3 Great Historical Novels (51 page)

Elias was bored. Part of him marvelled at this: how could he be in a city so galvanised into action, yet feel so stultified? On the outskirts of Leningrad, ditches had been dug; in the city, bunkers were being built and guns mounted on rooftops. That morning he’d passed a dozen men digging around the base of a large statue, while others laboured along, ant-like, carrying planks of wood. Were they building a protective wooden shelter for the statue? Did they expect looting — or bombs? Elias, too intimidated to ask, had simply skirted around them and rushed on his way. Already, he felt like a shirker and a fool.

Here he sat, in the familiar low-ceilinged room, listening to his mother’s droning voice, while fear was seeping from the open drains, swamping the marketplaces and the drinking halls. All the same, he felt his face would split from yawning, that his eyes would grow bloodshot from the pressure of his boredom.

‘I’ve always been afraid of June. Everything bad happens in June.’ His mother rocked in her chair, which wasn’t intended for this purpose; its legs thumped unevenly on the floor. ‘Your Uncle Peter died in June, and your Aunt Ester also. Your dear father avoided a June death by a mere twenty-four hours. And now — now we have a June war on our hands!’ She rocked so vigorously at this latest grievance, she nearly toppled backwards.

‘Mother,’ said Elias, ‘I don’t know if it has escaped your notice, but your chair has no rockers.’
And you
, he felt like adding,
are completely off yours
. Did she really believe that Hitler and his Luftwaffe were acting
in accordance with her calendar of superstition?

His mother ignored him. ‘I’ve always felt nervous on entering June. I hold my breath until it is over. The trouble started, of course, when they adopted the Gregorian calendar. All that to-ing and fro-ing, mucking about with dates and names. It wasn’t good for stability.’

‘Yes, Mother, let’s blame Lenin. He’s a convenient scapegoat for so many things — why not this mess into the bargain?’

‘Karl! No Russian person can be blamed for this war! How can you say such a thing.’ She looked as if she’d like to scrub out his mouth with soap, just as she had done when he was eight and he’d called his aunt a greedy pig for scoffing the weekly cake ration in one sitting.

‘We have to stop this bickering.’ He took a deep breath. ‘There’s no knowing what the future holds. But, naturally, I’m concerned about you. On my way home from work, I made some enquiries about the new evacuation policy. They say —’ He forced himself to go on. ‘Apparently there may be trains to transport the elderly out of Leningrad as early as next week.’

It was suddenly quiet, so quiet he could hear the cartilage creak in his tired neck. ‘It’s for the best,’ he said. ‘Surely you can see that.’

His mother looked both stricken and mutinous. He got up and tried to put his arms around her. It was a long time since he’d been so close to her; her body felt like an unevenly stuffed mattress, her shoulders slumped, her torso heavy. The smell of her damp wrinkled skin made him weak with remorse and fear.

‘I refuse to leave you.’ She clutched him tightly. ‘We should stay together at all costs. We’re family.’

‘We’re part of a wider family now.’ Even to his own ears, Elias sounded like a propaganda poster. ‘We’re all citizens of Leningrad, and we must draw on that united strength.’

His mother looked at him as if he were mad. ‘We have nobody but each other, you stupid boy! Nothing but this!’ She gestured at the faded blind, the shelves bending under piles of scores, the motley collection of china. ‘This is our home, and I don’t want to leave it. I won’t.’

Elias had never been able to stop himself from voicing unwelcome facts. (‘How will you snare a wife if you can’t pay compliments?’ his mother had asked more than once.) ‘It may not look like home for much longer,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Our city’s in a vulnerable position. If the Germans attack from the
west and the Finns from the north-east, we’ll not only be cut off but also locked in. In effect, we’ll be trapped in our own homes. What comfort will china plates be to you then?’

‘But our army’s so strong,’ quavered his mother. ‘Surely our men will stop the Germans and keep our possessions safe?’ She glanced nervously at the door as if, at any moment, Nazi soldiers might burst in and carry off the cabinet Elias’s father had made to display his finest samples of boots.

