Ghosting Page 7

  Tiger had booked his usual accommodation—the presidential suite in a luxury hotel in Kaiser Friedrich Platz. “Wait till you see it,” he said to me. “It's where they put all the presidents—they keep it for me every year.” The four or five other members of staff, who had travelled ahead to Frankfurt to set up our stand, stayed in a smaller hotel nearby, but I was given a room in the grand hotel so that—this was how it was explained to me—Tiger would not have to eat by himself or travel alone, two things he detested. Besides, I spoke German and he wanted me on hand for any interpreting that was needed. A sign above the desk stated that our hotel was one of the world's best. The whole building had the feel of a grand stately home, with all the rooms lavishly furnished and decorated. It was built on top of one of the springs, which fed into a huge swimming pool surrounded by glass. On arrival Tiger was fêted like a demigod. The maÎtre d’ welcomed him back effusively and was at pains to show that he had remembered all his special requirements—continental breakfast at 7 A.M., a board under the bed, and so on. When I asked Tiger why he chose to stay in Wiesbaden and not in Frankfurt where the Book Fair was, he was aghast. It was clear that I had made a faux pas. “Do we want skyscrapers?” he asked, throwing his hands in the air, “Do we want concrete? Do we want the filth of the city? Of course we don't! We want to be comfortable. We want to live in style. Isn't it?” There was certainly style aplenty in Wiesbaden, with its wide tree-lined avenues, elegant arcades, jewellery shops and select boutiques.

  In the evenings we all had dinner together. Although everything was new to me, a routine had clearly been established over the years. On the first evening, for example, we all met up in the hotel bar and went on to dine in the in-house gourmet restaurant. The next few evenings were spent at different restaurants a short stroll away. Tiger was in his element on these occasions, taking full charge and clearly relishing the role of host. He had all those French qualities that there are no words for in English: panache, éclat, élan, savoir-vivre. He attracted a good deal of attention, not least because he was dressed to kill—a spangle of silks and cashmeres, rubies and diamonds. To study the menu he took from his top pocket a pair of collapsible spectacles. They were made, so he said, from Inca gold. “Aren't they cute?” he smiled, unfolding them from a tiny pouch. “They were made for me by Asprey's. Exclusive for me. Look, they even have diamond hinges!”

  Tiger communicated with his whole body, waving his arms around, slapping his thighs, smiting his brow, clapping his hands together. It was all so very physical. Those sitting on either side of him got a regular thwack on their upper arms whenever he was trying to make a particular point. He needed a lot of space to function even at a basic level, but when he was ordering from the menu or telling a story, it was a kind of circus act, a cross between juggling and slapstick. What did our fellow diners make of it all? Next to him, so I thought, the rest of us must have seemed like a dull group from a faded photograph, though we probably all felt a little vicarious folie de grandeur. Once the food arrived, he ate very fast and exhorted us to do the same. “Go on! Eat! Eat!” he said, as if at any moment our plates might be whipped away. He had a talent for talking exuberantly at the same time as eating, with no spaces between one word and the next. He was full of indiscretions and innuendo, and he spoke in great tidal waves that gathered and swelled and filled and quickened before crashing on the rocky shores of sense and syntax. Once he got going, the English language did not know what had hit it. Subject and predicate were in a kind of happy free-fall, with the component parts, unable to agree, fighting it out and coming near to killing one another.

  The Book Fair opened at nine o'clock in the morning, but Tiger didn't want to spend the whole day there. The others travelled early to Frankfurt by car, but we usually took a taxi later in the day. There were some fine antique shops in Wiesbaden, and Tiger loved looking round for whatever he was collecting at the time. He was ecstatic when he found something for his collection and, though it was in his nature to haggle, once he had set his heart on something he had to have it no matter what it cost. I loved his freedom and flair with money. My mother, who came from a long line of Presbyterians, always found it difficult to part with money, and when she did it seemed to make her miserable. It was culpable to be profligate, and she felt guilty if she spent money on herself. Tiger had no such hang-ups.

