Dr Berlin (21 page)

More laughter, this time less nervous.

‘That would be my excuse, would it?’

‘Why not? He’s worth it, he’s so good-looking, you’ll see.’

‘The morning is our time for practising.’

‘An hour away won’t harm your career.’

Her Russian wasn’t up to it, Kate replied. She wouldn’t be able to follow what Berlin was saying. All those abstractions would wash over her head. Perhaps some other time, when her command of the language was more assured. What she meant was that she hadn’t come to Moscow to listen to communist propaganda, however attractive the speaker might be. She was letting Yelena down gently.

Yet here she was, a few days later, in a crowded lecture room at the Institute of Contemporary History, captive to a curiosity whetted by Yelena’s persuasive and unyielding enthusiasm and what she had learned about Berlin from some of the older students at the Conservatoire. Yelena was by no means the first to have been swept off her feet.

‘What’s the lecture about?’ Kate asked, once they were settled in their seats.

‘The Great Patriotic War.’

‘What’s that?’

Yelena looked surprised. ‘When we defeated the Germans at Stalingrad and saved the world from fascism. Don’t they teach you history in England?’

The conversation that filled the room hushed quickly to silence as a tall, thin man in his early forties made his way slowly down the stairs to the stage. He was older than Kate had imagined, with long black hair greying at the temples and dark eyes shining out of a pale, high-cheekboned face. He looked more like a poet than a historian, she thought. Did
historians have a look? He settled his notes on the lectern and looked up at the ranks of students facing him. He had long fingers, she noticed, like a pianist.

‘Had the defenders of Stalingrad not heroically resisted the might of the Nazi invaders,’ he began, ‘the commander of the German Sixth Army, General Paulus, would have crossed the Volga, destroying our armies in the process, Hitler would have got his hands on Soviet oil and the war might have ended very differently. The Soviet army under General Zhukov’s command joined forces with the people of Stalingrad in one of the greatest acts of resistance the world has ever witnessed.’

If Stalingrad was what Berlin was going to talk about, she should never have let herself be persuaded by Yelena’s infatuation. Wars and battles didn’t interest her. Hadn’t Hitler, like Napoleon before him, tried and failed to conquer Russia, and hadn’t hundreds of thousands of German soldiers been left to die in the terrible cold? Perhaps, if she left now, she could explain her late arrival at the Conservatoire with some possibility of being believed. She looked round. Far too many people in the row to squeeze past, and then there were students sitting on the stairs. The lecture theatre was packed. If she tried to get out, she’d make an exhibition of herself. Nothing for it but to stay put. She tried hard to suppress her guilt at the practice she was missing, and the lies she would have to tell to explain her absence. If only her truancy had been for some purpose.

The sound of Berlin’s voice drew her back to his lecture.

‘The long, brutal struggle for control of the city, waged through a boiling summer and a winter of desperate cold, was finally won by the unshakeable courage of our own people, tens of thousands of whom preferred to die in defence of their homeland rather than yield precious Soviet territory to the enemy. Though the cost in Soviet lives was enormous, the ultimate reward was victory. No Soviet death was in vain.’

Berlin spoke simply and directly, not in the abstract terms Kate had come to associate with the political indoctrination
with which one or two of the students at the Conservatoire had tried to engage her. (A Polish violinist had taken her aside recently and warned her in whispers to avoid them, saying that they were KGB stooges.) Almost against her wish she found she could understand most of what he said. His voice, she realised, was musical. She wondered if he could sing.

‘The battle for Stalingrad was the first major defeat Hitler experienced, a defeat from which he was never to recover. Fascism was stopped in its tracks by the power of the Revolution and its citizen armies. It was the true turning point in the war.’

Could that be true? Some instinct told her it wasn’t what she had been taught at school. What
had
she been taught? If only she could remember. She felt defenceless, wishing desperately that she had the knowledge to resist the Soviet case that was so convincingly laying siege to her beliefs. Was she betraying her own side by not having these arguments at her fingertips? She felt suddenly vulnerable and exposed to the confident assertions of the man she was listening to.

