Great Historical Novels (84 page)

The gift

Shostakovich woke to the rattle of anti-aircraft fire and an intense feeling of doom. He lay studying the long crack above him that now looked as deep as a crevasse. A few more bombs, and the whole ceiling might split in two. He imagined the upstairs neighbours crashing down into his workroom, and caught himself hoping that the buxom eighteen-year-old daughter would land on his bed, rather than her formidable mother.

Galina came flying into the room. ‘Happy Birthday, Papa! Maxim and I have made up a poem for you! But we’d better tell it to you in the cellar because the bombers are arriving at any minute.’

Shostakovich shuffled after her into the main room. ‘Old age and illness are now officially within sight,’ he said, wincing at the icy air.

Nina was bundling Maxim into his coat and overshoes. ‘Some people would consider you to be in the prime of life,’ she said, giving Shostakovich a kiss.

‘The majority of people know nothing at all about the strain I am under.’ He hitched up his pyjamas and belted his coat firmly around his waist. ‘Writing all day in half-light, with no heating and no rest — an impossible job, even without the Nazis. Before most composers reach my age, they’ve already gone to their graves. Think of Mozart! If I were Mozart, this would be my last birthday.’

‘I hope you’ll cling to life, at least until tonight,’ said Nina. ‘Izrail has gone to a great deal of trouble to get hold of extra vodka.’

Any hopes Shostakovich had had of keeping his birthday low-key, and
his mind focused on his work, were dashed as soon as they entered the cellar.

‘Mr Shostakovich!’ Irina Barinova’s voice rang out of the darkness. ‘We’ve heard today is a special day for you. May all your anniversaries be more peaceful than this one!’

Shostakovich sighed. ‘How did you know?’

‘I’m sorry,’ whispered Nina. ‘I told her.’

‘How’s the new work going?’ Irina wasn’t allowing Luftwaffe bombs to deter her from gossip. ‘Will your work soon be coming of age, also?’

Shostakovich took Maxim by the hand and groped his way to the long bench against the wall. He clamped his mouth shut and listened to Nina fielding queries. Yes, the first and second movements were completed, and the third was under way. Yes, they were hoping for a premiere performance by Mravinsky and the Philharmonic, in spite of the fact they were currently fifteen hundred miles east in the depths of Siberia.

By breathing in the scent of Maxim’s hair, he remained calm. It was imperative to keep the adagio steady in his head. Although he was a week in, and possibly halfway through, it was by no means secure. Neighbourly exclamations rained down on its surface, muddying the opening woodwind chords and the searing violin melody. He would never have admitted it (except, perhaps, to Sollertinsky), but he was glad when the distant thundering of guns was joined by the loud swishing of incendiaries, drowning out the chatter — and he was even more glad when a crash shook the cellar, releasing showers of plaster and stopping the talk altogether.

‘Will the house fall, Papa?’ Maxim leaned closer, puffing from concern.

‘Not this time,’ reassured Shostakovich, half-listening to the violin that continued to soar far above the bombers and their tilting, lethal wings.

After the roar of the planes had faded, and before the all-clear sounded, the conversation started up again. Now, to his relief, it revolved not around his work or his birthday, but the dire state of affairs in Leningrad. Lack of food, lack of information, the lack of help from Moscow: these issues kept the residents of the Bolshaya Pushkarskaya house occupied for some time. Of all the voices, Irina Barinova’s was the shrillest and most carping; it drove into Shostakovich’s head with a force greater than the loudest bomb blast.

He reached for his notebook, but realised he was wearing only his pyjamas and his overcoat. ‘Galina,’ he whispered urgently, ‘can you remember something for me?’ Galya had the best memory of anyone he
knew, which proved useful on those frequent public occasions when he was approached by someone whose name had slipped his mind.

Galina pressed her ear against his mouth. ‘Of course I can.’

‘B and B flat clash, reversed and raised a fifth.’

‘B, B flat clash. Reverse, raise fifth. I’ve got it.’

And with that the all-clear siren blared at last, and the door was pushed open, and they were free to straggle into the grey light and up the stairs for breakfast.

‘Sorry for my silence,’ he said to Nina, swishing his spoon around in porridge that consisted largely of water. ‘It’s just that I can’t stand their gushing.’