Elias walked to the shelves and pretended to search for a book. He couldn’t bear to look at his mother’s expression any longer. He sensed that, whatever happened in the months ahead, the time would come when he would be haunted by her face.

‘Maybe they will keep us safe,’ he said, clearing his throat. This was as close to a lie as he could come.

The air was layered with cigarette smoke and subdued conversation. Shostakovich sat staring at a long scratch on the tabletop. ‘I can’t believe they turned me down. How could they?’

‘Because,’ suggested Sollertinsky, ‘they don’t want one of Russia’s most talented sons shot to pieces?’

‘Simply because of my eyesight!’ muttered Shostakovich. Removing his glasses, he peered at the headline of Sollertinsky’s
Pravda
. The characters were unruly, sliding to the edge of his vision. ‘
Ev
—’ he muttered. ‘
Ac
—’ But it was like trying to catch smoke rings. As soon as he shoved his spectacles back on his nose, the letters sprang into neat legible rows.
Evacuation Planned for Leningrad’s Children and Elderly
.

He tossed the paper aside. ‘With half the city gone, the other half will be needed to fight. I’m going to reapply. They can’t be idiotic enough to refuse me twice.’

‘It’s you who’s being idiotic,’ contradicted Sollertinsky. ‘What good will it do letting you run about with a gun? You couldn’t hit an omnibus from ten feet, let alone a German. Let those citizens fit for the army do their job, and we’ll do ours. There’s plenty for cultural men to do in times of strife.’ He took a large swig of brandy, and Shostakovich knew what was coming: the tale of how Sollertinsky had once watched a grand piano — ‘a first-rate Koch’ — dragged from a bourgeois household and hoisted onto a lorry. ‘Whereupon I, not a day over fourteen, was also hoisted aboard,’ reminisced Sollertinsky, ‘to be joined by an
eighteen-year
-old songstress called Ludmila. Then all three of us — the singing
beauty, the piano and myself — were driven to military headquarters where we performed our hearts out, thus donating our cultural knowledge to raise the morale of Mother Russia.’

A smattering of applause came from the nearby tables, and glasses clinked. Shostakovich, despite his familiarity with the story, joined in the toast. ‘To the well-endowed Ludmila and the mighty arm of the artist.’

‘To Ludmila,’ echoed Sollertinsky, misty-eyed. ‘Magnificent in more than the voice department.’ He gestured to the barman for another bottle. ‘We have a lot to discuss,’ he said, as if an excuse were needed.

‘And you’ve made your point.’ Shostakovich tilted defiantly on his chair. ‘Nonetheless, I’m not convinced that artists can’t be men of action. Look at Venyamin Fleishman. He’s already been accepted into the guard of the Kuibyshev District.’

‘Fleishman isn’t a proven talent,’ shrugged Sollertinsky. ‘He’s still a student. He’s had nothing published and nothing performed. Moreover, Fleishman doesn’t wear prescription spectacles.’

‘He’s already set down the beginnings of a first-rate opera. One day
Rothchild’s Violin
will be heard in the best concert halls in the world.’

‘And one day you’ll acknowledge the facts. You’re too blind for the battlefield, and I’m too fat.’

Shostakovich laughed reluctantly. ‘Regardless of facts, I’m going back for another try. I’ve already made a second appointment for an eye test.’

‘I expected nothing less of you.’ Sollertinsky sloshed more brandy in his glass. ‘Your extreme pigheadedness warrants a new toast.’

‘As if you need an excuse! You toast as readily as a dog farts.’ It was a poor joke, and unnecessarily sharp. But for some reason he was struggling to keep up with the flow of witticisms. As familiar as it was to be sitting at his usual table, bantering with his old friend, it felt somehow wrong.

‘Feeling under the weather? Your wits seem a little dull.’ Sollertinsky, in spite of numerous brandies, seemed to sense his friend’s mood.

‘The advantage is yours,’ replied Shostakovich. ‘You have all the time in the world to sharpen your wits, for you do little else.’ Again, he sounded more acerbic than he intended. But the sight of Sollertinsky cracking jokes, apparently disregarding the mounting chaos in the streets, made him envious — and also afraid. Did he really want to push his way out onto a violent and bloody battlefront?

