Face Me When You Walk Away (16 page)

‘How do I look?'

‘Magnificent.'

‘Will I look as good as Endelman?'

Josef stared at the writer curiously. Was he jealous of the American photographer?

‘Every bit as good,' assured the negotiator.

‘I want another pill,' announced Nikolai.

‘No,' rejected Josef. ‘You've had three. Already that's too many.'

Immediately the fragile confidence began flaking away. ‘In two hours time I've got to stand on a stage and deliver the most important speech I'll ever make in my life. I'll be representing Russia. We both know I can't do it without help. This will be the last time, I promise,' said Nikolai.

He was right, of course. This was the highlight of the tour and nothing could be permitted to go wrong. Nikolai had written the address, finally, but Josef was still apprehensive of it. He couldn't afford a public disaster.

‘The last time,' he warned.

‘I promise.'

As Josef returned with the capsule, Endelman arrived, with champagne. ‘Our own celebration,' said the photographer. ‘Before the razzamatazz.'

He worked hard at being liked, decided Josef. Even in the formalized clothes, Endelman still looked outstanding. Josef saw Nikolai admiring the other man. Endelman uncorked the bottle, poured and handed round glasses.

‘A toast,' he announced. ‘To success. The only thing worth having.'

Josef drank, with feeling. ‘Don't let's forget luck,' he added.

They separated at the concert hall, Nikolai going with his two attendants and Josef moving into the main body of the hall. Endelman had a place next to the negotiator and had arranged with the ushers to be seated late, after recording the arrival of the royal party and the assembly of the laureates and their families in the side chambers. Television and film lights glared down, whitening everyone into invalids and making the hall ridiculously hot. Josef twitched damply in the starched formality. He was aware of attention from several parts of the room and it increased his discomfort. Limited recognition was all right, necessary even. But he disliked the sustained exposure. He wanted discreet boardrooms and measured arguments, the tension of nuance and concession. Not this. Not pressed down by a spotlight, squinted at like some malformed freak at a country fairground.

Expectation was seeping through the room and encompassing people, like water overflowing from a flooding stream. The doubts about Nikolai's lecture would not recede. The address was something that should have been created slowly, over a period of weeks, not scrabbled together in the time they had spent on it, like a message left for a tradesman. A Nobel lecture became a piece of history. By his words today, Nikolai was standing up, throwing open his coat and saying, ‘Look at me; this is what I am.'

Josef was horrifyingly aware it could become a case of indecent exposure.

The trumpets sounded and everyone stood. How small the king looked, thought Josef. They remained standing as the Nobel Laureates entered, bowed to the royal party and then sat upon the platform. Nikolai looked small and crushed, like he had when they had left Sheremetyevo airport. Josef tried to catch his eye, but realized he was too far away. Endelman was in the front of the hall, Josef saw. Nikolai noticed him and smiled gratefully,

The photographer moved back and edged in beside Josef.

‘He seems all right,' he whispered.

Because Count von Sydon's speech had been cut, the ceremony moved straight on to the presentation addresses from the members of each academy. They were in Swedish, followed immediately by translation into the language of the respective winners. Tensely, Josef listened as Krantz made his speech, then heard the words in Russian, stilted and formal. Nikolai was actually walking across towards the king before Josef fully realized it was him, moving quite steadily, with none of the hesitation that Josef had feared. The applause rippled and then grew and there was a dazzle from the photographic enclosure as the king handed over the gold medal, the diploma and the assignation of the prize. Although slight, the king still dwarfed the Russian, who stood attentive, looking up into the man's face as if he understood the words being spoken, each holding one edge of the memorial scroll while the cameras recorded the historic moment.

