Great Historical Novels (73 page)

All her possessions had been taken off their shelves and out of their cupboards, and were lying in precise rows on the floor. Overshoes and slippers stood with their toes pointed towards the door, as if awaiting marching orders. Pens, pencils and rulers were arranged in lines like surgical instruments. Dresses and pinafores had been folded and stacked in piles of exactly the same height.

Nikolai pulled himself up and stumbled into the room. He trod on something soft: the body of a cloth doll, which had fallen forwards out of its line. The hair on its china head had been cut short — so short that patches of naked white porcelain were visible. He turned to the toys ranged against the wall. Every one of Sonya’s treasured dolls had had its hair hacked off. Beside the last shorn doll there was a paper bag with a neatly taped top. In small block letters were the words, ‘HAIR. PLEASE DISPOSE OF.’

Holding the bag close, as if it contained some last explanatory note, he blundered to the window. The sun struck the bronze weathercock across the street and ricocheted back through the glass. Shielding his
eyes, he pulled down the blind so the room was plunged into semi-darkness. He lay down on Sonya’s bed, pulling his knees up to his chest like a dying man.

How could he not have seen what was happening? He remembered incidents from the past weeks. Sonya turning a key several times in the lock, then running back up the stairs to check once more that she’d locked the door. Sonya walking in a crab-like way along a street, touching a fence or a railing every ten yards with one hand. Sonya insisting on crossing the canal at every second bridge, even if it was partially blocked with wood and twisted wire. ‘We can’t get over that,’ Nikolai had objected, looking at the fortifications on the bridge over the Griboydov Canal. ‘We must,’ she’d insisted. ‘We must walk on the other side of the canal for the next two bridges, and then cross back again.’

He clenched his fist under the pillow, thinking of the large, chaotic Ustvolskaya household in Pskov. Four cousins under the age of ten, rampaging through life, breaking china, bouncing on chairs, throwing belongings in untidy heaps. What would happen to Sonya, with her obsessive rituals and painstaking systems built up to control an uncontrollable world?

‘Sonya, forgive me,’ he whispered. ‘Forgive me.’

Out in the living room, the clock ratcheted on. With every passing minute the pistons of a train hammered out unending circles, carrying her further away from Leningrad, further from her home and her self-made safety. From the street came the frenzied sounds of a city preparing for war; beside the bedroom door lay the long silent body of the cello. Nikolai closed his eyes, but tears slid under his eyelids and ran, hot and heavy, into Sonya’s pillow.

Into the limelight

Elias walked the length of Nevsky Prospect without stopping. Heavy tanks rumbled over the patched streets, instructions blared from speakers on the corners of buildings, defence troops poured through the centre of the city. But Elias felt both untouched and untouchable, protected by a brand-new confidence.

Was this how other people felt? If so, it was wonderful! To see the sun glance off the burnished dome of Kazan Cathedral and not wince; to pass a group of men and not look for derision in their eyes.
I’m normal,
he thought, with a lurch of his heart. Although he tried not to whistle, occasional snatches from the
Eroica
Symphony escaped from his lips.

After all, it wasn’t as if anyone had
died
. No one had been snatched from their homes by midnight henchmen or bayoneted in their beds by German soldiers. They were simply being sent to Siberia, which many would see as a lucky escape —

Yet, if he were strictly truthful, he felt like the lucky one. Leningrad seemed to belong to him in a way it never had before. If only his father were alive to see him now, striding the greatest street of Russia’s most cultural city, marching like a man, walking on air all the way to the entrance of the Radio Hall.

Inside, he found a few orchestra members already in the rehearsal room, their instruments leaning against chairs. They nodded when he entered — but no one seemed to notice the glow that hung about his head, nor to realise that, since they’d last seen him, he’d been transformed into a braver and more engaged human being. Slapping his briefcase
down on the desk, flinging his jacket over a chair, he couldn’t wait for a decorous entry into the conversation.

‘Have you heard the news?’ he blurted.

‘What news might that be? Seems as if something important is happening every minute of the day at present.’ Andrei Kholodov was a quiet man whose drooping moustache gave him a permanent air of melancholy, even when smiling. Today, however, he wasn’t smiling. Holding his clarinet close, he related his own news: that his Jewish neighbours had been arrested that morning. ‘Even the children were taken. Do you know what the supposed crime was?’

