Cometh the Hour: A Novel (46 page)

Harry glanced up at the packed balcony, where there was no sign of an empty seat. But then, this was not one of those occasions you might decide to miss because you’d received a better offer.

The trumpets sounded a second time to announce the arrival of the Nobel Laureates, who processed into the hall to warm applause and took their places in the semicircle of seats.

Once everyone was seated, Hans Christiansen, the chairman of the Swedish Academy, made his way up onto the stage and took his place behind the lectern. He looked up at, for him, a familiar scene, before he began his speech, welcoming the prizewinners and guests.

Harry glanced nervously down at the cards resting in his lap. He reread his opening paragraph and felt the same raw emotion he always experienced just before making a speech: I wish I was anywhere but here.

“Sadly,” continued Christiansen, “this year’s winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the poet and essayist Anatoly Babakov, cannot be with us this evening. He suffered a severe stroke yesterday morning, and tragically died on his way to hospital. However, we are privileged to have with us Mr. Harry Clifton, a close friend and colleague of Mr. Babakov’s, who has agreed to speak on his behalf. Will you please welcome to the stage, the distinguished author and president of English PEN, Mr. Harry Clifton.”

Harry rose from his place and made his way slowly up onto the stage. He placed his speech on the lectern and waited for the generous applause to die down.

“Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, distinguished Nobel Laureates, ladies and gentlemen, you see standing before you a rude mechanical who has no right to be in such august company. But today the paperback has the privilege of representing a limited edition, who has recently joined your ranks.

“Anatoly Babakov was a unique man, who was willing to sacrifice his life to create a masterpiece, which the Swedish Academy has acknowledged by awarding him literature’s highest accolade.
Uncle Joe
has been published in thirty-seven languages and in one hundred and twenty-three countries, but it still cannot be read in the author’s native tongue, or in his homeland.

“I first heard of Anatoly Babakov’s plight when I was an undergraduate at Oxford and was introduced to his lyrical poetry that allowed one’s imagination to soar to new heights, and his insightful novella,
Moscow Revisited,
evoked a sense of that great city in a way I have never experienced before or since.

“Some years passed before I once again became acquainted with Anatoly Babakov, as president of English PEN. Anatoly had been arrested and sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment. His crime? Writing a book. PEN mounted a worldwide campaign to have this literary giant released from an out-of-sight—but not out-of-mind—gulag in Siberia, so that he could be reunited with his wife, Yelena, whom I’m delighted to tell you is with us this evening, and will later receive her husband’s prize on his behalf.”

A burst of sustained applause allowed Harry to relax, look up and smile at Anatoly’s widow.

“When I first visited Yelena in the tiny three-room flat in Pittsburgh in which she was living in exile, she told me she had secreted the only surviving copy of
Uncle Joe
in an antiquarian bookshop on the outskirts of Leningrad. She entrusted me with the responsibility of retrieving the book from its hiding place and bringing it back to the West, so that it could finally be published.

“As soon as I could, I flew to Leningrad and went in search of a bookshop hidden in the backstreets of that beautiful city. I found
Uncle Joe
concealed in the dust jacket of a Portuguese translation of
A Tale of Two Cities,
next to a copy of
Daniel Deronda
. Worthy bedfellows. Having captured my prize I returned to the airport, ready to fly home in triumph.

“But I had underestimated the Soviet regime’s determination to stop anyone reading
Uncle Joe.
The book was found in my luggage and I was immediately arrested and thrown in jail. My crime? Attempting to smuggle a seditious and libellous work out of Russia. To convince me of the gravity of my offense, I was placed in the same cell as Anatoly Babakov, who had been ordered to persuade me to sign a confession stating that his book was a work of fiction, and that he had never worked in the Kremlin as Stalin’s personal interpreter but had been nothing more than a humble schoolteacher in the suburbs of Moscow. Humble he was, but an apologist for the regime he was not. If he had succeeded in convincing me to repeat this fantasy, the authorities had promised him that a year would be knocked off his sentence.

