaps you’ve heard of me?’

  The photographer?’

  The man smiled at the recognition. He looked over Josefs shoulder, awaiting an invitation into the room. Josef regarded the man, avoiding the courtesy. Endelman was very tall, almost as tall as Illinivitch, but while the Russian had difficulty with his height, Endelman capitalized upon it. His clothes were perfectly tailored, Josef noticed appreciatively, so that the man was a commanding figure, not the oddity that Illinivitch appeared. The photographer’s shirts were obviously hand made, too, patterned and coloured to accentuate the suit. The shoes were genuine crocodile.

  ‘It’s very late,’ said Endelman, offering the rejection that should have come from Josef.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ said the negotiator. The hostility was wrong, he accepted, but the strain of negotiating was pulling at him, familiarly. Endelman was among the top three or four photographers in the world, he knew, the three-times winner of the Pulitzer prize for his coverage of the Biafran war, the Israeli–Arab six-day conflict in 1967 and Vietnam.

  ‘I’m sorry about the time,’ continued the photographer. For someone so well known, he was unusually deferent.

  ‘The press conference was earlier,’ snapped Josef.

  ‘I know. I was there. Quite a brawl, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Then I don’t see …’

  Endelman stood back slightly, accepting that he was going to have to conduct the conversation in the hallway. He handed Josef a letter. He seemed amused at the Russian’s rudeness, which Josef found unsettling. It was a short note from Blyne. Endelman, he wrote, had a commission for a complete portfolio for worldwide syndication. It meant exposure in Paris Match, Stern, Oggi, plus Cosmopolitan in both England and America. He was also preparing a complete portfolio on the tour for major American promotion.

  ‘You’d better come in,’ said Josef, reluctantly.

  Endelman followed him into the suite and sat uninvited in one of the large armchairs. He was very relaxed and elegant, thought Josef.

  ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘By allowing me to accompany Nikolai and yourself throughout the tour,’ said Endelman, directly.

  Josef stared at him, amused. ‘You mean actually travel with us?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Endelman.

  Josef smiled at the naivety. ‘I really don’t think that’s possible.’

  ‘It would provide a fantastic collection of pictures.’

  ‘It probably would,’ conceded Josef. ‘But it’s not a practical request.’

  ‘Not when the Soviet Union has obviously decided to milk this tour for all the publicity it can provide?’ said Endelman, presciently.

  Josef found the man disquieting. Oddly, he experienced the same uncertainty that he sometimes found with Nikolai, which was ridiculous, he thought. It would be difficult to find two men more dissimilar. The deference that Endelman tried to indicate was false, Josef decided. He felt Endelman was a very determined man.

  ‘It’s hardly a decision I would be permitted to make,’ hedged Josef.

  ‘Blyne contacted the Ministry in Moscow,’ reported Endelman. ‘I had several meetings with the Russian ambassador to the United Nations in New York. He thought it would be possible.’

  ‘I know nothing of that,’ said Josef. Why had Devgeny withheld that information, won
dered Josef. He couldn’t see the advantage of doing so. And obviously Endelman would not lie, because the statement was so easily checked.

  ‘You could call Moscow,’ urged the photographer.

  Publicity, or what Moscow regarded as publicity, was the point of the tour, thought Josef. And the man came with Blyne’s recommendation, which was a factor to be taken into consideration.

  ‘I’d have preferred to have discussed this in Moscow,’ he said.

  ‘They know, believe me.’

  ‘I’ll inquire,’ promised Josef. ‘But decisions are made slower in Moscow than they are in New York.’

  ‘I’m a perpetual optimist,’ said the photographer. It was like someone unfolding himself when he stood up, Josef thought.

  ‘I’ll contact you tomorrow,’ said Endelman.

  That’ll be far too soon.’

  ‘It’ll be a way of keeping in touch,’ pressed the other man.

  ‘As you wish,’ said Josef. ‘You’ll be wasting your time.’

  ‘Not if it’s finally productive, I won’t,’ countered Endelman.

  He was the sort of man who always had to have the last word, thought Josef.

  ‘Until tomorrow,’ smiled Endelman, at the door.

  Instinctively, Josef knew it would be wrong to allow Endelman the involvement he wanted. There were already sufficient difficulties, he decided. Why had the approach been kept from him in Moscow? And why hadn’t the publisher sent to him a copy of the request to the Ministry? He had sent copies of all other correspondence.

  Josef booked telephone calls to the Russian capital and New York, then drank his cold coffee and nibbled the sandwiches, which had become soggy. As he ate, he replayed the press conference from the briefcase tape upon which he had recorded it. Finally he shrugged, the decision made. Briefly, he dictated his customary nightly report into a second recorder, added Endelman’s request, then summoned an embassy attache to include it in the diplomatic pouch to Moscow.

  After he had gone Josef stretched, realizing how tired he was. Perhaps tonight he wouldn’t need the pills. He answered the telephone immediately, anxious not to disturb Nikolai. Lines to Moscow were down, the operator insisted. There was no chance of a circuit that night. He had promised he would call Pamela. She would never accept that it was impossible to get a connection, so there would be another row when he spoke to her the following night. He was becoming exasperated at the constant bickering.