3 Great Historical Novels (56 page)

‘A number! She doesn’t need to wear a number. She’s perfectly capable of speaking for herself.’

‘I’m nine years and five weeks old.’ Sonya’s voice rang out over the shrieking and crying. ‘I’ve been able to write my name since I was three.’

The woman ignored her. ‘They all need numbers or they can’t get on.’

Sonya’s face flared with hope. ‘I don’t have one! Can we go home?’

Nikolai’s stomach lurched; part of him wanted nothing more. ‘I wasn’t informed about the need to label my child,’ he said, looking directly into the woman’s eyes. ‘In any case, it’s irrelevant. She’s going to be met by her cousins in Pskov.’
Don’t argue with me
, he thought, or
I’ll snatch
that clipboard out of your fat bureaucratic hands and smash it over your head.

Angrily, the woman crossed off Sonya’s name. ‘It’s up to you. If anything happens to Number 78, it won’t be my fault.’

‘What will happen to me?’ Sonya grabbed Nikolai’s hand. ‘Will I be bombed? Will I be … killed?’ Her palm was slippery with fear.

Nikolai was no longer shocked at the anger he felt; it was touch and go whether he’d punch the woman in her officious mouth. Instead, he bent down and smoothed Sonya’s hair off her hot face. ‘Nothing bad will happen to you,’ he assured her. ‘You can take off your coat as soon as you’re on the train. It won’t be long now.’

Sonya leaned into him for a few seconds, breathing in, breathing out. ‘The Germans will be sent packing,’ she recited, as she and Nikolai had practised, ‘and Leningrad will be peaceful again, and I can come home.’

‘Exactly,’ he said, but his stomach was churning with guilt and terror.

A whistle blew as if signalling the start of a race. Sonya looked nervously over her shoulder. ‘Does that mean I have to get on?’

‘I’m afraid so.’ Nikolai’s heart was beating so hard he felt sick. ‘Got your … got your bag?’

The clipboard woman tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Get her on at once! The train will leave in one minute.’

Suddenly, Sonya was gripping Nikolai’s arm and tears were streaming down her face. ‘Please, Papa, don’t make me go! I’ll help more around the house, I’ll dig in the fields with Aunt Tanya. Please don’t make me go!’

‘My darling. My Mouse.’ Nikolai could hardly speak. ‘But I might be leaving Leningrad myself, you know that. It’s better for us both to be safe, so we can meet up later on.’

‘When?’ Sonya was crying so hard that her face and hands were wet, and she clung to Nikolai’s arm as if it were a life-buoy. ‘When?’

‘Get her on!’ The woman seized Sonya’s left arm and shook it. ‘Stop crying! Do you want to be left behind?’

Nikolai tried to free himself from Sonya’s grip, while the woman grasped her around the waist. For a moment the three of them were
caught in a bizarre tug-of-war: the woman pulling Sonya backwards, Nikolai pulling away, and Sonya held tight between them.

With the final blast of the whistle, she gave up. Her arms and legs went limp, and the official was left holding a bundle of red coat and jumbled limbs. ‘About time!’ She heaved Sonya up the steps, and handed her and her suitcase to an open-faced woman who drew her back into the crowded corridor. The door slammed, the train screeched.

Nikolai was shaking all over. Moving to one side, he tried to catch a glimpse of Sonya’s red coat through the slatted windows. A mass of tousled heads and flushed faces — but none of them belonged to Sonya. The train had swallowed her whole.

He couldn’t wait for the final moment, the grinding, roaring, smoking departure. He turned, trampling on feet. ‘Sorry. Sorry.’ Pushing through the crying women, he made for the exit. Once in the street, he stood with his hands on his knees, gasping for breath.

On the walk home, it felt as if gashes were opening in the soles of his feet and his strength and endurance were pouring away through them. By the time he reached the apartment, he could hardly stand. He sank down on the living-room floor, then crawled along the wall to Sonya’s door. Turning his head carefully, as if the movement might shake his eyes from their sockets, he looked into the room, and the hairs on his arms stood on end.

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.

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.

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.’

She shrugged. ‘I never listened to gossip, even before the war began.’

‘Nor I. Gossip distracts one from working. It’s a good reason to avoid parties such as this.’ He stared across the room. It had been a mistake to come. Had he learnt nothing from toiling through six symphonies and an opera? From struggling with sonatas and concertos, quartets and quintets, song-cycles, ballet scores and film scores? How did he manage to forget, every single time, that the initial stages of a work demanded constant attention?

‘Speaking of work,’ asked Nina Bronnikova, ‘when will you be going?’

‘I must stay for a while, at least.’ Shostakovich took a gulp of his vodka. ‘Sollertinsky is my best friend. And it was quite an effort for my wife to get me here.’

Nina Bronnikova laughed. ‘I wasn’t referring to the party, but to evacuation plans. The Kirov is leaving within a week.’

He took another swallow of vodka; already its effects were making him feel stronger. ‘I’m not going. I intend to stay in Leningrad as long as possible. If the Luftwaffe attacks, the fire brigade will need extra volunteers.’

‘You’ll stay and fire-watch?’ She looked surprised. ‘Are you allowed to do that?’

‘At first they refused to let me dig ditches. Now I’ve been digging
ditches for three weeks. If incendiaries start to fall, how can they refuse another set of hands?’

‘You have rather famous hands.’

‘I’ve got a will of my own, even if my hands and my mind are claimed by the State.’ For once he didn’t glance over his shoulder to see who might be listening. ‘Besides, as long as I continue providing tunes for their infernal brass bands, they have no grounds for complaint.’

‘I hope my husband isn’t depressing you.’ His wife appeared at his side, glancing at him to check he was all right but addressing Nina Bronnikova. ‘He finds the initial stages of anything difficult — although once a party warms up, he becomes its life and soul.’