“The rest of the world now acknowledges that Anatoly Babakov not only worked alongside Stalin for thirteen years, but that every word he wrote in
Uncle Joe
was a true and accurate account of that totalitarian regime.

“Having destroyed the book, the inheritors of that regime then set about attempting to destroy the man who wrote it. The award of the Nobel Prize for Literature to Anatoly Babakov shows how lamentably they failed and ensures that he will never be forgotten.”

During the prolonged applause that followed, Harry looked up to see Emma smiling at him.

“I spent fifteen years attempting to get Anatoly released, and when I finally succeeded it turned out to be a pyrrhic victory. But even when we were locked up in a prison cell together, Anatoly didn’t waste a precious second seeking my sympathy, but spent every waking moment reciting the contents of his masterpiece, while I, like a voracious pupil, devoured his every word.

“When we parted, he to return to the squalor of a gulag in Siberia, me to the comfort of a manor house in the English countryside, I once again possessed a copy of the book. But this time it was not locked in a suitcase, but in my mind, from where the authorities could not confiscate it. As soon as the wheels of the plane had lifted off from Russian soil, I began to write down the master’s words. First on BOAC headed paper, then on the backs of menus and finally on rolls of toilet paper, which was all that was still available.”

Laughter broke out in the hall, which Harry hadn’t anticipated.

“But allow me to tell you a little about the man. When Anatoly Babakov left school, he won the top scholarship to the Moscow Foreign Languages Institute, where he studied English. In his final year, he was awarded the Lenin Medal, which ironically sealed his fate, because it gave Anatoly the opportunity to work in the Kremlin. Not a job offer you turn down unless you wish to spend the rest of your life unemployed, or worse.

“Within a year, he unexpectedly found himself serving as the Russian leader’s principal translator. It didn’t take him long to realize that the genial image Stalin portrayed to the world was merely a mask concealing the evil reality that the Soviet dictator was a thug and a murderer, who would happily sacrifice the lives of tens of thousands of his people if it prolonged his survival as chairman of the party and president of the Presidium.

“For Anatoly, there was no escape, except when he returned home each night to be with his beloved wife, Yelena. In secret, he began working on a project that was to become a feat of physical endurance and rigorous scholarship, the like of which few of us could begin to comprehend. While he worked in the Kremlin by day, by night he set down his experiences on paper. He learned the text by heart, then destroyed any proof his words had ever existed. Can you begin to imagine what courage it took to abandon his lifelong ambition to be a published author for an anonymous book that was stored in his head?

“And then Stalin died, a fate that even dictators cannot escape. At last Anatoly believed that the book he had worked on for so many years could be published, and the world would discover the truth. But the truth was not what the Soviet authorities wanted the world to discover, so even before
Uncle Joe
reached the bookshops, every single copy was destroyed. Even the press on which it had been printed was smashed to pieces. A show trial followed, when the author was sentenced to twenty years’ hard labor and transported to the depths of Siberia to ensure that never again could he cause the regime any embarrassment. Thank God that Samuel Beckett, John Steinbeck, Hermann Hesse and Rabindranath Tagore, all winners of the Nobel Prize for literature, weren’t born in the Soviet Union, or we might never have been able to read their masterpieces.

“How appropriate that the Swedish Academy has chosen Anatoly Babakov to be the recipient of this year’s award. Because its founder, Alfred Nobel,” Harry paused for a moment to acknowledge the garlanded statue of Nobel that rested on a plinth behind him, “wrote in his will that this prize should not be awarded for literary excellence alone, but for work that ‘embodies an ideal.’ One wonders if there can ever have been a more appropriate recipient of this award.

“And so we come together this evening to honor a remarkable man, whose death will not diminish his life’s achievement, but will only help to ensure that it will endure. Anatoly Babakov possessed a gift that we lesser mortals can only aspire to. An author whose heroism will surely survive the whirligig of time, and who now joins his immortal fellow countrymen Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Pasternak and Solzhenitsyn as their equal.”

