Face Me When You Walk Away (8 page)

Pamela, in complete contrast, had been almost light-headed in her gaiety, disregarding an admitted headache and chattering without direction, like a bird suddenly freed from captivity, giggling at him, imagining the legacy from drink was the only reason for his moroseness.

The consummation of their marriage had lifted from her an enormous uncertainty. A person of frequently ill-considered impulses from which, once committed, pride prevented retreat, she had been deeply worried. She believed her decision to turn away from the carefully ordered life of a wealthy M.P.'s daughter in London had been one of the few to which she had devoted the consideration it justified. Russia, from the moment she had stepped ashore in Leningrad, had enthralled her. But no matter how sincere her feelings, for a single girl – particularly the daughter of a Tory Member of Parliament – to quit London for Moscow was a ridiculous hypothesis which even she, in her haphazard way, did not consider. And then she had met Josef at a British embassy reception. She had heard of him, of course. Everyone at the function had and she had been intrigued finally meeting someone about whom she had read so much. She had first thought him an unprepossessing, fat little man with glasses, immaculately dressed to disguise his shortness, but by the time the evening had ended, she was enraptured by him, her interest far exceeding the aphrodisiac of power. She had had a week remaining of her tour and he had seen her every day. She had been flattered by his attention and impressed at his easy access to everything in what she accepted with the myopia of the irrationally committed was a largely closed society. Gradually, beginning with the first and strengthening with the two subsequent visits she made within the year, the idea developed of how she could adopt a life she felt preferable to her own. The opposition from her family had been enormous and sustained. And the publicity in the West, particularly as her name was linked to that of Josef Bultova, had been terrifying. Buy she was determined she was in love, had withstood the publicity and laughed at the Victorianism of her father's final gesture in publicly disowning her. But although she would have argued otherwise, it was impossible for Pamela's life to exist on unsound foundations. While she had been contemptuous of her English background and the way of life it represented, she had needed its reassurance. Having spurned it, she needed a replacement. Marriage to Josef would provide that, she knew, but it had to be a proper marriage, a complete one. What had belatedly happened the previous night had made it so, she felt. Her buoyancy was even unaffected by what had occurred between her and Nikolai, which seemed to lessen in importance.

Nikolai saw Josef's car arrive and came running from the house like a schoolboy welcoming his father to the boarding school on speech day.

‘Josef, my friend.'

‘How have you been, Nikolai?'

‘Miserable without you.'

‘I thought you preferred to be without people.'

The writer shrugged a contradiction. ‘I need people I trust. I trust you.'

‘Wasn't Pamela company?'

‘Of course,' responded the writer, immediately. ‘I was sorry she decided to return to Moscow.'

The pale, inconspicuous boy smiled up at the older man and Josef felt a surge of pity for him. He was to be used by men who disdained literature with contemptuous boorishness, jerked and paraded like a puppet suspended on elastic. And there was nothing he could do about it. Josef wondered if he would ever become aware of it. They went into a small chamber off the main hallway in which the archduke had created a gun and trophy room. Nikolai had chosen the room when they had first arrived and announced it was to be his study, the room in which he would structure a sequel to
Walk Softly on a Lonely Day
. An empty typewriter, dust-marked from disuse, was on the desk, paper confettied around it, a few pieces marked by isolated jotting.

‘Work not going well?' probed Josef, curiously.

Nikolai shrugged, irritated by the question. ‘It's impossible to work here. You wouldn't understand. You're not an artist.'

Josef smiled at the conceit, shaking his still aching head. The open drive hadn't done any good. Nikolai pulled a chair from behind the desk and sat facing Josef, hands on his knees, once again the anxious schoolboy awaiting the end-of-term report.

What happened in Stockholm?' he asked.

‘It went well, I think.'

‘Am I going to be chosen?'

Josef smiled at the naivety.

‘I don't know that. The decision is made by an impartial committee.'

‘Why did you go, if it wasn't to be told the award was mine?'

Nikolai sat straight up in the chair, offended by Josef's unwillingness to make a prediction. Josef sighed. Had the young man changed in three weeks? Or was his impression clouded by the stupidity of the previous night's debauch?

