Face Me When You Walk Away by Brian Freemantle Page B

think about it,’ said Blyne.
    â€˜No time. And no reason,’ argued Josef.
    â€˜I can publish simultaneously with the news of the award?’
    Josef nodded. It was getting close.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜We will work together again?’ he pressed.
    â€˜I can only give you my word.’
    â€˜It’s a deal,’ announced the American. Again, the brief feeling of contentment wrapped itself around the Russian.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜He has no political conviction,’ replied Josef, simply. ‘His writing is completely untainted.’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜Yes,’ he said, admitting the cynicism. Would there be no embarrassment, wondered Josef.
    Suddenly Blyne switched the conversation.
    â€˜Balshev is going to make a lot of money,’ he said.
    â€˜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 …’
    â€˜Fifteen?’ queried Blyne. ‘Shit!’
    Josef produced the letter of authorization from the Ministry of Culture permitting the commission, together with Nikolai’s written agreement.
    â€˜You’re an expensive man,’ remarked the American.
    â€˜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.
    6
    He had telephoned from Vienna, warning of his return, so there were no customs formalities. While his luggage was being loaded into the car, he rang the dacha and was surprised to learn that Pamela had returned to Moscow. Immediately, a childlike excitement at seeing her swept through him.
    Like tombstones in a neglected churchyard, the apartment blocks reserved exclusively for leading government officials who shared their homes with no one were regimented with a view of Kutuzovsky Prospekt. Josef’s apartment formed the penthouse on the first section, externally as drab as those that surrounded it. Inside, it rivalled the dacha for indulgence. It had taken him nearly three years to furnish it satisfactorily to suit his purpose, shopping throughout the world. It was essential, above every other consideration, that he had what no others possessed in the city. And was known to have them. With the exception of the huge sunken lounge, where the walls were lined with raw Japanese silk, the apartment was largely panelled in Norwegian pine, not because he particularly liked the style, but because it was unusually modern in Moscow.
    The furniture was predominantly Scandinavian, mostly Swedish. The kitchen was almost entirely automated with electrical goods purchased in America and a book-lined study was an Aladdin’s cave of more electrical equipment. Two Xerox machines had been set into cabinets. One tape recorder was so large it occupied the