3 Great Historical Novels (49 page)

Nikolai had woken feeling out of sorts. His throat was sore and his eyes smarted. He sat by the open window, a half-drunk cup of coffee in his hand and a half-written pile of reports beside him, listening with half his attention to the Gessen children tormenting a stray dog in the alleyway below.
So I am half a person still
, he thought.
After so many years, I’m still living in a half-hearted way
. Was it this that made his stomach clench? Or the fact that he’d slept badly, with images of war seeping into his dreams?

‘Hold it down!’ The orders drifted up from the alleyway. ‘Tie the string around its tail.’ Nikolai sighed, pushed his reading glasses up on his forehead, and lit a cigarette. Was it a universal instinct, this attacking of the vulnerable and the weak? Recently he’d tried to curb his obsessive reading of the newspapers, his compulsive listening to the radio. It was impossible to ascertain what, exactly, was happening in Europe, but one war was much like another: the toll on ordinary people, the burning and looting, the casual atrocities. It would be easier to stop hunting for facts, but he couldn’t disengage. Avoiding looking the world in the face as he’d done for so long had brought him nothing but pain; now he’d become addicted to knowledge. ‘To be apprised of the worst,’ he told himself, ‘is to be prepared for the worst.’ Yet he wasn’t sure if he fully believed this.

Today there was an ache behind his eyes that took him back to those floating white days with the coffin open in the front room and the baby crying in the back one, while he wanted only to dive into the anonymous city, leaving the mess of his life behind him. And now the whole world
was in a mess. Down in the alleyway the dog yelped frantically, and he was about to shout at the Gessens to leave it alone when Tanya arrived, with bread under her arm.

Nikolai started. He’d hoped to tidy up before she arrived, although he knew this was ridiculous, a misplaced sense of courtesy like trimming his beard before going to the barber. ‘Breakfast?’ he said, in answer to her query. ‘Thanks, but I’ve already eaten.’

‘You’ve eaten nothing.’ There were two days of dirty dishes stacked on the sideboard, but Tanya was practised at assessing domestic chaos and was perfectly able to see that not one of the plates had been used that morning. ‘You’re not starting up all that nonsense again, are you?’

‘Starting a cold, perhaps.’ Nikolai coughed. ‘My throat’s a bit sore.’

‘You smoke too much.’ Tanya removed the ashtray from the windowsill and the cigarette from his hand. ‘No wonder your voice sounds like gravel under the wheels of a cart.’

A great howling rose up from the alleyway, and Sonya came flying out of her room. ‘What are those Gessen pig-dogs doing?’ She leaned so far out the window that Nikolai, alarmed, grabbed hold of her dress.

‘Stop it, you kids!’ she shouted. ‘Leave the dog alone or I’ll tie tin cans to your own sorry arses!’

‘That’s enough!’ Tanya pulled Sonya inside and slammed the window. ‘The entire neighbourhood doesn’t need to hear you cursing.’

‘I don’t care.’ Sonya crossed her arms. ‘I won’t tolerate cruelty to minors or animals.’

At the sight of her stern, incongruously rosy face, Nikolai’s stomach gave another lurch. He gripped the edge of the table, watching his scolding sister-in-law and his small angry daughter. What was wrong with him today?

The ensuing silence was broken only by the sawing sound of Tanya slicing up hard rye bread. Sonya’s cheeks were puffed out; she looked as if she might explode. Nikolai crossed the room in a semblance of nonchalance and struck a few chords on the piano.

Still no one spoke. He picked his way through a Boccherini minuet. Each note, even those imperfectly executed, fell like a small pickaxe, chipping away at the frosty atmosphere, easing the pressure. Once he’d finished the tune, he addressed Tanya’s formidable back. ‘I thought I might take Sonya to Daimishche tomorrow. This city heat is enervating.’

‘Daimishche?’ Sonya, who’d been slouching in a chair, sat upright. ‘Oh yes, let’s go to the dacha!’

