“I look forward to it.” Grigori heard a genuine hopefulness in Zoltan’s voice. He tried to recall, as he turned away, when he himself had last looked forward—really, truly—to anything.
He had been young and hopeful, once. He could still see in his mind the stiff canvas backpack he had carried with him from Princeton, the one with the long thin straps that never fit him properly and the stains at the bottom from so many floors and sidewalks and lawns. He remembered how his T-shirt had smelled after all the hours on the Greyhound, and how hungry he was as he made his way along the avenue. He was nineteen years old, tall and long-limbed, his hair shaggy and less than clean. He had gotten off at the wrong T stop and so went a longer distance by foot than planned. The only cities he knew were Paris and New York, and in comparison the old Back Bay buildings looked both quaint and stately. All that mattered to him, though, was the address he had written down, the building with the tall stoop and the wrought iron railings. The big front door, of thickly carved wood, was propped slightly open. Grigori took a deep breath and wiped his hands on his pants. But he was still sweating, so he pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow.
In the front vestibule, he took the large manila envelope from his backpack, holding it anxiously, ready to put it back into the pack if no one was home. Inside were the various items he had come to think of as “proof.” Grigori found the intercom and the correct button beside it. All of his hope he aimed at that one button.
He could still hear, in the remote bays of his memory, her voice on the intercom, suspicious, doubtful: “Yes?”
In Russian he announced himself.
“Your name again?” she asked in Russian. She sounded perplexed but not annoyed.
“Grigori Solodin. My parents knew neighbors of yours. In Moscow.” It wasn’t exactly true, but it sounded true enough. “I was hoping to speak to you about something important.” He had a brilliant thought and added, “Briefly.”
“Wait, please,” she said firmly.
The wait for her to arrive . . . watching through the glass partition, his heart pounding as he eyed the elevator, waiting for its narrow doors to open, to reveal her. But then she emerged from around a corner on the stairs, that elongated neck, the long thin arms, and there she was, stepping down as if floating. She looked at him through the glass, politely inquisitive, her face a perfect oval, her dark, dark hair pulled back sharply. Those incongruous hands, already old though she herself wasn’t yet, pushing the door open just a crack, their knuckles already enlarged.
“Now, who exactly are you?” she asked in Russian. She seemed to have a tiny smile in the corners of her mouth, perhaps at how young and bumbling he looked.
There Grigori always forced himself to stop, to prevent the memory from rolling forward. He had to. The rest was no good.
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Acknowledgments
THANK YOU TO THE MACDOWELL COLONY AND VIRGINIA CENTER for the Creative Arts for support in writing this book. I’m deeply grateful to the friends and readers who helped me from draft to draft and to the composers, conductors, and musicians who read these pages with critical expertise or simply shared their knowledge with me:
Eve Bridburg, Faye Chiao, Jessica Berger Gross, Hubert Ho, Michelle Hoover, Jill Kalotay, Leah Kalotay, Jhumpa Lahiri, Jean Layzer, Judith Layzer, Don Lee, Margot Livesey, Chris McCarron, Tom McNeely, Emily Newburger, Rishi Reddi, Bruce Reiprich, Julie Rold, David Schmahmann, Elizabeth Schulze, Jennie Shames, Mandy Smith, and Anna Weesner.
Praise
Sight Reading
“Gets the little details right, both musical and geographical, and the resulting read is engaging and often insightful. . . . Surprising and satisfying . . . with some delightfully vivid writing.”
—Boston Globe
“Set in the hothouse world of classical music, this wise, elegant novel maps the fallout from a passionate affair over the course of two decades. . . . Kalotay writes with grace and authority, paying equal attention to the artistic and emotional lives of her characters.”
—Tom Perrotta, New York Times bestselling author of The Leftovers
“This entertaining novel follows a group of musicians through twenty years of disappointments and betrayals; lusts, regrets, afflictions, and delusions; rehearsals, recombinations, and revelations.”
—Edith Pearlman, award-winning author of Binocular Vision
“Sight Reading is at once a compelling story about love, loss, and music in four interwoven lives, and an insightful exploration of the sources and expression of creativity. Kalotay shines her light on the gap between hope and reality in each of her characters’ lives. The results are compulsively readable, memorable, and wise.”
—Nancy Richler, award-winning author of The Imposter Bride
“Kalotay writes elegantly and ably about music and emotion, drafting a moving meditation on the sacrifices made for art and the mysteries of the heart.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Kalotay’s soulful second novel chronicles the collateral damage three classical musicians inflict on the people who love them. Merging two inherently incompatible modes of expression, writing and music, presents a formidable challenge—one Kalotay rises to admirably here.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“What might have been simply the story of a man leaving his marriage for a younger woman blossoms into much more. . . . Kalotay celebrates art . . . in prose that is brisk and concise as well as sensuous and sumptuous. . . . A fictive musical and familial feast.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“Because Kalotay wrote so affectingly about the complicated lives of artists in Russian Winter, it’s good to see her turn to the subject again. . . . She really shines when discussing musicians making music . . . and she shows us effectively how performing artists live. Much as we ourselves do, except they then get to create something gorgeous.”
—Library Journal
“Certain to hit a deep chord among readers for its unflinching, often lyrical examination of the nuances of marriage, parenthood, and divorce, this is a novel about hard-won wisdom, forgiveness, and the rewards of self-awareness.”