Elias bit his lip. This was not the pleasant scene he’d been imagining. ‘What was their crime?’ he asked nervously.

‘They’d asked for evacuation permits, fearing what the Nazis might do to them. And now they’ve got it from our own side. Accused of spreading rumours that the Germans will defeat us, so thrown into a cell.’

Elias’s sense of well-being was leaking out of him. ‘The children as well? I thought all Leningrad children were meant to be removed to safety.’

‘The Jews are convenient scapegoats for everyone. Guilty as charged, from the cradle to the grave.’ Kholodov picked up his clarinet and removed the reed, placing it on his tongue as if he no longer wished to talk about the fate of eight-year-old Irene whom he’d recently taught to play the C major scale without squeaking.

The room was filling up, but the atmosphere was subdued. For a moment Elias considered holding off with his own news. He opened his briefcase, shuffled a few papers about and cleared his throat. But his excitement got the better of him. ‘I also have some news,’ he said loudly. ‘But not about unfortunate Jews or official errors of judgement. My news is about our friend Mravinsky and his Philharmonic Orchestra.’

Blank faces turned towards him. The only sound was a fly buzzing against the windowpane. ‘The entire Philharmonia is being evacuated to Siberia.’ He tried for a flourishing delivery. ‘Which means that the Radio Orchestra will now be the cultural backbone of Leningrad. We alone will carry the autumn season!’

The only sound was a scornful laugh from the doorway. Elias stiffened; he didn’t need to look around.

‘You consider that a
privilege
?’ Alexander swayed into the room. It was not yet midday but the vodka fumes were unmistakable. ‘We’ll be cornered like rats! Left behind in Leningrad to play morale-raising
music while Mravinsky and his band twiddle their thumbs elsewhere, ready to replace us when we’ve been slaughtered in the streets. What a wonderful privilege!’

Elias tried to remain calm. ‘We’ve been understudies for ten years. Do you really wish to remain that way? To remain a second-rate, unknown windbag for the rest of your miserable life?’ A titter ran around the room, and Elias flushed with gratification. Normally, such laughter was at his expense. ‘Siberia would once have been just the place for you,’ he added. ‘At least you’d have learned about hard work, had you been in a labour camp.’

There was more laughter at this.

Alexander sneered. ‘You don’t care what will happen to us. You care only about your career. Achieving fame because of a German invasion? You’re no better than a Nazi collaborator!’

‘A labour camp would be too good for you.’ Elias spoke through clenched teeth. ‘For now, whether or not it’s pleasant, you’re condemned to work for me.’

The ensuing silence was broken only by the persistent buzzing against glass. Elias strode to the window and flung it open. A cacophony of hammering and clattering rose up and poured into the room. ‘Listen to that!’ He turned to face the orchestra. ‘We’re at war with the Germans; we shouldn’t be waging war among ourselves. Until we’re called on to fight, we’ll do the job for which we’re trained. We’re not children in a playground, nor animals scrapping in a cage. We’re professional musicians, and we will play like professionals until we no longer have lips, lungs or arms with which to do so.’ Glancing out the window again, he saw the roof of the Alexandrinsky Theatre bristling with guns that pointed to the sky like accusing fingers. He slammed the window shut and spoke into the newly sealed silence. ‘Do you understand?’

In a corner of the room, a small patter began, spreading and growing like rain. The back-desk violinists were tapping their bows on their music stands, and Ilya Fomenko joined in with his drumsticks. The woodwind section began stamping their feet. Soon the whole room was applauding. Only Alexander stood, mute and red-faced, by the wall.

‘I’d like to start with the first movement of the
1812
,’ said Elias. ‘Please get out your scores.’ As he waited, he caught sight of himself in the large mirror. How strange! His face appeared as pale and impassive as ever — but inside he felt as if he were singing.

Meetings and partings

Sollertinsky was throwing a huge farewell party. ‘A valedictory romp,’ he explained. ‘Plenty of food, no speeches and definitely no tears.’ The location was to be his favourite restaurant, the Chvanova on Bolshoy Prospect, whose baby quails in tarragon and whiteheart-cherry sauce were unsurpassed.