‘Nikolai,' he started, gently. ‘There are things you don't understand about this award. There's more than the Nobel nomination involved.'

‘That's ridiculous,' rejected the writer.

‘I wish it were ridiculous,' said Josef. ‘Believe me, I wish it were.'

‘Why did you go? I want to know.'

Josef paused, halted by the imperiousness of Nikolai's demand.

‘There were people to see … assurance to be given,' generalized the negotiator.

‘But the Literary Committee know the book?'

‘Yes.'

‘And like it? They
do
like it, don't they?'

‘Yes, I believe they do.'

‘It is a good book, isn't it Josef? It will become part of Soviet literature, won't it?'

Some things haven't changed, thought Josef. ‘Yes,' he recited. ‘It's a wonderful book. And it will become recognized as such.'

‘When will we know?'

‘Soon, I hope,' said Josef. He pressed his fingers into his forehead. Would the bloody pain never dissipate? He yawned.

‘Now that Pamela and 1 are back in Moscow,' he said. ‘There doesn't seem a great deal of point in your staying all the way out here …'

He nodded towards the little-used desk.

‘… particularly as it seems to hamper your writing.'

‘I refuse to share an apartment with anyone,' announced Nikolai, sharply. ‘I want a place by myself. I am one of Russia's foremost writers. I have a right to certain privileges. I want you to make that quite clear.'

The boy gradually becomes a man, thought Josef. Amused at the writer's posturing, he said lightly, ‘All right. I'll let everyone know.'

‘You're laughing at me,' erupted Nikolai, suddenly. ‘There was a sneer in your voice. I will not be laughed at.'

Josef's humour evaporated. ‘And I won't be addressed like that,' he snapped. ‘You stand a very good chance of having more honour and money bestowed upon you in the next few weeks than most men dream of in their lifetimes, certainly in Russia. You'll be exposed for weeks, maybe months, before people just waiting for you to behave as you did a few moments ago. As long as I am with you, entrusted with seeing no disgrace comes to you or to Russia, then you won't behave like that. And don't you forget it, for a moment.'

‘Perhaps someone else should have the responsibility,' retorted Nikolai, still defiant.

‘I wish there were someone else,' said Josef, sincerely. ‘There isn't.'

‘We'll see,' Nikolai tried, unconvinced.

‘No,' corrected Josef, too experienced to be angered by rudeness. ‘We won't see. We go abroad on my terms. Don't ever imagine I'm a servant, Nikolai. Never make that mistake.'

‘I thought you were my friend,' complained the writer, edging towards capitulation.

‘I will be,' undertook Josef. ‘I'll make you one of the most famous Russians in the world. But on my terms.'

‘You don't understand strain,' said Nikolai, subsiding further.

Initially, Josef could not reply. Oh God, he thought, do I understand strain. I live with it, exist on it, like a machine running on electricity. Without strain, I'd wind down and stop. How good it might be, just for a short time, to be able to wind down and stop.

‘I'm not going to try to understand it,' he said, taking up the argument again. ‘With me, there will be no tantrums of genius.'

The telephone concluded the argument. Both men were relieved.

‘You're elusive,' rebuked Devgeny, when Josef took the receiver from the housekeeper.

‘It seems to be a sudden development in both our lives,' replied Josef. Tired and ill, he felt drained by the surprising argument with Balshev. He couldn't compete today with Devgeny. The meeting had to be avoided.

‘I have other duties to perform, you know,' said the Minister. He was relaxed, his attitude rehearsed. ‘Sometimes I envy you, able to detach yourself completely and devote your undivided attention to just one project. You're a lucky man.'

He waited, but Josef did not respond.

‘We're anxious about Stockholm,' said Devgeny. ‘We thought of convening this evening, around seven o'clock.'

Pamela had been excited when he had left the apartment, happy at the thought of personally preparing their first meal together.

‘I'm at the dacha, as you know,' countered Josef. ‘I can't make it tonight.'

‘Oh, you can, Josef,' insisted Devgeny. ‘It'll only take you two hours in that rather ostentatious motor-car of yours.'

‘After this morning, I find this sudden urgency surprising,' said Josef. It was a poor protest. ‘And it's inconvenient. Let's meet tomorrow.'