Sollertinsky chose to disregard the insult. He dug Shostakovich in the ribs and gestured out the window. ‘Look there.’

It was Karl Eliasberg, walking across the cobbled square with his
pigskin briefcase clasped in his hand. As if sensing he was being watched, he quickened his pace, throwing his legs out in front of him in an almost military style.

‘They say,’ mused Sollertinsky, ‘that Eliasberg has walked the same way every day of his life.’

‘What, to the Radio Hall?’

‘He’s walked the same way since the day he was born,’ cackled Sollertinsky. ‘With his head up his arse!’

Suddenly the door flew open so violently that the windows shook and the lunchtime drinkers looked up in alarm. There, framed against the light, was a young man with a scrubby beard. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes startlingly blue.

‘Who’s that?’ Shostakovich felt alarmed.

‘I’ve got no idea,’ said Sollertinsky, frozen in mid-laugh, the bottle poised in his hand.

‘It has begun.’ The young man’s voice was harsh, the death-croak of a raven. ‘It’s all over for us.’

Sollertinsky put the bottle down with a crash, and an arc of brandy flew in the air. ‘What’s happened?’

‘The Volchov pocket has been smashed,’ announced the young man. ‘General Vlasov is captured. The Germans are advancing towards the Luga River, and in a couple of days they will be not seventy miles from our gates. We are doomed.’

Once, Shostakovich had walked along a street into the setting sun and thought he was walking into the end of his life. The low orange dazzle of light, the silhouettes of the lamp-posts: these seemed so strange that, in those moments, he could conceive of nothing beyond them. But his feet had gone on rising and falling, just like the sun. And soon the world settled back into its usual patterns, alternating between the mundane and the dramatic.

He remembered that evening more as if he’d dreamt it than lived it. He thought of it with the fierce longing of a soldier, hands clenched, thinking of safety and home. For a second, the world had opened up to him. He could have stepped through and been rid of it all, the constant demands of the body and the never-ending pressure to succeed. The pressure to be the best, to play Chopin’s third Ballade more tenderly and Beethoven’s Appassionata more brilliantly than either had ever been played — and then to remain at the piano, long after the audience had gone, composing a work to put both Chopin and Beethoven in the shade.

His dream had been one of escape. And it wasn’t until he met Nina that he could say, quite truthfully, he was glad he hadn’t disappeared on that unearthly evening. Glad that the sun had been pressed below the horizon and he’d been restored to the ordinary streets of Leningrad, a little out of breath, out of sorts, relieved, disappointed, resentful.

The things that first struck him about Nina Varzar were her ferocious intelligence and her lack of deference. How tired he was, already, of deference! Tired of searching for truth behind every face, of standing
in concert-hall foyers and listening to a chorus of approval from his acquaintances —
Dmitri Dmitriyevich! Allow me to pay my respects!

Behind Nina’s pale face there was nothing but a seeming indifference for his reputation. She discussed other men’s music but not his, offered opinions on others while remaining oblivious to what they thought of her. After the pretty mincing girls who usually gathered around him, laughing too loudly at his jokes, stifling him and breathing his air, Shostakovich found her irresistible. Towards the end of the party, a little drunk, he’d drawn her behind the Steinbergs’ curtains and kissed her. The clash of her slightly crooked teeth against his! The heat of her breath! Even now, many years later, he felt lustful at the memory. The velvety dark, the chilly windowpane, the keen blade of Nina’s intelligence: these things convinced him that he was a man first and foremost, and a composer second. The relief of shedding the official mask had brought tears to his eyes. After they returned to the crowded room, he’d excused himself and had gone to the bathroom to wipe his spectacles with slightly trembling hands.

When she’d finally agreed to marry him, as the spring rain ran down the window, her ‘Yes’ had the clarity of an oboe. Turning his head on the pillow, he heard their future. There it was, mapped out in a series of arpeggios, rising and falling with stormy certainty.

