Europe Central (120 page)

You know, Galisha, I’d never say this if I hadn’t—this vodka’s quite—but your face, you resemble—

I wish I could send her to hell, she said flatly.

How did you know?

You once said her name in your sleep. That’s why I’ll never marry you.

You’re always angry! And I, I—

But Ustvolskaya had already run away, slamming the door behind her.

He telephoned T. P. Nikolayeva and summoned her to the hotel room to drink the remainder of the vodka.—Yes, Mitya, I’ll come, but I can’t—

Don’t worry; don’t worry. I’m not asking for that.

Two hours later she arrived in a rush, bearing a packet of deliciously greasy sausages, and he realized that she’d been alarmed on his behalf, not that he . . . He lit up a cigarette and said: Tatiana, sometimes I feel that, well, I’m not a poet, as is, for instance, Blok, but do you ever feel that there’s a
woman
somewhere at the center of things, a goddess, let’s say, or does a woman perceive the same thing as a male principle?

You’re talking about your music.

Yes, in a way, although I—

I suppose that when one dedicates oneself sincerely enough to anything, one personalizes it.

I knew you’d understand me! Being faithful to an idea is like being faithful to a woman. I’ve never betrayed my own music, not yet. I’ve written money-makers, oh, yes, for films and what not. Even Akhmatova for all her regal pride had to kiss
that bastard
’s ass in the end because she—

Mitya, please be careful!

Don’t worry; they can’t hear us with that radio blaring out Khrennikov’s latest monstrosity. Music certainly reveals its composer’s soul, don’t you think? When I encounter this, uh, this musical turd, I, I don’t even pity Khrennikov. Did I tell you that he’s still trying to suppress me on the cinematic front? What a trooper, what a bulldog!

Sometimes you’re like a child . . .

Forgive me, forgive me! But to get back to Akhmatova, the essential point is that she chose to save her son’s life instead of keeping pure, and to me she, she . . . Do you remember when they shot her first husband?

I wasn’t born.

Excuse me, my sweetest little Tatianochka, sometimes I forget how time ticks! Well, they shot him and not her. In your opinion, which of them was luckier?

What a question!

At least tell me this much, and as honestly as you can. Elena told me—she heard for herself!—that they recite her poems even in the Gulag. So she’s a . . . But did she damage her life’s work when she wrote that other trash?

Not at all. If anything, she safeguarded it. Otherwise they would have—

To be sure! Oh, you angel! But that’s not my only point. You do that so they don’t shoot you, and then you . . . Well, to grieve is also a right, but it’s not granted to everyone! So I haven’t, I repeat, I
haven’t
done anything to . . . And music is like a, well, at any rate, no one’s solved the woman question yet, have they, Tatiana? Not even Lenin himself! You strange creatures! I—

Everyone knows whom you love, Mitya. Why don’t you marry her?

Oh, I’m not good enough for . . . You see, I mainly write quartets instead of symphonies now. I’m getting impotent.

He sat up all night getting drunk with her. They never touched each other. The next morning he felt pretty awful. Maxim, who was mooning around the flat these days, waiting for the Composers’ Union to call on him, wanted to go see the film “Vietnam,” by a certain R. L. Karmen, but his father didn’t have time, because he was very, you know. It was really terrible that he didn’t have a secretary. It used to be that Nina always picked up the telephone and said that he was away for two months. Well, well, time to be philosophical!

Next his mother died. At the side of her deathbed he found a volume of Chekhov’s tales turned open to
Isn’t our living in town, airless and crowded—isn’t that a sort of case for us?
This gave him a horror; he didn’t know why. He’d write that airless crowdedness into Opus 110.