‘The legacy of that great conflict is alive in this country today. Sixteen years after the end of the war, our suffering continues.’

Berlin was suddenly silent. In the lecture theatre, his audience tensed. Not a cough, not a whisper was heard, not a movement made as they waited for him to speak again. Abandoning his notes, he stepped forward to the edge of the stage.

‘Today, as we rebuild our devastated cities, as we plough the fields over which our people fought so bravely for so long, again and again we come upon the unburied remains of our own citizens, the whitened bones of our nameless brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, heroic countrymen and women who sacrificed their lives so that we may be here today. The wound of that war lives on deep and unhealed in our national psyche, and it will continue to do so for years to come. It is a vivid scar reminding us that we must be vigilant against our
enemies, who would try to steal our motherland from us. We must never forget the threat that Nazi Germany posed to our country, nor how narrow was the margin by which we defeated them. We must be on our guard, now and in the future, against a revival of German militarism and those in the West who would promote it. To all of us, this great battle is a living symbol of the need for sacrifice on the way to ultimate victory. The lessons and experiences of Stalingrad must live in our memories for ever. They must never be forgotten.’

Berlin stopped speaking. Kate held her breath. His eyes were sweeping the rows of students in front of him. What was he searching for? Some kind of approval from his audience? Wasn’t the enthralled silence indication enough that they had absorbed what he had told them? She knew instinctively that it was deeper than that. There was a desperation in his expression that told her he wanted something that his audience could not give him, though what it was she could not guess.

Kate looked up to find that his eyes had settled on her. Confused and embarrassed, she looked away, knowing that the colour was rising in her cheeks. Of all the people present in this room, he had discovered the one who was an impostor, who had no right to be there. She felt shamed, humiliated. She put her hand to her cheek. Her face was on fire.

*

The canteen was crowded and noisy. Berlin, she noticed, was eating by himself. The only available seat was opposite him. The other students, perhaps overwhelmed by his reputation, seemed reluctant to join him. If she wanted to have her lunch sitting down, she had no choice.

‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ she asked in Russian.

‘Of course not.’

He moved his tray to make room. For a moment he stared at her, as if trying to remember where he had seen her before. Once more she felt the force of his penetrating gaze and her
cheeks begin to redden. Perhaps he would put it down to the effect of the heat of the canteen after the bitter cold of the street.

‘You’ve been to my lectures, haven’t you?’ he said. Out of the mass of people in that vast room, how could he possibly know that? ‘I don’t recognise you as one of my students.’

‘I’m studying at the Conservatoire.’

‘I thought music students were never allowed out into the real world.’

‘We are sometimes,’ she replied, smiling. ‘With special permission, of course. Provided it’s for something our teachers think is important.’

‘My lectures qualify, do they?’

For reasons she didn’t understand, she felt she had to explain her presence. ‘I’m very ignorant of Russian history. As I’ve come to the Soviet Union to study, I thought I should know more about the country I’m living in. You can’t understand the politics until you understand the history, can you?’

It was a phrase her father had used once, though not about Russia. Berlin looked pleased. ‘I wish more of my students thought as you do.’ He was staring at her as if there was no one else in the world. She felt frightened by the power of his concentration. Then, in English, he added, ‘I am flattered. You are my first English student.’

‘How did you know I was English?’

‘Don’t all English girls look like you?’

She felt the colour rising in her cheeks again and she was furious with herself for imagining his reply was a compliment. To distract him, she asked: ‘Have you been to England?’

He shook his head. ‘To America, yes, France, yes, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden. But your country? Never.’

‘One day perhaps,’ she said.

‘One day I hope,’ he replied, smiling. ‘Very much I hope.’

*

‘You sat at the same table with him?’ Yelena said in amazement that evening. ‘How could you?’

‘What was I supposed to do?’ Kate replied. ‘The place was full. It was the only seat that wasn’t taken. All the other students were avoiding him.’

‘Did he ask you out? Did he make a pass at you?’

‘Of course not.’