Then Nikolai turned away, searching for the podium that had been pointed out that afternoon. Twelve steps, Josef remembered warning him, just twelve steps and you're there. Steadily, the writer paced his way forward to the lectern and stood, looking out, hands either side and pinned down by the lights. He seemed more alert than nervous, thought Josef. Recalling the airport press conference, Josef was glad about the lights. Nikolai would be unable to see the people laid out before him in serried, identically dressed rows, like the ornamental lawns in French chateaux. Occasionally there was a muffled, embarrassed cough, but otherwise there was complete silence. Josef strained upwards, curiously. Nikolai was looking slowly right and left, like a consummate actor gaining effect from silence. It must be nerves, decided Josef. He must be standing there, unable to force the words beyond his lips. The coughing seemed to be increasing and there was the scrape of feet being scuffed over the floor as people shifted, as if in sympathy with the lonely man's discomfort. Nikolai cleared his throat and the sound was picked up by the microphones. The room became silent.

‘Many men,' the writer began, ‘have stood where I stand today, the award I have just received crowning a lifetime's work …'

The words came a little too quickly, like small boys at playtime tripping over one another. Nikolai was staring towards the part of the hall where he knew Josef would be. The negotiator smiled, even though he knew the author would not be able to see the encouragement.

‘… Many have said they feel the honour undeserved, because modesty in moments of great recognition is expected. Modesty, I fear, is the conceit of many men. Risking the nomination of my own criticism, I declare a feeling of humility, a fear that the works for which I have today been accorded the greatest recognition that can be given to a writer are undeserving …'

He stopped. He was speaking slower now, with better delivery. Again Josef was reminded of an actor.

‘… Forgive me my moment of conceit …' added Nikolai, after just the right pause. There was a murmur of polite amusement. Josef sat bemused by the change in the man.

‘… It is customary, in Nobel Lectures from writers, for much to be said of art. I admire those men who find themselves able to discourse so freely and so easily upon such a subject. I will not talk to you today about art, for I do not feel competent to do so. In the conceit of modesty, I suppose a man can be forgiven for believing the Nobel prize befits him to lecture others on how his work should be received or performed. I do not feel that confidence. I do not feel I can declaim upon an art in which I believe myself to be an amateur …'

It was going amazingly well, decided Josef. Now Nikolai's voice was strong and evenly pitched. There was, of course, the difficulty of translation, but sufficient people seemed able to understand. Josef had noticed several head-together conversations, always followed by approving nods. Josef saw Sukalov looking at him and smiling. Josef wondered how long his contentment would last.

‘… I feel to the art of literature like an ant crawling around the base of a giant oak …'

Once more Nikolai cleared his throat and appeared to straighten on the podium.

‘… Every year …' he began, coming to that part of the lecture about which Josef had so much concern. He coughed and stopped. Around him Josef was aware of an intensifying of interest as people suspected a problem.

‘… Every year,' Nikolai began again, ‘the awarding of the Nobel prize for literature arouses world-wide interest. That is to be expected. This year, the award has created even greater interest. That is to be expected too. Because I am Russian …'

Even those unable to understand caught the feeling that swept the room, a tightening that seemed to go through the people, as if a wire to which they were all attached had been turned by one notch.

‘… I am aware of that interest. I stand before you today an oddity, a man different from his fellows, from his countrymen, like someone with two heads, each facing myopically towards the other. I am aware, too, of the reason. Another Russian, a short time ago, was accorded the honour that has been bestowed upon me today. For reasons which no doubt seemed compelling to him and for which I extend no criticism, he chose not to travel here to accept it. I could find no such reason. But I respect his feelings, for in my conceit of modesty, I regard him as a far better writer than I shall ever be. Many of you will have read of the lecture that my fellow Russian had intended to deliver here. In it, reference was made to a Russian proverb – “One word of truth outweighs the whole world.” It provided a title for the lecture when it was published in the West…'

Josef was conscious of Sukalov's wide-eyed stare. Other people, aware of Josef's identity, were looking at him. There was utter silence, that hollow nothingness that preludes the acceptance of disaster.