‘Far from depressing me, he’s inspired me! Choosing to stay in Leningrad, with the Germans at our very gates, displays a sense of duty most of us couldn’t hope to possess.’

‘Duty?’ Nina Shostakovich’s eyes narrowed. ‘I can’t help thinking that “duty” has become the most overused word in our society, not to mention a defence of any number of atrocities. Is it one’s duty to remain in an increasingly dangerous situation — or rather to remove one’s children to safety? Duty to one’s country also necessitates safeguarding its future.’

‘We don’t know if it is any safer,’ said Shostakovich loudly, ‘to send children out of the city. Look at the disaster that happened in June! Children put on trains, sent directly into the path of the enemy and brought back again.’

‘The issue isn’t only about evacuating the children,’ replied his wife sharply. ‘It’s also about safeguarding yourself, so your children can grow up with a father.’

How swiftly the conversation had shifted from the impersonal to the personal! He felt the same longing to escape as he had when a boy. Now, too old to run and too civilised to withdraw, he said nothing and stared down into his glass.

‘It’s a many-sided debate,’ said Nina Bronnikova diplomatically. ‘Not only has the war thrown our streets into disarray, it’s forcing moral dilemmas upon us. Even this party —’ she gestured at the platters laden with wild boar, whole fish and golden melon — ‘feels like the last gasp of the Roman Empire. A wilful denial of what is to come.’

‘Yes, it seems paradoxical to enjoy such a feast,’ said Nina Shostakovich, ‘when the bread queues are becoming longer by the day.’

‘Our country is built on such paradoxes!’ Sollertinsky had arrived to join the fray. ‘Contradiction lies at Russia’s heart, and always has.
Refusing the privileged cards we’ve been dealt won’t help those who are less fortunate.’ He looked dishevelled, with sweat on his brow and his sleeves rolled up, but he spoke seriously. ‘Take our friend Dmitri. Think of the music that would never have been written if he hadn’t been willing to compromise. To duck for cover when necessary, strut when commanded, and steer the fine line between integrity and common sense.’

‘You’re overstating the case.’ Shostakovich shook his head. ‘I’m just doing what I was born to do.’

‘You’re too modest.’ Sollertinsky’s hazel eyes glinted. ‘All I’m saying is that nothing is black and white, not even — or especially not — in times of war.’

Shostakovich sighed. Although he was feeling a little more sociable thanks to the vodka, he wished to God all this talk of war and his work would stop, and that he could go home and get on with his march.

Sollertinsky laughed. ‘Look at you, standing here with the two most beautiful women in Leningrad! You might at least have the grace to look happy about it.’

‘No offence,’ shrugged Shostakovich. ‘But half my mind is in my work and the other half in the trenches.’

‘No wonder you’re more dim-witted than usual. Gogol wrote of a man without a nose, we’re talking to a man without a mind!’ Sollertinsky gave him a bear-hug. ‘You great dolt. I’m not accustomed to missing anything, except my wedding anniversaries and the occasional tram — but, by God, I’ll miss you.’

Arriving late — his mother had been particularly difficult to get into bed — Elias paused in the doorway. For once, this wasn’t for fear of socialising with more educated, elegant Leningraders. Tonight he stopped simply to experience his new sense of self. With his feet planted firmly on the red carpet and his chest swelling, he surveyed the room.

‘Good evening, sir.’ The restaurateur was also scanning the room, albeit with a more professional eye. ‘Welcome back. We haven’t seen you in our establishment for some time.’

Not long ago, Elias would have found the man’s impressive moustache and air of impatience intimidating. ‘It’s good to be back,’ he replied.
In fact, he’d never ventured here in his life. How many times had he walked past the gilt-handled doors and longed to sweep through the crimson curtain, like one of those confident white-shirted men with beautiful women on their arms!

‘Champagne?’ The restaurateur gestured to a waiter hovering nearby.

‘I’m not —’ began Elias, but already a chilled glass was in his hand. ‘Well, all right.’ Usually he mistrusted champagne, both for its instant effects of gaiety and its almost immediate after-effects (a throbbing headache and gnawing pains in the stomach). But tonight everything was different.

‘Your friends are on the far side of the room.’ The restaurateur gestured discreetly with his head.

‘Thank you.’ A little bewildered, Elias glanced across the crowded restaurant to see who his friends might be. There on the carpeted podium was a grand piano, and gathered around it, like an unholy triumvirate, were Sollertinsky, Mravinsky and Dmitri Shostakovich.

He felt the sudden inconvenient need to be honest. ‘To be precise, they are not —’ But the restaurateur was darting away to reprimand a waiter, and Elias, taking a deep breath, stepped down to join the party. He swallowed another mouthful of champagne for courage and stationed himself beside a table laden with food. From here, through the dark-suited backs and the silk-clad shoulders, he could just make out Sollertinsky’s leonine head. And Mravinsky’s cool smile — and Shostakovich’s face, lit up with mirth, his huge glasses glinting.

Your friends
. Wasn’t that what the restaurateur had said?
Your friends are over there
. How would they react were he to step onto the podium, shake hands, and lean on the piano beside them?
No
. He gripped his glass. He couldn’t do it.

‘It’s Mr Eliasberg, isn’t it?’ Suddenly there she was, not two feet away from him. Her eyes were as large and dark as he remembered, and her neck as slim. The swell of her breasts (sometimes, lying in bed, he’d taunted himself with the memory) provided a pleasing contrast with her narrow ribcage.

Very carefully, he set down his glass and extended his hand.

‘Do you remember me?’ Nina Bronnikova smiled. ‘I met you in the Haymarket back in June. On the very day, I believe, before this nightmare of a war officially began.’

‘R-r-remember you? How could one possibly n-n-not remember you!’