Great Historical Novels (54 page)
Read Great Historical Novels Online
Authors: Fay Weldon
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First published in the UK in 2012 by Head of Zeus, Ltd.
Copyright © Kylie Fitzpatrick, 2012
The moral right of Kylie Fitzpatrick to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (HB): 9781908800121
ISBN (TPB): 9781908800138
ISBN (E): 9781908800862
Printed in Great Britain.
Head of Zeus, Ltd
55 Monmouth Street
London, WC2H 9DG
Contents
For Margie
Although this novel is based on real events, the majority of its characters and incidents are fictional. In some instances (such as Karl Eliasberg and Nina Bronnikova), where little documentation exists, I have retained real names but have largely fictionalised backgrounds and personalities. I have slightly altered a few facts for dramatic purposes.
In recent decades, conflicting views have arisen relating to the programmatic interpretation of Shostakovich’s
Seventh Symphony
. I have chosen to depict the work as a direct response to the invasion of Leningrad for purely novelistic reasons.
In most cases I have used Anglicised versions of Russian names and place names. I have also simplified the complicated Russian method of personal address; characters are usually referred to by one name only, regardless of their relationship to the speaker.
I was born without a heart.
At least, that’s what they believe. I hear what they say about me in rehearsals. They have little enough breath to make music — whether I coax and implore, or shout like thunder, it makes no difference. But when they whisper about me, their voices sound through the hall as loudly as pickaxes on ice.
Conductors are supposed to stand apart. It’s part of the task, the privilege, the burden. Being separate is only one small step away from being disliked. I don’t mind. To be more specific, I can’t mind. These days, I have no energy for the luxury of taking offence. They may say what they like about my beaked nose, my thin lips, my unfashionable spectacles. They may joke about my insistence on punctuality. Surely, in all my harshness, I must be related to the great leader of our feared regime! (They’ve become used to mouthing such lines behind their hands, fearing that Stalin’s men are listening at the door.) Or perhaps — and this is said more loudly — my inimical nature is more similar to that of Hitler, our country’s greatest enemy. I hear these comparisons, and I find them tedious but unsurprising. Ever since my career began I’ve been accused of being strict, overly exacting, hostile — and, yes, dictatorial.
What can I not allow my musicians to see? That once, I, Karl Illyyich Eliasberg, was as emotional as any man. That on a long-ago June day, when the bright dust hung in the air like long quivering curtains, and the tall windows stood open, and sunlight filled the marble atrium, I stood for a long time on the curved staircase of the Conservatoire. As I listened, my heart split wide open. With jealousy, with admiration, with love.
My adversary, my friend. Over the years, I’ve thought of him as both. It’s because of him that I stand here today: talked of, despised, assumed to be a heartless man. Had I the strength to do so, I would laugh at the irony of it. Of course I have no heart! Many years ago, in that Leningrad stairwell, I gave my heart to Shostakovich.
It seemed he’d been waiting all his life for the knock at the door. He heard it dimly when he slept, tapping on the surface of his dreams. He heard it when he was working, in the urgent roll of timpani or the sharp plucking of pizzicato strings. And he heard it in the sound of his own footsteps when he walked the streets, so that even when hurrying he could never escape it.
The dread followed him day and night like a stubborn stray dog.
Shostakovich! Shostakovich!
Was someone calling his name? He struggled to open his eyes. The room was blurred at the edges of his vision, with a bright glare in the centre where he knew the work table to be.
‘Nina?’ he called, but his voice was still clogged with half-remembered dreams.
He reached blindly for his glasses, patting the mattress and then the low stool beside the bed. It was an effort to lift his arm; his fingers felt limp and without their usual strength. He’d worked late and eaten nothing over the past twenty-four hours, except for some hard rye bread soaked in tea. The good thing about hunger and extreme tiredness was that they alleviated fear. The sound that woke him — had it been the knock? If he were taken now, he would almost be relieved.
His fingers found the steel arms of his glasses, then the reassuring curve of the rims. He pushed aside the rough grey blanket — supposedly a privilege. But even privilege could make your skin itch.
With his glasses on, the wavering whiteness shrank to nothing. The
shabby walls stood back, the room held its breath. Now he wasn’t sure what he’d heard: someone in the street? Or simply the
rap rap
of the loose window in its frame?
‘Nina?’ he called again. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, ran his hand through his hair, shuffled to the door.
But when he looked cautiously into the outer room, he found it was empty.
Downstairs, in the communal kitchen, a naked light bulb. He bumped his head on it, as always, and swore. The reek of cleaning fluid, cabbage and cheap cutlets made him nauseous. He clamped his fingers over his nose, and breathed ostentatiously through his mouth as he mixed his porridge, though there was no one there to watch his theatrics. He was thankful for this. He’d never liked talking much before midday, and hated hearing, even from the stairs, the racket of several spirit stoves going at once, and voices drilling into his early-morning head. (However indifferent Nina seemed, however closed off to his suffering, at least she never sounded like a fishwife!)