Harry paused, looked up at the audience, and waited for that moment before he knew the spell would be broken. And then, almost in a whisper, he said, “It takes a heroic figure to rewrite history so that future generations might know the truth and benefit from his sacrifice. Quite simply, Anatoly Babakov fulfilled the ancient prophecy: cometh the hour, cometh the man.”

The whole audience rose as one, assuming that the speech had ended. Although Harry continued to grip the sides of the lectern, it was some time before they realized he had more to say. One by one they resumed their seats, until the acclamation of the throng had been replaced by an expectant silence. Only then did Harry take a fountain pen from an inside pocket, unscrew the cap and hold the pen high in the air. “Anatoly Yuryevich Babakov, you have proved to every dictator who ever ruled without the people’s mandate that the pen is mightier than the sword.”

King Carl Gustaf was the first to rise from his place, take out his fountain pen and hold it high in the air before repeating, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” Within moments, the rest of the audience followed suit, as Harry left the stage and returned to his seat, almost deafened by the prolonged cheers that accompanied him. He finally had to lean forward and beg the King to sit down.

A second cheer, every bit as tumultuous, followed when Yelena Babakova stepped forward on her husband’s behalf to accept the Nobel medal and the citation from the King.

Harry hadn’t slept the night before because of the fear of failure. He didn’t sleep that night because of the triumph of success.

50

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING,
Harry, Emma and Yelena joined the King for breakfast.

“Last night was a triumph,” said Carl Gustaf, “and the Queen and I wondered if you’d like to spend a few days in Stockholm as our guests. I’m assured this is the best hotel in town.”

“That’s very kind of you, sir,” said Emma, “but I’m afraid I have a hospital to run, not to mention the family business.”

“And it’s time I got back to William Warwick,” said Harry. “That is, if I’m still hoping to meet my deadline.”

There was a gentle tap on the door and a moment later the equerry appeared. He bowed before he spoke to the King.

Carl Gustaf raised a hand. “I think, Rufus, it might save time if you were to speak in English.”

“As you wish, sir.” He turned to Harry. “I’ve just had a call from Sir Curtis Keeble, the British Ambassador in Moscow, to say that the Russians have relented and granted you, your wife and Mrs. Babakova twenty-four-hour visas so you can attend Laureate Babakov’s funeral.”

“That’s wonderful news,” said Emma.

“But as always with the Russians, there are caveats,” the equerry added.

“Like what?” said Harry.

“You will be met off the plane by the ambassador and driven directly to St. Augustine’s church on the outskirts of Moscow, where the funeral will take place. Once the service is over, you must go straight back to the airport and leave the country immediately.

Yelena, who hadn’t spoken until then, simply said, “We accept their terms.”

“Then you’ll need to leave now,” said the equerry, “because the only flight to Moscow today departs in an hour and a half.”

“Have a car ready to take them to the airport,” said Carl Gustaf. Turning to Yelena, he added, “Your husband could not have been better represented, Mrs. Babakova. Please return to Stockholm as my guest whenever you wish. Mr. Clifton, Mrs. Clifton, I will be eternally in your debt. I would make a speech, but as you have a plane to catch, it would be neither adequate nor appropriate.
Hang not a thread on protocol, and be gone
.”

Harry smiled and bowed for a different reason.

The three of them returned to their rooms to find their cases already packed, and a few minutes later they were being escorted to a waiting car.

“I could get used to this,” said Emma.

“Don’t,” said Harry.

When Yelena walked into the airport on Harry’s arm, passengers took out their pens, biros, pencils and held them in the air as she passed by.

During the flight to Moscow, Harry was so exhausted he finally fell asleep.

*   *   *

Virginia wasn’t surprised to receive a call from Adrian Sloane. He didn’t waste any time getting to the point.

“You probably know that the board have asked me to take over as chairman of Mellor Travel while Desmond is … away, if you’ll forgive the euphemism.”

Not with his blessing, Virginia was about to say, but she kept her counsel.

“Miss Castle tells me you’re the only other person who knows the code to Desmond’s safe.”

“That is correct.”

“I need to get hold of some papers for the next board meeting. When I visited Desmond last week at Ford, he told me that they were in the safe and you could give me the code.”