  He did have other hang-ups, however. For example, he was very particular about planning the days, announcing in advance what we would do and when. Each event or activity was given an allotted span, timed to the nearest five minutes. “In fifteen minutes,” he would say, looking at his watches, “we shall walk in the park.” And just in case I got the idea that it might be an open-ended walk, the sort you might prolong if the sun was shining and the birds were singing, he would add, “We will walk for twenty-five minutes exactly, then we will return to the hotel.” During the walk, he would check his watches compulsively, apparently unable to relax into the moment, always having an eye to the next thing. “In ten minutes we will turn round … in five minutes we will be at the hotel… in twenty minutes we will take some tea,” and so on. Carpe futuram. Sometimes we sat around in the hotel lobby waiting for the next event—usually lunch—but not in the relaxed, easy-going way of hotel guests who are happy to watch the world go by while they wait. No, the waiting itself was the heart of the matter; it assumed an existential significance and threatened his peace of mind. He would become furious with himself—how could he have failed to arrange our programme properly? How could he have slipped up so badly? Now there was this terrible wait. At these times he was in a state of, as it were, dispersion, unable to engage with the world, the people around him, the newspapers on the table, anything at all; for he was already looking away, agonised by the intermediate. He was unmoored, nonplussed by this brief enforced standstill in a restless existence. His impatience was baneful, making it impossible to do anything other than join him in it. Together, we willed it to be midday when the restaurant opened its doors.

  The moment we sat down in the restaurant his spirits lifted. The white linen, the beautiful wine glasses, the prospect of lunch—everything was suddenly well with the world. “Isn't this amazing?” he said, as a beautiful waitress brought a platter piled high with a dozen different breads. “You know, bread is my favourite thing. I love it!” It was engaging to be in the presence of such naked pleasure. Once the bread had started to take effect he summoned the sommelier and went through the wine list with him. When, after some discussion, a bottle was finally chosen, he rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “Just wait till you taste it! It will be like nectar for the gods!” Tiger knew a lot about wine, and he enjoyed sharing what he knew. “White wines are never actually white,” he would sometimes say, holding his glass up to the light. “They can be yellow or amber or green or golden—the more colour, the more flavour there is. But watch out if a wine is brown—it's almost certainly bad. Worse than piss.” He also delighted in the elaborate rituals attached to the serving of wine, and though haste was important in every other corner of his life, he was respectfully unhurried in the presence of a Château d'Yquem. When the waiter poured the first trickle for tasting, Tiger had a long look at it to begin with, turning the glass round by its stem, then took a quick whiff followed by a second deeper whiff, and only when he had exhaled completely did he put the glass to his lips and take a sip. “Ah, the taste, the fragrance, the sensation,” he whispered, slipping into the language of love, the gratification of desire. Everything was purified and rendered new. It was hard to believe that this happy man could have been morose in the hotel lobby only minutes before. A fine wine can change the world.

  On the last day of the Book Fair, my colleague from the Old Guard, the one who dropped his aitches, sidled up to Tiger and announced: “The eagle ‘as landed.” Tiger gave a nod and said, “Understood.” When the Old Guard left, I risked asking Tiger what this meant, but he wouldn't tell me. He said that I would find out that evening and added, mysterious
ly, “We have a tradition at Frankfurt.” During dinner there was an air of expectancy, and afterwards we went back to Tiger's hotel suite. He put a DO NOT DISTURB sign outside the door, drew back the curtains, opened all the windows and arranged the chairs in a circle. I prepared mentally for some black magic ritual. I earnestly hoped it would be brief and untroubling. A few moments later, however, once we were seated, two spliffs were solemnly removed from a box, lit and passed round. No one said a word. We puffed in turn, in stoned silence.

  By the end of the Book Fair I had made several contacts with literary agents, some in the UK, others in Europe. As soon as I got back I set about buying books in Russian and giving them out to professional translators. It felt like a real job now. A year later, towards the end of 1982, I got an unexpected break.