‘We can't do that, Josef. Both Illinivitch and Korshunov have gone to great personal difficulty to attend. It wouldn't be wise, inconveniencing them. I'm sure your wife will understand. Did she enjoy the ballet, by the way?'

‘Very much,' said Josef, tightly. Devgeny couldn't wait, thought the negotiator. ‘Thank you for providing the tickets.'

‘Is she settling to life in Russia?' asked the Minister.

‘Yes.'

‘Good. I see she's retained her British passport.'

He wants me to know he's studied the files, thought Josef.

‘Yes,' he said.

‘No doubt she'll get homesick, in the future.'

‘We haven't discussed it.'

‘Of course not. But there'll be a time when you'll want the necessary travel documentation, won't there?'

‘There could well be.'

‘Quite. Well, as I said, the meeting tonight starts at seven o'clock. You won't be late, will you?'

‘No,' promised Josef. ‘I won't be late.'

8

Josef was angry at his helplessness to oppose Devgeny now that he was using Pamela as a lever. Nikolai was not the only one destined for the role of a puppet, he accepted, reluctantly. His confidence, Josef realized, was being eroded. Which was probably what Devgeny intended. It had to stop, immediately. Soon he would begin making stupid mistakes, errors that everyone would recognize. Then the doubts would begin to fester. And the door would be open for Devgeny's arguments before the Central Committee.

To attend the meeting in his present condition would be just such a misjudgment. Immediately after Devgeny's summons, he left the dacha and a protesting Nikolai Balshev, driving hard and at times dangerously back to Moscow. He needed the apartment, and its sauna, to sweat the discomfort from him. His flurried, curt arrival interrupted Pamela in the middle of the dinner preparations. Immediately she saw his face she stopped, frightened, waiting tensely for the end to her marriage. There had to be an outburst, shouted demands for an explanation, then for a divorce. Josef was not a man to be cuckolded, she knew. He practically ignored her, cursory even in his apology for upsetting the dinner arrangements. She said nothing, withdrawing herself uncertainly into the kitchen. He went without saying goodbye, leaving her bewildered.

Because he had known Josef for so long and was aware of the standards to which he aspired, only Devgeny, who sat smiling, smugly, might have been aware that Josef's edited account of his meeting with Count von Sydon was below his usual standard. They would have debated his recorded reports from Stockholm, so tonight's meeting was largely unnecessary, suspected Josef, staged for Devgeny's satisfaction.

‘You didn't get a positive assurance?' demanded Devgeny. His confidence was making him careless.

‘You knew that would be impossible before I went,' rejected Josef.

‘But you made it quite clear how anxious we were for the nomination?'

Careless again.

‘That was the point of the visit,' reminded Josef, sarcastically.

‘We seem to be repeating ourselves,' came in Illinivitch.

Josef looked at him, surprised. It was unlike Illinivitch to criticize the way Devgeny was conducting a meeting, he thought. He could hardly ever recall Illinivitch speaking.

The Minister frowned, with matching astonishment.

‘I'm sorry if we're boring you, Comrade Illinivitch,' said Devgeny, heavily.

‘We're busy men, Comrade Devgeny,' replied the deputy. These meetings might proceed more quickly if there were less personal animosity.'

It was an amazing challenge to make in open committee, decided Josef, bewildered. An uncertain silence settled in the room. Devgeny broke it, as he had to.

‘Animosity?' he queried, the feigned surprise too obvious. He turned to Josef. ‘Are you aware of any feeling?'

Josef's thoughts were way ahead, assessing what was happening. Incomprehensibly, Illinivitch was announcing public opposition to the Minister, which was very stupid or, depending on the support he had from other members of the Ministry and the larger Central Committee, very clever. At last, thought Josef, Illinivitch was declaring himself. He found the timing odd. But it could be to his advantage, he realized. If Devgeny were deposed, the constant threat would disappear. And Pamela would be safe. Obviously, reasoned the negotiator, Illinivitch would not have made his challenge without the expectation of success and the man was now inviting Josef to join him. A power struggle, with all its blood letting, appeared underway. With Josef in the middle.