‘They’re proud of you, that’s all.’ Nina poured out cups of the thin black liquid that they continued to call coffee. ‘Most of them heard your radio broadcast last week. They want to show their support.’

‘They’d support me better by leaving me in peace. I don’t know how you cope with them all.’

‘Papa, stop talking — it’s time for your presents!’ Galina was bursting with excitement. ‘Now, what would you like most in the whole world?’

Shostakovich surveyed the items in front of him: a saucer of smoked lard, a chunk of hard black bread, and two cigarettes that had to last him all day, procured (not without guilt) by trading in a silk scarf Nina had given him on his 1936 concert tour.

‘What I’d like most is an enormous pork chop carved from the fattest pig in the world, served with porcini mushrooms and a white gooey sauce of imported cheeses.’

Galina’s face fell and Maxim looked concerned. Behind them, Nina gestured widely with her hands.

‘Of course, that’s not what I
most
want,’ he amended, staring at his wife who was moving her arms in scissor-like movements. ‘What I’d really like for my birthday is … erm, a picture made by you?’

‘Really? Pictures?’ Relieved, Galina rushed to the cupboard and pulled out a roll of newspaper. ‘That’s just what we have. However did you guess?’

Shostakovich spread open the two sheets of newsprint cut into lopsided stars. Between the holes, he saw remnants of his published radio broadcast from the previous week. ‘Dear colleagues and friends … An hour ago I completed the second part … I shall be able to call it the Seventh Symphony … the dangers facing Leningrad … All of us are soldiers today …’

He held the paper up to the dim light. ‘They’re beautiful pictures.
Even the paper-cutter who visited our house when I was a child couldn’t do better! Let’s put them on display immediately.’

Galina and Maxim had barely taped their cuttings over the already partially covered windows before they became fretful and tired. These days they had sudden jags of energy, and bursts of confidence followed by fear. Shostakovich knew just how they felt. When the symphony was going well he felt invincible; on those days, he refused to go down into the shelter, staying at the piano and listening to the Luftwaffe ripping open the sky. Yet, on less successful days, he dived into the cellar with his stomach churning; then, shaking and covered in sweat, he was more than glad of the darkness.

‘Why don’t we all have a lie-down,’ suggested Nina, sweeping up crumbs and clearing away plates.

However closely Shostakovich watched her, he couldn’t tell how much of a strain it was for her to remain so calm. The Varzars had always had a veneer of assurance, so that even in the most perilous of situations they seemed impervious to harm.

‘But what about your poem!’ Galina turned in the bedroom doorway. ‘Those bombers were too loud for us to tell it to you in the cellar.’ She motioned to Maxim, and they stood with their feet aligned like miniature soldiers. She began reciting in a loud sing-song voice, with Maxim’s tiny hum trailing behind:

Mama says when you were young

That you could be quite naughty.

You’re bigger now, and well behaved,

Because you’re nearly forty.

Forty!
Shostakovich couldn’t help but wince. He grabbed for one of his two precious cigarettes.

Galina raised her head from a low, synchronised bow. ‘I know you’re only thirty-five. But forty rhymed.’

‘Of course.’ He laid the cigarette back on the table. ‘Thank you both very much for going to all that trouble. It’s a splendid poem.’

Only after Nina had led the children away for a nap did he realise he’d forgotten to ask Galina for another, quite different recitation. How had it gone? He forced himself to think his way back through the events of the morning. The unwelcome crush of bodies in the cellar, the dry taste of dust. The shuddering walls, the crashing blows, Maxim’s compulsive
starts, and Irina Barinova’s voice grinding on about long queues, the flimsiness of ration cards and which parts of his radio broadcast hadn’t been helpful in raising morale.

Suddenly, as he remembered Irina’s voice, the progression was there. The harping, repetitive clashing of B and B flat, reversed, then raised a fifth. He smacked his hand on the table, making his cup rattle in its saucer. ‘Thanks, Irina, you grumpy old witch!’ Tiredness and depression fell away. He went to his workroom and closed the door.

It was late afternoon when he stopped. Raising his head, cracking his aching neck, he realised he could barely see the notes in front of him. For the past week there had been no electricity at all and already his eyes were strained. He lit a candle and held the small flickering circle over his work, scanning what he’d done. Sighing, he picked up his pen again — only to hear loud greetings and laughter from the other room. For a small, wild second, he considered plugging his ears and continuing work. To stop now seemed more of an effort than ploughing on and setting the powerful chordal theme against the relentless Barinova motif.