  At 8:30 A.M. on 10 November 1982, Leonid Brezhnev, First Secretary of the Communist Party, died of a heart attack. In keeping with Soviet tradition, however, his death was kept secret for over twenty-four hours. The first sign that something was amiss came on the evening of 10 November when television schedules were suspended and sombre music was played instead. This gave rise to speculation that Andrei Kirilenko, a prominent member of the politburo, was gravely ill, or even—as The Times suggested in its headline the following day—dead. Rumours about Kirilenko's terminal illness had been circulating for some time, but they were actually part of a disinformation process orchestrated by Andropov, then head of the KGB. In fact, Kirilenko was alive and well; he was simply in the process of becoming invisible.

  The gap between Brezhnev's death and the official announcement gave me my first (and only) publishing coup. As so often in these cases, timing played a crucial part in the sequence of events. A few weeks before, towards the end of October, I had been asked by one of my colleagues, a formidable “young woman with connections” (YWWC), if I would read a manuscript in Russian— something rather special and hush-hush, she said—for one of the editorial directors at Collins publishers. The book had come highly recommended by the literary agent but the publisher urgently needed a reader's report to help him decide. The report had therefore to be done quickly—in a matter of days—but Collins would offer a decent reader's fee as an incentive. The YWWC said all this sotto voce, in the manner of someone plotting, or at least someone entering into the spirit of someone else's plotting. I was intrigued and agreed to have a look at it.

  Since I was travelling back to Scotland that very day, the YWWC arranged for the manuscript to be sent over by motorbike courier—even this was a bit of a thrill. Inside the fat package there was a covering letter on headed notepaper with tantalising references to the confidential nature of the arrangement I was entering into. The manuscript, entitled Red Square, was “shit-hot,” so it said, and I was to speak to nobody about its contents. I was to report within three days to the publishing director summarising the plot and giving a view on its commercial potential. In addition I was to say how it compared with Gorky Park, the recent thriller by Martin Cruz Smith, also published by Collins.

  With the manuscript tucked tight under my arm, I arrived at King's Cross station, feeling the frisson of conspiracy and subterfuge. I looked around, half-expecting to be mugged or pierced by a poison-tipped umbrella. On the train I found a seat with a table, laid out the huge typescript, about seven hundred pages, and started reading.

  The book began with a telegram appointing a special investigator at the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office to look into the circumstances surrounding the death of the First Deputy Chairman of the KGB, a man by the name of General Tsvigun. A classic beginning in the detective novel mode, except that Tsvigun was not a fictional character, but the actual former First Deputy Chairman of the KGB and also the brother-in-law of Leonid Brezhnev. Earlier in the year, Pravda had reported Tsvigun's death as the result of a “prolonged illness.” According to Kremlin-watchers, however, this was an implausible explanation since his health had been good. In Red Square the special investigator conducts an inquiry into whether Tsvigun had committed suicide—the version of events favoured by Andropov, head of the KGB—or whether in fact he had been murdered.

  By the time the train arrived in York I had established that the book before me was a compelling blend of fact and fiction, a kind of réalité à clef. It relied heavily on reportage and our natural fascination with corruption in high places. The joint authors, Topol and Neznansky, presented much of the material through official documents, telegrams and internal memos, all precisely dated and timed. The unfolding story therefore had an authentic ring, helped no doubt by the fact that one of the authors had worked in the Prosecutor's office and later practised as a lawyer in the Moscow City Collegium. By Newcastle I was hooked, and by Berwick-on-Tweed I was wishing that the agent had offered it to me for consideration instead of to the man at Collins. By Edinburgh, there had been two murders and several death threats. Inverkeithing, Kirkcaldy, Ladybank and Cupar were swallowed up in a rush of espionage, sex and corruption.