‘Upon my arrival here, I was asked what concessions I had made to enable this trip to be undertaken. I replied “none”. That is my word of truth. Against me – and therefore against my work, which I resent – there appears to be growing criticism. It is a criticism by default. “The writing must be suspect,” runs the argument, “because the man has no political motivation. He is not at war with his country.” Is it necessary for a man to be a politician before he can be a writer? Does a man need to suffer the humiliation and the deprivation of a prison camp before he can encompass the cruelty of man to man …?'

Sukalov looked frightened, Josef thought.

‘… In the Soviet Union, there is undoubtedly much that can be criticized. Mistakes have been made. And will be made again …'

Sukalov was bent, whispering into the ear of the First Secretary, gesturing towards Josef.

‘People have suffered. And – perhaps regretfully – will continue to suffer …'

Nikolai hesitated again. This time, the cough had the edge of nervousness. Even blinded, he appeared able to detect the feeling from those before him. Haltingly, but then with growing confidence, Nikolai continued.

‘… The world was once a large, inaccessible place. Now it is small. Borders are now merely drawings on a map. Is it the function of all writers to turn lines on maps into insurmountable barriers? To establish the system which now exists in the People's Republic of China, twenty-six million people died. Should China be isolated? In Australia, the native aborigine has become almost extinct under white rule and now exists – but barely – in squalor unparalleled in the world. Should Australia be isolated? One hundred and thirty years ago, the American government, then, thank God, unaware of a place called Vietnam, adopted a policy called “ultimate destiny”. It was, according to their legislation and even religious guidance of the time, destiny that the white man should occupy the continent and that the American Indian should perish if he objected. Should America be isolated? In South Africa, no black – or kaffir, to use their own word, which sounds offensive, like spitting – may walk a street without a pass, a document that herds him, like cattle, into settlements which, like those in Australia and those in America of one hundred and thirty years ago, are always in the worst parts of the country, the places where the white man does not want to be. Should South Africa be isolated? During a holocaust that should be the shame of mankind, in the Katyn Forests of Poland, in eighteen terrible hours, an entire intellectual stratum of Poland was destroyed in the name of Nazism. In every Ministry in the West German government today, there are men who were Nazis, still holding positions of office. Should West Germany be isolated …?'

Nikolai stopped, his throat ragged. He sipped from some water somehow concealed below the lectern. Josef couldn't remember it having been available at the rehearsal. The shuffling and coughs were growing now. The audience were like people at a traffic accident, unwilling to involve themselves in a minor tragedy, standing back waiting for the person next to them to step forward. It was working, Josef thought.

‘… A writer is like a man who has undergone a cataract operation. He can see, where others are blind. He enjoys beauty, but always sees the ugliness. Because I do not write about ugliness – political ugliness, personal ugliness, human ugliness – it does not mean that I am unaware that it exists, that I cannot see it. But I view things of beauty in a particular light, in better perspective. I have been gifted, if that is not too pretentious a word, with a way of portraying beauty. To include ugliness would be to smear mud on my view of beauty. I repeat the proverb from my country – “One word of truth outweighs the whole world.” With apologies to its unknown creator, I borrow from it – “A vision of beauty illuminates a moment.”'

Only Josef, who knew the lecture, was aware it was over. Nikolai stood there, transfixed, awaiting reaction. Silence sat on time, stretching it from seconds into minutes. People were gathered in groups, three or four clustered around one who was able to provide a translation. The applause started first behind Josef, sounding a long way off and then picked up nearer, to his left and grew, like a snowball rolling down a hill, increasing in its size with every turn. And then it echoed through the hall, sound building on sound, and Nikolai stood at the rostrum, blinking at the ovation. He was staring towards the photographers, Josef saw.

Sukalov fought through the crush at the reception preceding the banquet. Nikolai was damp, his shirt sticking to his body, but with the half-shy, half-confident smile of somebody who believes he has done well but is not quite sure how. His face was red.

‘I never want to witness something like that again,' said the ambassador. ‘That could be disastrous.'