Yelena found her expression of surprise amusing. ‘How innocent you English are. Why shouldn’t he want to sleep with you? You are a young woman and our handsome historian likes young women. He is famous for seducing many of his students. He won’t have changed his tactics just because you are English. You must have missed the signs. Or ignored them.’

There’d been no signs, Kate was sure of that, but she said nothing. Instead she made Yelena talk about Berlin – not, as it turned out, a difficult task. He had written books, she said, though she had yet to read them. She spoke as if writing books put you on a different level of existence, definitely higher than those who had not. Sometimes he went overseas to lecture: he’d been to America, she knew, that, to Harvard and somewhere else in California she couldn’t remember, so he must be in favour because permission to travel was so hard to obtain.

‘Will you have lunch with him again?’ Yelena asked.

‘I don’t imagine so,’ Kate said. ‘Why should I?’

*

Moscow shivered on the edge of winter. Snow, ice, low cloud, falling temperatures, all were on their way, she was told. Life in the city would be reduced to a struggle for survival. In preparation she bought a fur hat and coat and a pair of lined boots, and as she set out for the Conservatoire each morning, she wore two pairs of gloves in order to retain
some feeling in her fingers. It was already as cold as anything she had experienced. She couldn’t imagine it getting colder.

Once or twice she remembered the fair-haired Russian she had met so briefly in the Lenin Library, but slowly his image faded and she forgot about him.

*

She skipped the next two lectures deliberately. She wanted to see if Berlin noticed her absence. When she queued for lunch after her return, he came and stood beside her.

‘Have you been ill?’

The question was direct, as if now he expected her to be present at all his lectures. She imagined those dark eyes relentlessly searching the crowded rows of students. Was it possible that he was looking for her? Surely not. But if he had looked for her and failed to find her – what then?

‘The times of my classes changed.’ Surely he wouldn’t believe a lie that was so obviously transparent?

‘And now they have changed back again?’

‘Yes.’

‘How convenient. Now you can continue your studies of our history. Are you learning much?’

Was he mocking her? Did he want her to stay or go? If only she understood the game he was playing. He nodded at an empty table and they sat down together. He began to question her. Why had she come to Moscow? At whose suggestion? Who had told her about the Conservatoire? Weren’t there suitable music schools in England, or America?

She told him how, during a visit to London, Vinogradoff had heard her play and soon after had invited her to study with him for a year. It was an extraordinary offer, one that she had never dreamed of.

‘Naturally, I leaped at the chance – who wouldn’t? I’d never heard anyone play the cello like that before.’ She described the difficulties she had had to overcome, particularly
her father’s concern at the prospect of his only daughter spending a year alone in Moscow.

‘He was afraid I’d be unhappy here.’

‘Was he right? Are you unhappy?’

She hesitated. She found it impossible to deceive him. ‘Sometimes, yes.’

‘Why?’

She was confused, unable to frame a reply. He saw her confusion and laughed, touching her hand briefly. ‘I am sorry. That was unfair. Of course you are unhappy sometimes. We are all unhappy. These are unhappy times. Moscow is an unhappy city. Tell me about the life of a student musician at our Russian Conservatoire.’

She talked about the pieces she was studying – by Bach, Tchaikovsky, Dvořák – about Vinogradoff’s teaching techniques, the hostel where she lived with other music students. At some point she mentioned a concert that was to be held at the Conservatoire at the end of the week.

‘Are you playing?’ he asked. Should she feel flattered that he wanted to hear her? Or was he saying that out of politeness?

‘No, not yet,’ she replied. ‘It’s too early.’

‘Too early?’ He was puzzled by her reply. Was it her imagination, or did she sense his disappointment? ‘Too early for what?’

‘Vinogradoff wants to be sure I have settled down in Moscow before he lets me perform in front of an audience.’ It wasn’t quite true, but the story would do for now.

Berlin laughed. ‘I’m sure he knows what’s best for you.’

Was he mocking her? She had no way of knowing. ‘There’s a student concert this Friday. A young Czech pianist is playing. We all think he is going to win the Tchaikovsky Prize, and Vinogradoff is also playing a short piece. He is always wonderful.’