‘Dmitri?’ she’d said. ‘What are you thinking?’ But he couldn’t explain, could only mutter how happy he was, while the wild music merged with the rain. Once the fights began — with plates flung against walls and the servants hiding in the kitchen — the sounds were more like clashing cymbals and snare drums.

‘Just because you’re a talented composer,’ Nina would say, throwing on her coat, ‘doesn’t mean you’re a talented husband. Just because you’re beloved by the people doesn’t mean you’re loveable.’ She’d storm off to find her own place in the laboratory lit by yellow flickering lights. Often she stayed away all night, working alongside colleagues who talked about physics rather than ranting about domestic mess or excessive noise. Returning in the morning, she’d refuse to speak to him. His throat would ache and his eyes smart with the effort of remaining silent and retaining his pride.

After their long separation, before the children were born, there were nights when he no longer expected to hear her key in the door. He didn’t even try for sleep. Instead, he sat up miserably over his orchestration, drumming his pencil on the desk to fill up the silence. He could no longer
hear what he wrote. The lines were sullen before they reached the stave, refusing to speak separately or work together. In bars of rest, he waited without hope for her footsteps.

‘I can’t live without you,’ he said, having lurked outside the laboratory building for two hours, waiting for her to leave work. This was the truth — for how could a man live without sleep, and how could a composer continue without sound? His reflection in the glass laboratory door was a mess: his eyes were red-rimmed from wasted working nights, and from mornings spent awake on a lonely mattress.

Nina looked at him with no sign of softening. ‘I’ll come back to you, but only on my terms.’

The sheet-ice in his head cracked and he could hear again. The soft rain dented the ground, the leather soles of his shoes squelched. ‘I can work again!’ he said with relief. And then it seemed wholly right, as he stood there in his sodden coat, that he and Nina should be together for the rest of their lives.

The rages continued, of course. He’d never known such fights. Doors slammed, windows fell like guillotines. Nina was fiercely combative, could freeze him like the hardest frost and burn him with a look. More than once, as payback for her temporary desertions, he disappeared for a night of drinking. ‘Nina is a gift,’ said Sollertinsky, even while encouraging him into vodka-induced disarray. ‘You should be more careful of her.’ Shostakovich, losing count of the drinks he’d had, would slump over the table, hoping she was missing him.

Today, walking through a city preparing for a German invasion, he wondered how to break the news to Nina. He felt guilty, as if his negligence alone had permitted the breaking of the defence lines. Had he been too preoccupied with his work to keep an eye on the bigger things? Now that he’d raised his eyes from his music, it was too late. The enemy was inexorably advancing, and the surface of everyday life was tearing apart.

The brandy sloshed uneasily in his stomach. He hoped the caretaker of their building had already alerted the residents to the news, or that Fenya had heard it at the market. He didn’t want to be the one to announce it.

As soon as he shuffled in the door, it was clear that Nina knew. She sat at the long scrubbed table, sewing an ear back on Maxim’s teddy bear. ‘An early casualty of war,’ she said, in lieu of a greeting. ‘To be precise, a tug-of-war.’ Her hand was quite steady.

‘Nothing’s certain yet.’ Shostakovich inhaled as he kissed her
forehead
,
so she wouldn’t smell the brandy on his breath. ‘Look at what our tanks did at Pskov. Everyone says the Germans are underprepared for our strength.’ Anxiously, he rolled a pencil between his palms. ‘We could push them back. We could still crush them.’

Nina re-threaded her needle. ‘There may be a chance that we can all get out. There’s talk of evacuating prominent citizens and their families, perhaps to Tashkent.’

He dug the pencil into the table and felt the lead snap deep inside the wood. ‘No. Absolutely not. I won’t desert. I couldn’t live with myself.’

‘Allow me to help you.’ She looked up sharply. ‘Rather than thinking in terms of desertion, think of it as saving your children’s lives.’

When he opened his hand, the pencil fell away in two halves. ‘Nina,’ he said. ‘The only woman I’ve ever known who stands up to me.’ He returned to her end of the table and kissed her on the mouth. Her lips were as warm and full as they’d been on that first night, but her hands stayed in position like a surgeon’s, the silver needle in her right hand and her left hand on the head of the wounded bear.

