Читать книгу Faith - Len Deighton - Страница 2

As Bernard Samson is now on an assignment in Poland I searched through my collection of photographs for a suitable image that would evoke that part of the world, and Bernard’s involvement with the women in his life.

I remembered that, while on location for one of my documentaries in Poland, I had come across a window with a lace curtain adorned with a pair of ladies; the image of this would now provide a subtle visual analogy for the Iron Curtain.

I discovered that by placing a larger than life photograph of Samson in the window it created a rather surreal effect. Rather like Kong peering in at an unsuspecting Fay Wray, Bernard looms behind the curtain, an unwilling outsider ostracized from domestic comfort.

For a further reference to the two women in Bernard’s life, the back cover displays a heart-shaped traditional Polish Wycinanki, an intricate design carefully cut from folded paper. Here, the heart is torn in two, separated by the sword of a KGB badge. You will note that the Western half features a very elegant gold wedding ring.

At the heart of every one of the nine books in this triple trilogy is Bernard Samson, so I wanted to come up with a neat way of visually linking them all. When the reader has collected all nine books and displays them together in sequential order, the books’ spines will spell out Samson’s name in the form of a blackmail note made up of airline baggage tags. The tags were drawn from my personal collection, and are colourful testimony to thousands of air miles spent travelling the world.

Arnold Schwartzman OBE RDI