Finally they atrived, as they had to, at the two pavilions housing the fair.
'On my right, the publishers of Peace, Progress and Goodwill,' Barley announced, playing the referee at a prize fight. 'On my left, the distributors of Fascist imperialist lies, the pornographers, the poisoners of truth. Seconds out. Time.'
They showed their passes and walked in.
The exhibition stand of the newly inaugurated and geographically confusing house of Potomac & Blair was a small but satisfactory sensation of the fair. Langley's lovingly created P. & B. symbol shone resplendent between the dowdicr displays of Astral Press and Purbeck Media. The stand's interior design, characterised by its Langley architects as tough but tasty, was a model of instant impact. The exhibits - many of them, as is customary, dummies of books still to enter the production line - were prepared with all the attention to detail that intelligence services traditionally bestow on fakes. The only good coffee at the fair was to be found bubbling on an ingenious machine in the rear cubby-hole. There was Langley's own Mary Lou to serve it. For the favoured, there was even a forbidden shot of Scotch to help them through the day – forbidden, indeed, by special edict of the organiscrs, for even literary reconstruction must be the-work of sober men.
And Mary Lou, with her homespun schoolgirl smile and billowing tweed skirt, made a natural product of the nicer side of Madison Avenue. Nobody need ever have guessed she had a little of Langley's thread woven into her as well.
Neither was Wicklow, with his polished patter, anything other than the quick-eyed, upwardly-mobile young publisher they make these days.
As to honest Jack Henziger, he was the archetype of the settled buccaneer of the modern American book trade. He made no secret of his antecedents. Pipelines in the Middle East, humanity in Afghanistan, red beans to opium-growing hill-tribes in Thailand – Henziger had sold them all, whatever he had sold for Langley on the side. But publishing was where his heart was, and he was here to prove it.
And Barley seemed to revel in the artifice. He threw himself upon it as if it were his long-lost reality, shaking hands, receiving the congratulations of his competitors and colleagues, until around eleven he professed himself restless and proposed to Wicklow that they tour the lines and take comfort to the troops.
So off they set. Barley bearing in his arms a bunch of white envelopes of which he occasionally pressed one into a chosen hand as he yelled and greeted his way along the packed alleys of visitors and exhibitors.
'Well blow me over, if it isn't Barley Bloody Blair.' a familiar voice declared from the centre of a multi-lingual display of illustrated Bibles. 'Remember me, do you? Third from the left in the mink jock-strap, back in your humble days?'
'Spikey. They let you in again,' said Barley with pleasure, and handed him his envelope.
'It's when they won't let me out I'm worried. This your dad, then?'
Barley presented the distinguished editor Wicklow, and Spikey Morgan bestowed a priestly blessing on him with his nicotine-stained fingers.
They pressed on, only to stumble into Dan Zeppelin a few yards later. Dan did not talk. Dan conspired in a gravedigger's murmur, leaning across his counter at you over folded arms.
'So I mean tell me something, Barley. Okay? Are we pioneers or are we the fucking Mitford sisters? So a few unbooks are books this year. So a few unwriters have been sprung from jail. Big deal. I walk into my own stand this morning, there's some asshole pulling the books out of my shelves. "May I ask you a personal question?" I says. "What the fuck are you doing with my books?" "Orders," he says. Six books, he confiscated. Mary G. Ambleside on fucking Black Consciousness in Song and Word. Orders! I mean who are we, Barley? Who are they? What do they think they're restructuring when there was never a structure in the first place? How do you restructure a corpse?'
At Lupus Books they were directed to the coffee room, where our Chairman Himself, the ncwly-knightcd Sir Peter Oliphant, had upstaged even the Russians by reserving a table. A handwritten notice in both languages confirmed his triumph. The flags of Britain and the Soviet Union warned off doubters. Flanked by interpreters and high officials, Sir Peter was dilating on the many advantages to the Soviet Union of subsidising his generous purchases from them.
'It's the Earl!' cried Barley, handing him an envelope. 'Where's the coronet?'
With scarcely a flicker of his dusty eyelids, the great man continued his dissertation.
At the Israeli stand an armed peace reigned. The dark queue was orderly but mute. Boys in jeans and sneakers lounged against the walls. Lev Abramovitz was whitehaired and overpoweringly tall. He had served in the Irish Guards.