‘You’ve been drinking.’ She spoke into his mouth. ‘And you haven’t slept with me for weeks. Not even in the same room.’

The combination of accusation and desire was too much; he drew back. He wanted her desperately, but he needed to work.

Galina ran into the room. ‘Can we eat? I’m starving!’

‘Yes, it’s lunchtime.’ Nina started tidying away her sewing.

‘Papa!’ Maxim ran in circles around him. ‘Look!’ He dived under the table, and a moment later emerged with a gas mask over his face.

Shostakovich stepped back. ‘Where the hell did you get that?’ His son looked horrifying, a tiny body swaying under an enormous bovine head. ‘Take it off. Take it off now! It’s not a toy.’

‘They’re issuing them at military headquarters,’ said Nina. ‘Eugene used our ID cards. He managed to get one for everybody in the building. It’s better to be prepared.’

‘There’s one for you, too, Papa.’ Like a dog wanting to please its master, Galina brought over an armful of heavy rubber masks.

‘Put them back in the box, Galina,’ said Nina. ‘You heard what your father said; they’re not play-things.’

Straight-backed with disappointment, Galina walked away again, her long braid swinging like the pendulum of a clock. ‘Don’t shove, Maxim. Be careful. They are not toys.’

‘Nottoys,’ repeated Maxim. ‘Nottoys.’

As they chattered on — ‘The breathing holes should face the left. No, not like that!’ — Shostakovich stopped listening to their words and heard the counterpoint in their voices. Was it two violins, or a violin and viola? The first line soared away and fell back: a yearning for distance, a desire for intimacy, until, for one perfect second, both strands became one —

‘What did you say?’ he said, startled.

His children stood in front of him, and beside them was his wife, a ladle in her hand. All three faces displayed a similar exasperation. For a second, he had no idea who they were.

‘Mama was asking if you’d like some cabbage soup.’ Galina spoke slowly and deliberately, as if he were deaf.

‘Galina asked if you’d teach her some more sonata after lunch,’ said Nina.

‘Maxim ask if he can go to Grandma,’ chirped Maxim.

Shostakovich felt a tightening in his chest. ‘Sorry! I just drifted away for a minute. Thinking about something else.’

‘Obviously,’ said Nina. ‘Soup?’

‘No soup, no thanks,’ he babbled. ‘You know how I feel about lunch before work. Not good for the mental faculties.’

‘Sonata?’ queried Galina, without much hope.

‘Grandma!’ demanded Maxim, going red in the face.

Shostakovich took a deep breath. ‘I’ve got an excellent idea. Why don’t we ask Fenya to take you to Grandma’s this afternoon? Then Grandma can help Galina with the sonata. She’s a far better teacher than I am.’
Masterfully done!
he heard Sollertinsky say wryly.

Galina’s shoulders drooped. ‘I wanted you.’

‘A brilliant plan.’ Nina clashed glasses about on the table. ‘Flawed by the fact that Fenya hasn’t been coming to us for over a week. Nor will she be returning in the foreseeable future.’

‘She’s been … drafted?’

‘The city’s forming a female construction brigade. Fenya will have more important things to do than cook for us.’

‘Poor Fenya! She’ll be worn to the bone!’ Shostakovich sounded shocked.
Don’t lie, you’re envious!
laughed Sollertinsky.
You want a piece of the action yourself!

‘I expect digging ditches is no more strenuous than visiting your mother,’ said Nina, tying a napkin round Maxim’s neck.

Shostakovich backed away towards his workroom. The warmth in
the kitchen, the babble and the steam, the information, accusations —

‘I have to work,’ he said faintly. And then defiantly, ‘I must work. I have work to do.’

Without waiting for a reaction, he closed the door and marched to his desk. Once there, he sat for a minute, staring at the compositions waiting to be graded. In despair, he laid his head on the pile. When would life stop getting in the way of music? The scribbled lines of his students’ notations stretched before his eyes like undisciplined soldiers.