28

In 1956, the year of Khruschev’s “secret speech” denouncing the Stalin cult, the Eighth Symphony was rehabilitated; and an editorial in the journal
Voprosy Filosofii
decried the repression of “Lady Macbeth” twenty years ago. Colleagues, musicians and conductors leaned self-satisfiedly against his two pianos. As for him, he smiled as angrily as if he could already see the way everything would be for the rest of his life. (Who says we can’t foretell the future? If that German shell whistles, it’ll miss us. If it
sizzles,
then watch out!) Actually the anger was the easiest part; what he couldn’t stand was the fear. Under the piano he still kept his suitcase packed, with two changes of underwear. He’d heard that no matter what, one got lice-infested. Elena had had to shave her head after her release; she really resembled a convict then! And she had always had such long, beautiful hair. He wondered what she looked like now. His sister said that Elena’s daughter was very quick with languages. Once or twice he’d dreamed, well, fine, it might have been half a dozen times, that from the Conservatory roof he powerlessly watched a shaveheaded Russian sniper being frisked by two Germans, his face black with dirt, despair staining him; he’d be liquidated; and then when the Fascists stood him up against the wall he suddenly realized that they were about to shoot Elena, whose Red Army uniform had disguised her; he tried to cry out but then the nightmare rolled over his chest, and it was as heavy, broad and metallic as tank-treads. Fortunately, such disturbances had now been almost entirely eradicated. Why couldn’t all the toadies and screws watch
her,
not him, and give him a daily report? Perhaps she . . .

The Ministry of Culture had organized this audition. Oh, he’d slaved; he’d prepared; he’d eliminated many a measure which might be construed as erotic, let alone anti-Soviet; here was the revised libretto, definitive now, tamed and trimmed like a bathing beauty’s bikini line, perfect indeed, which is to say, one note forward and ten notes back, everything better and more joyous; so his persecutors grinned like crocodiles right there in his apartment (number 87, 37-45 Mozhaiskoye Shosse), when he seated himself at what he called
the other piano
and played the opera through by memory, thinking to himself: He who has ears will hear.

Afterward, Comrade Kabalevsky remarked: In spite of a few pretty passages, and I certainly don’t wish to demean you as a musician, my dear Mitya, it’s still an apology for a debauched murderess!

Comrade Luria was also there, and he gave off a stink of burning. Stroking his beard, he contented himself by reminding us all that even the émigré Martynov had summed up Shostakovich’s opus as
a warning of harmful deviation.

Yes, to be sure, my
dear
friends, because I myself am nothing but a, you know.

And you seriously intended to compose an entire cycle of these so-called “feminist operas,” Dmitri Dmitriyevich?

I’m afraid so, he whispered triumphantly. When you, er, buy little boys in ancient China they’re
little hands
; little girls are just
cocoons.
Which makes me feel . . .

What a disgusting piece of nonsense!

Comrade Khubov inserted the third dagger, saying: The real point is that the “Muddle Instead of Music” article in
Pravda
has never been retracted. Therefore, it’s still in force.

In a rage, Glikman shouted at them: But Stalin is
dead
!

That’s as may be, Isaak Davidovich. But, when all’s said and done, Comrade Stalin remains a genius. He was the head of the Party at that time. And it’s just not done to go against the Party. Don’t you agree, Mitya?

Correct, correct, correct! cried Shostakovich in a trembling voice. It’s just a question of—I mean, I’ve evidently failed to overcome my age-old errors!

Ah. Well, I’m glad you see that much. Keep toeing the line, Mitya, and we’ll do what we can. Maybe in another ten years the time will be right. As for you, Isaak Davidovich, speaking as your colleague, if not quite your friend, I’d advise you to be very, very careful. Needless to say, nobody’s remarks will go beyond this room. All the same, don’t you see that your misguided counteroffensive could actually hurt Mitya?

Don’t worry, don’t worry, whispered Shostakovich. I’d like to thank you all for your helpful criticisms . . .

Mitya, don’t take this so much to heart! Nobody’s calling you an enemy of the people yet! Just calm down and remember that we’re only interested in your good—

Thank you for that, Comrade Khubov. Thank you, thank you!

And now for a technical question. Don’t worry, Comrade Alexandrov; it won’t be
too
technical. What I want to know, Mitya, is this: What key is this opera in?

Well, I—

I want you to know that this morning we all listened to your music to “The Fall of Berlin.” Parts of that movie are dated now, obviously, but in my opinion what you did there is your best work.

Thank you, thank you!

It’s what the Americans would call
feel-good music,
if you follow me, Mitya. It sends us out into the world with a song that we can whistle! In essence, we begin in a major key, then after some dramatic strife, in the course of which we win our victory against international Fascism, we return to the tonic, the harmonic base. We’re back in that same major key, following the correct line. What key
is
that, by the way?