  Over the weekend I wrote a reader's report of Red Square recommending it unreservedly for publication. I said it compared well with Gorky Park, and because there was a blend of known facts and events it had the added advantage of sounding more true-to-life. I posted the report and sent the manuscript under separate cover to Collins in London. A few days later, on 10 November, I had a telephone call at home from a literary agent whom I had met in Frankfurt the previous month and from whom I had bought a couple of Russian books. She said that she was ringing to offer me “something special” and that she would send it to me provided she could have a quick answer on it. When she said the book was a thriller and that it was very hush-hush, I had a sense of something familiar.

  “What's it called?” I asked.

  “Red Square.”

  “No need to post it then—I've read it.”

  “But you can't have done,” she said. “I've only shown it to one other publisher. Apart from that it's been kept completely under wraps.”

  I explained the situation and told her that I had written a favourable report for Collins. She said they had declined to make a firm offer and, as far as she was concerned, the deadline had passed. She would be happy to do business with me if I wanted to make a “reasonable offer,” but she couldn't give me much time. Although it was late afternoon and I was busy with the children, I said I would get back to her that day. Tiger never left the office before 6 P.M. I telephoned him immediately. “Buy it!” he whooped. “Make her an offer.” His enthusiasm was sometimes quite wonderful. If an idea appealed to him, he never minded spending money. He was also able to make his mind up immediately, an unusual quality in a publisher, and once he had done so he didn't waver or go back on his decision. Within an hour, the deal was concluded and the English language rights had been secured for £4000. At around six o'clock the agent and I shook hands on it over the telephone.

  The next morning it was announced to the world that Brezhnev was dead. Very dead. Indeed, when I was negotiating to buy Red Square, Brezhnev was already laid out for burial. If this had been known at the time, the price would have been many times what we paid for it. In an instant the book had become extraordinarily topical: it dealt with an attempted coup on the Kremlin, spearheaded by Andropov for his own political gain; and with Brezhnev now dead, Andropov was poised to take over as leader. Suddenly this book was dynamite.

  Tiger was delighted. He immediately issued a press release saying that we hoped to publish early in the New Year.

  “How soon can we do it?” he asked me.

  “I've no idea. But 150,000 words—that's a huge undertaking.”

  “Nothing is impossible,” he said.

  “I'll see what I can do,” I promised. It was the sort of thing builders say when they know it's hopeless but don't want to lose the contract for the new roof.

  “It has to be January, not February,” he said. And then, as if imparting a state secret, he lowered his voice. “Beloved,” he said, “February is too late. It has to be January O
therwise we're dead.”

  Tiger said “otherwise we're dead” a lot, which rather lessened its intended impact. In the present case, however, time was obviously crucial. We had to take advantage of the huge surge of public interest in the Soviet Union. But the length of the book was too much for one translator to handle in the time available. It would have to be a collaborative effort.

  After a few phone calls I had managed to get three old friends from the Russian world on board. Part of the agreement was that their identity would be protected—they did not want to be named as translators of the book. It was important to them to be able to travel to the Soviet Union, and this sort of work might have put their visas at risk. They were academics, all of them excellent linguists, and quite keen to earn some extra money. It helped a lot that Tiger had made a large budget available for the translation.

  For the second time the manuscript made its way up to Scotland, this time on an aeroplane. The first thing to do was to make three more copies so that the translators could read it as soon as possible. I had already decided that I would not simply divide the book into thirds—that way the breaks would surely be obvious. I thought it would be better if everyone did a stint from the beginning, the middle and the end. My job would be to iron out the stylistic creases and cracks, to homogenise the whole translation.

  Meanwhile a scurrilous story appeared in Private Eye alleging that Tiger had outbid Collins for the book when they had believed “they had the deal sewn up.” I was named as the villain of the piece and, though I was elevated to the rank of professor and described as “a noted Russian expert,” I had evidently “duped” Collins into allowing me to read the manuscript “for a substantial fee.” Tiger reached for his lawyer and threatened to sue. He delighted in being litigious, seemed energised by it. Faced with my sworn affidavit and Tiger's threat of a lawsuit, Private Eye published a retraction, which included the information that my substantial fee had been £65, minus the cost of the postage.