'Lev. How's Zion?'
'Maybe we're winning, maybe the happy ending's at the beginning,' Lev said, pockcting Barlcy's envelope.
And from Israel, with Barley leading at a canter, they pounded across the concourse to the Pavilion of Peace, Progress and Goodwill, where there could no longer be any doubt of the massive historical upheaval taking place, or of who was doing the heaving.
Every banner and spare bit of wall screamed the new Gospel. In every stand of every republic, the thoughts and writings of the no-longer-new prophet, with his birthmark turned away and his jaw raised, were blazoned alongside those of his colourless master, Lenin. At the VAAP stand. where Barley and Wicklow shook a few hands and Barley shed a batch of envelopes, the Leader's speeches, wrapped in shiny covers and rendered into English, French, Spanish and German, made a totally resistible appeal.
'How much more of this shit do we have to take, Barley?' a blond-faced Moscow publisher demanded sotto voce as they went by. 'When will they start repressing us again to make us comfortable? If our past's a lie, who's to say our future isn't a lie as well?'
They continued along the stands, Barley leading, Barley greeting, Wicklow following.
'Joseph! Great to see you! Envelope for you. Don't eat it all at once.'
'Barley! My friend! Didn't they give you my message? Maybe I didn't leave one.'
'Yuri. Great to see you! Envelope for you.'
'Come and drink tonight, Barley! Sasha is coming, so is Rosa. Rudi's giving a concert tomorrow so he wants to stay sober. You heard about the writers they let out? Listen. it's Potemkin village stuff. They let them out, they give them a few meals, show them off and throw them back inside till next year. Come over here, I got to sell you a couple qf books to annoy Zapadny.'
At first Wicklow didn't even realise they had arrived at their destination. He saw a Roman standard hung with faded flags and some gold lettering stitched on red bunting. He heard Barley's yell of 'Katya, where are you?' But nothing said who owned the stand and probably that was a part of the display that hadn't arrived. He saw the usual unreadable books on agricultural development in the Ukraine and the traditional dances of Georgia expiring on their shelves under the strain of previous exhibitions. He saw the usual half-dozen broad-hipped women standing around as if they were waiting for a train, and a small unshaven fellow clutching his cigarette in front of him like a conjuror's wand, scowling at Barley's namctag.
Nasayan, Wicklow read in return. Grigory Tigranovich. Senior Editor, October Publishing.
'You are looking for Miss Katya Orlova, I think,' Nasayan told Barley in English, holding his cigarette still higher as if to get a clearer look at his visitor.
'I'll say I am!' Barley replied with enthusiasm, and a couple of the women smiled.
A grin of frightful courtesy had spread over Nasayan's face. With a flourish of his cigarette he stepped aside and Wicklow recognised Katya's back as she talked with two very small Asians whom he took to be Burmese. Then an instinct made her turn and she caught sight of Barley first, then Wicklow, then Barley again, while a splendid smile lit her face.
'Katya. Fantastic,' said Barley shyly. 'How are the kids? Did they survive?'
'Oh thank you, they are very well!'
Watched by Nasayan and his ladies, as well as by Wicklow, Barley handed her an invitation to the great glasnost launch party of Potomac & Blair.
'Oh by the way, I may skip some of the gay whirl tonight,' Barley remarked as they made their way back to the Western pavilion. 'You and Jack and Mary Lou will have to manage on your own. I'm dining with a beautiful lady.'
'Anyone we know?' Wicklow asked. They both laughed. It was a sunny day.
She's fine, Barley was thinking contentedly. If something is happening, it hasn't happened to her yet.
How much did we know or guess, any of us, of Barley's feelings towards Katya? In a case so scrupulously monitored and controlled, the question of love received diffident handling.
Wicklow, diligently promiscuous in his own life, was puritanical about Barley's. Perhaps as a young man he still could not take seriously the notion of an older passion. For Wicklow, Barley was merely infatuated, which he usually was anyway. People of Barley's age were not in love.
Henziger, who was Barley's rough contemporary, regarded sex as an unsung perquisite of the secret life, and took it for granted that a square-shooter like Barley would put his body where his duty lay. Like Wicklow, but for different reasons, he found nothing exceptional in Barley's tender feelings towards Katya and operationally much to recommend them.