‘You could bring back some butter,’ grunted Tanya. ‘Can’t get it for love or money in town.’

But already Sonya’s face was clouding over again. ‘I ought to stay here. I must protect the neighbourhood from those Gessen children.’

‘I’ll have a word to them,’ promised Nikolai. ‘I’ll tell them no more tin cans and no more tails. Then will you come to the country?’

‘Oh, definitely!’ Sonya hopped towards him. ‘I’m a Daimishche rabbit!’ She banged into the table, knocking Nikolai’s reports onto the floor. As she bent to pick them up, Nikolai did the same, and their heads bumped together with a resounding crack.

‘Shit!’ said Nikolai.

‘Papa!’ Sonya drew back. ‘You always tell me not to use that word.’

‘Neither you should,’ said Nikolai, examining his glasses. ‘Except in dire circumstances, such as when you’ve nearly broken your spectacles and you still have fifty-five reports to write. Or —’ Catching sight of a note sticking out of the papers, he snatched it up and groaned. ‘Or if you’ve promised to deliver football tickets to a famously irascible colleague and have forgotten to do so!’ He reached for his jacket and found the tickets still in his pocket. ‘I’ll have to call him right away. God knows how we’ll manage to meet at the stadium in all the crush.’

‘Stadium?’ Sonya, surreptitiously slurping his cold coffee, put down the cup with a clatter. ‘You’re going to the football? With Mr Shostakovich? Oh, couldn’t I come?’

‘Football isn’t a game for children,’ said Tanya, standing with a spatula in her hand. ‘Especially for hooligans who broadcast bad language through the whole neighbourhood.’

‘Oh, go fry yourself!’ said Sonya.

‘Sonya!’ said Nikolai sharply.

Sonya bolted for her room, slamming the door so hard that the
half-full
coffee cup fell off the table and onto the divan.

‘Blast!’ Tanya frowned. ‘Excuse my language. I don’t know what’s come over me today.’

‘Midsummer madness?’ suggested Nikolai, going to the kitchen for a cloth.

‘I’ll clean that up,’ said Tanya. ‘You concentrate on getting Mr Shostakovich’s tickets to him and Sonya out of her room.’

‘I don’t know which task will be more difficult,’ said Nikolai ruefully.

Shostakovich sat drumming his fingers, waiting for Nikolai to call. He could, of course, have telephoned, but there were some things it was wiser for a man not to do the day after his wife had returned from market to find water pouring from the sink, cushions on the floor, two children running amok, and a husband who, though left at home slightly ill and fully in charge, was nowhere to be seen. He flinched at the memory. Racing up the stairs sweaty and empty-handed (damn Nikolai’s sieve-like memory; damn the radio conductor and his unbound score; damn the Leningrad trolley cars and their unfailing lateness). Hearing, even from the landing, Nina’s voice cracking out commands —
Galina, fetch the mop! Maxim, pick up the cushions!
— and, in an even sharper voice,
Where, exactly, did your father go?

Hovering in the stairwell, he’d imagined only too clearly what would have happened on Nina’s return: the bedroom door flung open, and his wife’s outraged expression at the empty bed and the untouched dandelion tea.

‘Well?’ she’d repeated to the children. ‘Did your father say where he was going?’

‘Say you don’t know,’ murmured Shostakovich, peering in the keyhole. ‘Remember what I told you.’

‘Papa went … to the Radio Hall,’ stammered Galina.

Goddamn it! Shostakovich smacked the wall with his hand. Why couldn’t his children tell a small white lie for the sake of domestic peace?

‘Really?
’ Nina had said icily. ‘And did he say why he had to go there?’

There was a short silence as Galina realised she’d put her small patent-leather foot in her mouth. ‘No.’ She was almost certainly shaking her head. No, she didn’t know why Papa had rushed off to the Radio Hall when he was ill and supposed to be resting.