—Bostonia
“Not being a musician herself, Daphne Kalotay either did excellent research for her latest novel, Sight Reading, or she had someone on the inside. Or both. Her book reads like an amazingly accurate biographical account of today’s music-school life. Anyone who took any kind of reputable musical instruction will recognize the dramatic music teacher whose tactics seemed insane at the time but were suddenly revealed as brilliant a few years down the road. The constant practicing and stress of ‘Will I make it?’ rings true for those of us who have been there. Focusing on three main characters—Hazel, Remy, and Nicholas—the reader gets to watch how these lives are joined together or torn asunder, with music as the backdrop to it all. . . . Kalotay manages to capture the fleeting exultation that performers feel whenever they play. It is as if she has been onstage, bow in hand, ready to make or break her career with a single piece of music: the swirling butterflies coupled with a powerful determination to prove the artistic talent and not waste all those hours and hours of practice.”
—New York Journal of Books
“The characters about which Kalotay writes are deeply flawed, but also talented and fascinating to read about. Whether or not readers have a background in and knowledge of classical music, they’ll enjoy spending a brief time in this near fanatical world.”
—Bookreporter.com
“Kalotay’s writing is clear and evocative, allowing the reader to ‘hear’ the music some of her characters are playing. . . . [Her] mellifluous ability to write about instrumental sound is reflected in the musings of Nicholas, a conductor and would-be composer. . . . There are many perambulations in this story of musical friends, some heartbreaking, some endearing, some terribly disappointing. Kalotay infuse
s each of the characters with total believability, stemming from her understanding of classical music and her perceptions of human nature. She is a very wise writer, at least in her understanding of human behavior, and her brilliant intuitions are augmented by her lyrical writing. She knows music and understands musicians, and that makes Sight Reading a gift not only to the harmonically challenged but to the rest of us, even if we haven’t picked up that clarinet since high school band.”
—Toronto Star
Russian Winter
“An exceptional debut novel. . . . Delving into Nina’s life with the Bolshoi Ballet, her life among the Soviet Union’s artist community and her escape from the Stalinist regime add glamour and historical flavor to this novel of secrets, intrigue, and wonderfully described priceless gems.”
—USA Today
“With sure and suspenseful artistry, Daphne Kalotay intersperses the unfortunate and tortuous histories of Nina, Elsin, and their artist friends with new discoveries and disclosures. The several stories draw together in a conclusion that is surprising, fitting, and satisfying.”
—Boston Globe
“Daphne Kalotay’s first novel is a magnificent tale of love, loss, betrayal, and redemption. . . . Characters appear like an endless stacking nest of Matryoshka dolls, one more fascinating and intriguing than the next. . . . Kalotay describes her players with clarity, empathy, and understanding. . . . The complex story is multilayered and labyrinthine, so that the reader, just like these characters, does not know whom to believe or distrust. And while there is fascinating information and insight about ballet, jewels, music, art, and politics, the emotional center of the book holds everything together. Toward the end, with many unanswered questions swirling, the author lets the truth ebb and flow until a final riptide of revelations leaves the reader profoundly moved.”
—Washington Post Book World
“This tale of a Russian ballerina who defected to Boston is a history lesson inside an evocative novel about art and betrayal.”
—O magazine
“Part romance, part mystery, this elegant debut captures the danger—and refuge—of love in Stalin’s era.”
—Good Housekeeping
“A marvel that had me canceling appointments and staying up half the night, as it swept me into a world of intrigue, poetry, and romance. Set against the perfection of ballet, the hardships of life in the Soviet Union after World War II, and the anguish of families lost and found, Russian Winter reminds me of why I love to read fiction.”
—Lauren Belfer, New York Times bestselling author of
City of Light and A Fierce Radiance
“Tender, passionate, and moving, Daphne Kalotay’s debut novel about ballet, jewels, love, and betrayal is also a delicious form of time travel. I loved it.”
—Jenna Blum, New York Times bestselling author of
Those Who Save Us
“Kalotay develops a neat narrative of deception and betrayal that takes in great strands of literary and political history. . . . [A] complex story that, in the end, boils down to the simplest of elements: love, fear, disappointment, and loss. An auspicious first novel, elegantly written and without a false note.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Kalotay’s narrative moves effortlessly between mid-twentieth-century Russia . . . and contemporary Boston. . . . Kalotay has created appealing, well-rounded characters in well-researched settings, notably in capturing the fear, deprivation, and rampant suspicion of the Stalin era and its effect on artists. . . . This is a briskly paced, fresh, and engaging first novel dealing with the pain of loss and the power of love.”
—Booklist
Also by Daphne Kalotay
Russian Winter
Calamity and Other Stories
Copyright
Cover photograph © Plainpicture/Richard Dunkley
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reproduce from the following: “A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle” by Hugh MacDiarmid, The Complete Poems Volume 1, 1978, Carcarnet Press Limited.
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2013 by HarperCollins Publishers.
P.S.™ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.
Excerpt from Russian Winter copyright © 2010 by Daphne Kalotay.
SIGHT READING. Copyright © 2013 by Daphne Kalotay. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST HARPER PERENNIAL EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-224694-3 (pbk.)
EPub Edition June 2013, reissued June 2014 ISBN 9780062246950
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