In fact—

Never mind. Mitya, you obviously understand the concept of the tonic, and in this case you succeed almost as well as Blanter or even Khrennikov.

(Shostakovich ducked and smiled his gratitude, twiddling his fingers as frantically as Scarlatti.)

Unfortunately, this opera of yours lacks a tonic. It’s lost its way. It ventures out behind enemy lines and gets cut off.

Comrade Kabalevsky, you’ve exposed the, the, how should I say, central error of my career. I’m only a . . . Lost, that’s exactly it. You’ve not only exposed me, you’ve, um,
lighted the way ahead with a searchlight.
You see, I lost the tonic in 1935 or thereabouts. Maybe it was 1934, or 1936. It was . . . Do you believe that each composer’s soul (well, I don’t mean soul, which is, is, let’s say personality, a word more suited to our, so to speak, modern Soviet epoch) is best suited to working in a certain key, or, or, even . . . ? My tonic must have been D minor, which sometimes reminds me of the maples and limes of the Summer Garden, because I . . . But then I, um, misplaced it.

What nonsense!

You see, I’m confused. I confess to that. At least it wasn’t malicious. I’m, I’m, there’s something wrong. And “Lady Macbeth merely reflects . . .

What I can’t imagine is how your poor wife must have felt when you dedicated this obscene trash to her.

She was actually my, so to speak, fiancée at the time, Comrade Alexandrov—

But you did dedicate it to her?

Unfortunately I did; that can’t be washed away, but Nina always had a very healthy proletarian sense. She never liked it—

Where is Nina right now, by the way?

She—

It says right here that you claimed that your opera was about
love.
Is that true?

It’s about, I, I, how love could have been if the world weren’t full of vile things . . .

Which vile things exactly?

Uh, Hitlerism for instance.

Don’t get smart with us, Mitya! When you signed off on that lump of formalist drivel, the Fascists hadn’t invaded yet.

Well, then, let’s say proto-Hitlerism. Because of course, the Reichstag fire and all that, you know, Dmitroff’s trial . . . And you’re absolutely right; I see now that “Lady Macbeth” is and always will be nothing but a disgusting muddle; thank you for helping me to see that—

They kept talking; their skull-jaws moved; but all he could hear was his own Rat Theme reiterating itself louder and louder.

29

He was completely rehabilitated at the Second All-Union Congress of Soviet Composers in the spring of 1957. Galina Ustvolskaya had just completed her Sonata No. 4, which consisted of four
attacca
movements, so he’d heard; she hadn’t found time to play it for him, but Glikman, who seemed to get around, had already heard it and pronounced it extremely depressing.

Photographs from this period often show him leaning his hand against his forehead, staring at the whiteness of a score in the recording studio. When he was alone he laughingly choked out: Oh, yes, my tonic must have been D minor! That was perfect! Even Glikman didn’t know what I was . . .—He continued to be as productive as those Stakhanovite coal mine workers who overfulfill their norms by a factor of fourteen. His chords paraded across each score like some exercise march of suntanned girls in Red Square, each in a white tank top and grey shorts. Sometimes they were even happy; sometimes they resembled rainbow flower-explosions made of arrows. At a gathering of his friends he drank too much and began singing:
Burn, candle, burn bright, in Lenin’s little red asshole,
which could have gotten him ten years. That fall his Eleventh Symphony, which had already achieved immense success in spite of its secret references to the Soviet tanks now crushing the Hungarian uprising (Maxim had whispered: Papa, what if they hang you for this?), won a Lenin Prize—which after Khruschev’s secret speech could not be called a Stalin Prize anymore, you see. The capitalists dismissed it as program music. Pale cold lights, arising diagonally from the wet pavement, diffused into the darkness like jet trails. Patches of wet light, flat zones and darkness, and then the pallid welcome of lights in the porticoes of official buildings besieged the celebrations. Far, far within, Shostakovich paced tremblingly from handshake to handshake, smiling in a flutter, drinking too much vodka. Oh, what a smile! He hid within it; he actually believed that it protected him. (
The Russians,
wrote a German,
are masters in the construction of shellproof wooden field fortifications.
) He smiled. People thought him as stiff as a frozen corpse.