‘Maxim!’ Nina’s voice was even sharper. ‘Why did your father leave you to flood the bathroom and demolish the living room?’

‘Foot!’ piped Maxim, sounding frightened. (This was fully understandable: Shostakovich’s own palms were sweating.) ‘Foot, foot —’

‘Football? He went to pick up football tickets?’

Shostakovich had never seen a volcano but it seemed an appropriate image for this moment: shaking, shuddering, great burning streams of lava and ash pouring forth. Gloomily he realised that a pall would hang over the domestic landscape for some time.

‘That’s right!’ Galina and Maxim spoke in unison. ‘Football!’

It had taken all his courage to walk into the apartment, spreading his
empty hands as if returning without tickets somehow made him less guilty. It had better be a good game, he thought now, staring at the silent phone. A bloody good game to compensate for the trials of yesterday evening. He could still hear the clashing of pans, the roaring crash as Nina poured a box of cutlery onto the table in front of him. ‘You want your dinner?’ She dumped down a pile of plates with such force that the bottom one smashed into long white shards. ‘Here’s your dinner, you poor sick man.’ He’d received a leaking paper parcel on his lap. ‘Cod!’ he said, coughing. ‘Thank you very much.’

At last! The phone was ringing. Nina stood at the bookshelf, ostensibly searching for a textbook, her back rigid. ‘I’ll get it,’ he said, snatching up the receiver as she disappeared into the bedroom, slamming the door.

‘I’m so sorry.’ It was Nikolai at last, apologising profusely. ‘Truly sorry. My bad memory seems to be getting worse. Senility lurks just around the corner.’

He never made excuses, simply admitted to the mistakes he’d made — a trait that Shostakovich, master of excuses, admired and envied.
Why can’t I be bolder and more honest?
he thought.
More like other people?
He hadn’t done a stroke of work on the new piece for several days, and the guilt and unease were becoming severe. ‘Tell me you have the tickets,’ he said, cutting through Nikolai’s apologies, ‘and all will be forgiven. To be honest, I’m eager not only to see Zenith in action but also to escape —’ he glanced at the bedroom door and lowered his voice — ‘the domestic madhouse.’

‘You too?’ Nikolai laughed. ‘Perhaps it’s the summer solstice. You have my sympathy, and very soon you will have your tickets. Where shall we meet?’

Sonya softened sufficiently to open her door a crack and say goodbye.

‘I’m sorry I don’t have a spare ticket for you,’ said Nikolai, realising he had spent a good part of the morning apologising.

‘You would have taken a cursing hooligan with you?’ She still looked a little dangerous, her chin lifted in a challenging way.

‘I’m always happy to have an extra hooligan with me,’ he assured her. ‘The more hooligans, the merrier.’

‘Even if there were a spare ticket, I’d be too busy to come to the stadium. See the tasks waiting for me?’ She stepped slightly to one side,
displaying teetering stacks of books all over the floor. ‘When you get back, my library will be arranged in alphabetical order.’

Nikolai looked suitably impressed. ‘And your toys?’ he asked, peering at the piles of fur and porcelain.

‘They’ll be housed in the cubbyholes I used to keep my shoes in. I’m putting them under the bed.’

‘You’re putting your toys out of sight?’ He felt a little disturbed at this. ‘Won’t you miss them when you go to sleep?’

‘They need sleep, too. These white nights are really wearing them out.’ She gave him a kiss. ‘Be careful at the match. I’ll see you when you get home.’

As he stepped out into the street, the pain behind his eyes crashed in again, far worse this time. The sun turned the windows into blinding mirrors, and he put his hand over his eyes and swayed. The sound of a radio drifted from the window of the basement.

Out of habit, he strained to listen. Over the last few days he’d heard rumours that only added to his unease. But he must hurry. Shostakovich would be waiting. Running his finger under his collar, checking for the tenth time that the tickets were in his breast pocket, he forced himself to walk away.