Face Me When You Walk Away (6 page)

‘We've already discussed that,' reminded Stanswell.

‘But we haven't talked specifically about money.'

Stanswell had to commit himself before he heard the news, so that he would over-compensate in his eagerness to recover.

‘We thought of £2,000 advance against royalties, assessed on a scale,' said the publisher. ‘Ten per cent for the first 8,000, 12½ for the next 5,000 and 15 for any sale after that. We'll guarantee an initial print of 7,500.'

Stanswell had stopped eating, reciting the terms from a small notebook fitted inside his wallet. There was no cash in the wallet, Josef noticed, so Stanswell must be wealthy. Only rich people had the confidence to be without money. At no time did Josef carry less than £150 in sterling and dollars in his pocket, with letters of credit and drawing facilities for £5,000. Stanswell smiled, expectantly. He had a gold tooth that glinted when he smiled, like a tiny beacon.

‘No,' said Josef, abruptly.

He didn't bother to look up, concentrating upon the final morsel of his venison pâté. Since his imprisonment, Josef never left food.

The beacon across the table went out.

‘But Air Bultova …'

‘Please.' Josef stopped him. He wiped his hands on his napkin. That
was
good pate, he thought.

‘I am offering you the book that is to become this year's Nobel prizewinner,' he announced, dramatically.

Stanswell looked at him in complete astonishment. This was going to be easy, thought Josef, like Stockholm.

‘But …' tried the Briton.

‘I know,' continued Josef, deliberately cutting him off, ‘that your advance exceeds by hundreds of pounds what British publishers usually pay in an advance. I know, too, that the percentages are not over-generous. For a Nobel prize book … one that you could print and have available for the time of the presentation, the whole offer is ludicrous.'

It was important to maintain Stanswell's confusion.

‘If Balshev is nominated, then he'll be permitted to go to Sweden to collect the award,' continued Josef.

Stanswell leapt at the uncertainty, as Josef had intended. Now it was time to appear generous.

‘You said “if”,' challenged the publisher.

‘I'm not asking you to accept anything before a formal announcement.'

‘That's very fair of you,' conceded Stanswell.

A waiter served pheasant.

‘Immediately after going to Stockholm,' continued Josef, enlarging the bait, ‘Balshev will be permitted to promote the book in England.'

The Russian admired Stanswell's control. The only indication of his excitement was the complete disregard of the food.

‘You'll appreciate that what I'm telling you is in the strictest confidence,' warned Josef. ‘For the slightest hint of this to get out would be most embarrassing.'

Stanswell nodded, half hearing, jabbing at his meal.

‘I cannot commit my company to any binding contract merely on your expectation that Balshev will earn the nomination,' he opened, clumsily.

He stopped, raising a pudgy hand. Medev had had hands like that, remembered Josef. In the winter they had chapped and bled as they shouldered the trucks up the last incline before the loading bay, and Medev had wept at the pain. Poor Medev.

‘I propose we prepare a document binding upon both of us and which I assure you will be honoured by my government,' said Josef. ‘If Balshev does not get the nomination, then I accept your contract …'

Stanswell smiled and the tooth flashed a victory. Poor man, thought Josef, he imagines he's won.

‘But I want a second document,' continued Josef. ‘As legally binding as the first. If Balshev
does
become the Nobel prizewinner, then I want an advance against sales of twenty-five thousand pounds. That sale is to be restricted solely to Britain, with me retaining the rights of negotiations in Canada. I want twenty per cent on all sales and no division of paperback payment. The full amount reverts to Balshev.'

‘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 with 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.