He tiptoed to the door and put his ear against it. Was that the reedy laugh of Izrail Finkelshtein? Perhaps he could call him in for a quick chat? Izrail was one of the most intuitive composition assistants he’d worked with, and his opinion might be helpful. He put an indecisive hand on the door handle before remembering that he was, in fact, meant to be celebrating his birthday. Returning to the piano, he gathered up the papers, laid his pen on top of the pile and blew out the candle. He stumbled through the darkened room and out into the beginnings of a party.

Rivals

Nikolai was more animated than he’d been for quite some time. Standing in the rehearsal room, he pulled off his gloves and shook his thin hands to get the blood flowing.

‘Of course, the food was nothing special, if you think that only a few months ago it would have been a Krug-and-caviar birthday party.’

‘So what did you eat? Insubstantial fistfuls of bread, like the rest of the city?’ Elias busied himself with unnecessary tasks, tapping the stone-cold stove as if this would miraculously produce heat, polishing his already gleaming baton.

‘Oh, no!’ Nikolai’s voice almost had a glow to it. ‘Of course the food was simple, mainly black bread and potatoes. But Nina Shostakovich had managed to make a kind of cranberry cake, and other people brought whatever they could — there was even some candy! As for Izrail, he’d got his hands on enough vodka to fill the Neva.’

Elias said nothing. He watched the musicians shuffling in, pinched from cold and hunger.

‘Afterwards —’ Nikolai swished his bow through the air in a cloud of resin — ‘after dinner, we heard some of the new symphony!’

‘The Shostakovich symphony?’ Katerina had been eavesdropping and her wan face lit up. ‘Some people have all the luck!’

Nikolai nodded. ‘We went into his study, he hesitated for only a moment, and then he sat at the piano and played straight through the first movement, barely looking at the score. It was pretty long, too — twenty-five minutes, at least.’

‘Only the first movement?’ asked Elias nonchalantly. ‘I thought he was further on than that.’

‘I haven’t finished yet! Just as he reached the final bars of the march, the sirens began to sound, but he begged us to stay and hear the rest. Nina and the children went to the shelter, but most of us stayed. The bombers flew in over our heads, but on he played, as if he were possessed! And so we heard the scherzo through to its beautiful end.’

Now Elias understood the dreamy look hovering behind Nikolai’s eyes and the smile playing on his lips. Jealousy flooded through him. ‘That was a strange thing to do,’ he said. ‘Putting one’s guests at risk like that.’

‘He didn’t decide for us, we chose to stay. How could we not?’ Nikolai spread out his hands. ‘It was musical history in the making. Nobody’s heard a bar of it before!’

‘Is it really a symphony for Leningrad, as he says?’ An avid group was clustering around Nikolai. ‘Will it tell our story in years to come?’

‘It’s difficult to tell,’ mused Nikolai. ‘Anything composed in response to such extreme circumstances is a complex thing. But from what I heard last night, I believe it’ll be extraordinary. At any rate, it’s miraculous to compose a symphonic work of this scale in the middle of such hardship — not to mention performing it as he did last night, playing without error for more than half an hour with an air raid raging.’

‘Not so much miraculous as foolhardy,’ muttered Elias. But no one was listening to him.

Nikolai seemed oblivious to the fact that rehearsal should have started four minutes ago, and that in three days the shambles that was the Radio Orchestra would be broadcast on international airwaves. ‘Dmitri’s always been capable of rising to the occasion,’ he continued. ‘As his classmates, we saw that from the start, isn’t that so, Elias?’

‘Shostakovich is talented.’ Elias spoke dismissively. ‘No one can deny that. But he’s certainly not averse to showing off. Perhaps you don’t remember his odd behaviour at Glazunov’s soirée in our first year at the Conservatoire?’ He looked around to make sure he had the floor. ‘After a foxtrot had been played, Shostakovich pretended to be offended by it. Which gave him an excuse to set to and, then and there, re-orchestrate the whole thing in front of the guests.’

Nikolai looked taken aback. ‘Yes, I was there that evening. But he was challenged to do that. I remember it well.’