Great Historical Novels (68 page)

‘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. 

The horseman

‘I won’t go,’ said Sonya.

It was mid-morning and a breeze was blowing, lifting the leaves on the plane trees so their silver undersides flashed like the bellies of trout. There was a similar nervous quality to the sunlight; it slipped down the gleaming onion-shaped domes as if, for today at least, it wanted to go unnoticed.

It was barely ten minutes since they’d left the house, but already Nikolai could feel sweat running between his shoulder blades. He stepped aside to avoid a line of female factory workers pushing laden handcarts towards the outskirts of the city. They kept their eyes trained on the ground, anticipating bumps in the cobblestones; their sleeves were rolled up to reveal muscular arms. The rumbling wheels drowned out the rest of what Sonya was saying, but Nikolai could see her lips forming words that were definitely defiant.

Finally the procession of carts reached the other side of the square and the racket died away. But now Sonya wouldn’t move at all. She stood like a donkey, feet braced on the stained stones. ‘I’m telling you, I won’t go,’ she said, stamping her foot. Nikolai had never seen anyone do this except on the stage, and he was surprised at the level of rage it conveyed. There was nothing remotely theatrical about it; it was as if Sonya’s white-hot anger needed an outlet and had conducted itself, like lightning, through the nearest object.

‘Sonya, it’s not for you to decide.’ He sounded sterner than he’d expected, considering his sorry state: streaked shirt, dripping hair and
sinking heart. ‘You’re a child, and children don’t make decisions on such matters. It’s already been decided for you by —’ He hesitated. ‘By the officials of Leningrad. By the Chief of Staff, and the Chief of the General Staff, and the leaders of the army, and the leader of the Party — and, well, just all the important people you can imagine.’ He hoped he sounded sufficiently authoritative to stop further argument. If he let it slip that, even before the announcement of planned evacuations, he’d decided to send Sonya out of the city to her cousins, he’d be lost. ‘Pskov!’ she would exclaim in horror. ‘Pskov is just a little town! Mama would never have wanted me to go there. They don’t even have their own ballet company.’

Sonya said nothing. She stuck out her bottom lip.

‘It won’t be for long,’ urged Nikolai. Why was it that parental lies came so easily, when children were rigorously trained to tell the truth? ‘It mightn’t be for long,’ he corrected himself. ‘You have to remember that Leningrad may not be safe to live in for a while.’

‘I don’t care! Do you think I’m a sissy? I suppose Gessen One blabbed to you about me rescuing that baby blackbird.’

‘I never listen to the Gessens, from One to Five. You know that.’ He put his arms around her, but it was like hugging a small unyielding tree.

‘What about Aunt Tanya?’ challenged Sonya. ‘Are the generals sending her away, too?’

‘Aunt Tanya is needed here.’

‘For what? Cleaning? I can clean. Why don’t you send Aunt Tanya off to Pskov instead of me?’

‘Tanya isn’t cleaning,’ sighed Nikolai. ‘She won’t even be helping us out any more. She’s going to work with some other women, building blockades.’

‘Blockades? What are they?’

‘Obstacles to keep the German tanks out.’
Supposedly
, he added to himself. He’d seen the small forest of concrete pyramids sitting in the fields to the south-west of the city, backed by spindly wooden fences. If the Panzers got that far, they’d roll through with little more than a bump. ‘Can’t we walk while we talk?’ he pleaded. ‘I have to be at the hospital by twelve.’

‘All right.’ But Sonya looked stern. Clearly, the battle was far from over.

They walked along the Moyka Canal in silence, but everywhere around them was shouting, hammering, the falling of timber, the constant clatter
of wheels. The entire city was an anthill of activity, its citizens marching out in lines to dig and build. The energy infected Nikolai — not with a desire to be part of the action, but simply to believe it wasn’t all in vain. Leningrad, city of vapours and mist, built by dogged dreamers who’d balanced stone towers and gilt domes on top of quaking marshes!
Foolhardy
. He slapped his feet harder as he walked. Foolhardy and foolish. This had been a doomed city long before Hitler had set his sights on it.

Sonya led the way over the Antonenko Bridge. She walked in a perfectly straight line but the parting in her hair was crooked, zigzagging to the left and the right. As if aware of Nikolai’s gaze, she spun around. ‘Can’t you walk a bit faster? If you’re going to be on time, we’ve only got four minutes to visit the Horseman and leave again.’

‘Perhaps your watch is fast? By my calculations we have at least five and a half minutes to spare.’

Sonya ignored his half-hearted joke. She passed St Isaac’s Cathedral without a sideways glance, though normally she liked to walk up the steps and scrape her feet on the small iron oxen by the door. But when they reached their destination she gave a gasp. ‘The Horseman!’

In front of them was the familiar bronze statue of Peter the Great. He sat astride his huge rearing horse, face averted from the city he’d founded, eyes fixed eternally on a far horizon. His sword had a greenish hue towards the hilt, but its tip was bright from the touch of many hands and the bent fetlock of his horse had been stroked to gold.

‘What are they doing?’ Sonya spoke in a half-whisper.

The Czar and his horse stood as high as ever, but scurrying around the base, hacking away at the earth, were men and women with shovels and pickaxes. They’d driven poles into the ground, and were hammering a wooden platform on top of them. Immediately below the rearing horse stood an officer of the Home Guard. In spite of his shining brass buttons and his wide chest, he appeared puny, insignificant, as if he might be crushed by the giant hooves.