Nina voiced reservations, as she so often did these days. The only thing about which she seemed wholehearted was nagging Shostakovich to leave Leningrad. ‘It doesn’t seem right, partying in the midst of all this uncertainty. Does it seem right to you?’

‘No, definitely not right.’ Shostakovich was slicking down his hair with one hand and making corrections to his score with the other. ‘The Boris-tune should start with the cellos and spread upwards, not vice versa.’

Nina rolled her eyes. ‘I’ll talk to myself.’

Shostakovich leaned low over the desk, only to be blinded by his unruly hair. ‘Damn it! Do I have to cut off this cowlick to keep it out of my way? Now look! Hair oil all over the bass.’

Nina swept over with a small pot of pomade. ‘Stand still now.’ In a second, the tuft of hair lay shiny and flat to the right of Shostakovich’s irritated brow. ‘You could always try parting it closer to the middle,’ she suggested, deftly blotting the oil off the score.

Shostakovich looked at her shoulders, white and smooth under the cream lace straps of her slip. Through the thin cotton, the steps of her spine led temptingly, distractingly downwards. ‘My hair doesn’t work
with a centre part,’ he muttered. ‘I look like a peasant.’

She was holding out the score, looking at the small spots of oil but not seeing what lay beneath — the swell of an E flat ascent, a drum beat as dark and constant as the sea. ‘That’s better.’ Her nipples were also visible through her slip; suddenly, he longed to touch them, feel them harden under his fingers.

But already she was back on the other side of the room, sorting through her jewellery box. ‘You should hurry. You promised to read to Galina before we leave.’

‘Do we have to go?’ He felt pulled in two directions: the score for his march on his left, his curvaceous wife on his right.

‘Your work will still be here when you get home. Sollertinsky, on the other hand, will soon be in Siberia.’ But a secretive smile flicked over Nina’s lips, as if she sensed what her husband was thinking about her, and she fastened the topaz necklace around her throat with an air of confidence.

The pavements of Leningrad had become like an army training ground, cluttered with rolls of wire, old mattresses and mounds of rubble. By the time they got to the Petrogradsky district, the hem of Nina’s dress was flecked with dirt. ‘Sollertinsky will be too merry to notice how we look,’ said Shostakovich, brushing off his shoes at the restaurant door.

Inside, glittering light played on the gleaming heads of the cultural elite. Sollertinsky stood in the centre of the room. ‘Welcome!’ he cried, ploughing towards them, shaking off the beautiful clinging Kirov girls as if they were gnats. ‘Nina Shostakovich, as stunning as ever, in spite of our troubled times! And even my old friend Dmitri’s looking smart — though he might have cleaned the mud off his shoes before entering the finest eating establishment in Russia.’

‘Look at yourself,’ retorted Shostakovich. ‘I wonder why the Philharmonia Committee appointed an artistic director who doesn’t know how to knot a tie correctly.’

‘At least I’m wearing one.’ Sollertinsky peered down at the loose spindly knot under his chin. ‘Whatever will I do without you, Dmitri? You’re the only one who dares to criticise me. Well, this may be our last supper, so make the most of it! The sevruga here is exquisite.’

The three of them threaded through bare-shouldered women in rustling silk and men with starched white collars. Clouds of perfume wafted up Shostakovich’s nose, making him sneeze. He stood with his back to a pillar, watching Nina circle the table, nodding and laughing.
She appeared absorbed, but occasionally she raised her eyes, checking that he was still close by. Had she been this way when they’d first met — watchful, a little wary? Impossible to remember. There had been so much work over the years, so much necessary concentration; he’d simply toiled on, hoping that every time he raised his head from his work she’d still be there.

Thinking of his failings as a husband and a father aroused the usual guilt.
I wouldn’t want to be married to me
. Turning abruptly, he collided with the woman beside him. ‘Forgive me.’ He reached out to steady her. It was Nina Bronnikova, nearly as tall as he was — and as beautiful as when she’d first joined the Kirov Ballet Company.

‘My fault.’ Her hair was coiled high on her head, emphasising her cheekbones and the slightly melancholic fall of her mouth. ‘I shouldn’t be loitering behind pillars! But I’m not in a partying mood, and I have very little to chat about.’

‘That’s hardly surprising. The extramarital activities of the intelligentsia are less absorbing when one is listening for the sound of the Luftwaffe.’