3 Great Historical Novels

by Fay Weldon

  Nearing Troisky Bridge, he passed the old couple without a second glance, heard the woman gasping and the man coughing deep in his lungs. With a shock, he realised how much he’d changed; how, through these hellish months of deepest winter, he’d been driven by a new fierceness. Something to do with grief, but an entirely different grief from that which had felled him nine years earlier. Sonya might be missing, but until she was pronounced dead he would fight. For the first time in his life — and, ironically, through loving someone else — he’d learnt to put himself first.

  Already the small amount of energy from the bread had dissipated. Up ahead the bridge rose into the swirling mist, as insurmountable as the steepest mountain. He refused to let himself think of Tanya’s rations lying in his inner coat pocket. It was not his, it was not food, he was not starving.

  Reach the post on the top of the bridge, he told himself, and then find another marker to aim for.

  As he drew closer, he saw that what he’d believed to be a lamp-post was the dark figure of a man. And when he was closer still, he saw the man fall against the railings and slide to the ground.

  He trudged on at a snail’s pace; his legs would move no faster, nor would his brain allow him to try. But when at last he reached the crest of the bridge, he stopped and looked down.

  ‘Are you all right?’ It was difficult to speak; his lips were as stiff as boards.

  The man’s face was covered in blisters, and his eyes rolled. He opened his mouth, revealing bleeding gums and crimson-stained teeth. ‘I’m dying,’ he rasped. ‘Please — help — me.’

  Nikolai looked at him for a long moment. Finally, with an effort, he bent and dragged the man to his feet. His body was lighter than Sonya’s had been, and his mottled wrists as thin as the neck of a violin.

  ‘Stand.’ This was all he could say. ‘Stand.’

  But once more the man collapsed against the bridge, slithering onto the muddy ground. His face had the same lime-green tinge as the snow-laden sky.

  The breath of the frozen water rose up through the bridge, seeping through the soles of Nikolai’s boots. Dangerously, murderously cold, it spread into his legs, filling them with a fierce iron-ache. ‘I’m sorry.’ He bent towards the man. ‘I can do nothing.’

  ‘Don’t leave me.’ The man gripped his ankle with a raw bleeding hand. ‘Please don’t leave me.’

  For a second longer Nikolai stood still. Then he stepped back, wrenching his boot out of the man’s feeble grip. ‘I must go.’

  He trudged away without looking back. The icy wind made his eyes stream so that he could hardly see to walk.

  Attending to business

  He hadn’t remembered there were so many stairs, nor that they were so steep. He counted the number of steps he had to tackle to reach the first landing. Already, he’d climbed six from the street to the front door, and another four to the sliding glass window, and his knees were shaking.

  Ignoring the custodian’s stony stare, he leaned on the ledge. ‘I am Karl Illyich Eliasberg,’ he announced. ‘Of the Radio Orchestra.’

  Remembering who he once was gave him a temporary strength; he started up the stairs again like a child learning to climb. Right foot, then left foot; feet together, start again. At last, chest heaving, he reached the brass-handled double doors. Beside them was the same paint-stripped, straight-backed chair that had always been there. It had never looked so inviting.

  He sat there for thirty minutes, then forty, then fifty. His tailbone pressed painfully against the wood. Shifting his weight, he cursed the Party’s habit of always making their minions wait.

  After an hour, or an eternity, the secretary appeared. ‘This way.’ Unsmilingly, he ushered Elias into the ante-chamber. Here, at least, the chairs were a little more comfortable and the furnishings less depressing. The building itself was a bomb-damaged wreck, its facade crumbling and its front steps cracked. But the entrance hall — clean, cheerless, entirely lacking in character — looked just as it had before the war. And in the ante-room there was still carpet on the floor, curtains at the tall windows and paintings on the walls.

  Here the air felt clammy, almost overheated. He wiped the sweat off his forehead, and sniffed quickly and anxiously under each arm. He’d been trying to clean himself once a week but, with no soap and little water, he’d resorted to a mixture of ashes and sand gathered from the street. Scouring myself with the ruins of my city, he thought — but it seemed important to continue with such rituals, however inadequate. Nikolai, unkempt even before his daughter had gone missing, had slid into complete disarray, whereas Elias continued to shave every second day, using a dry blunt blade that removed a good deal of skin as well as hair.

  After the secretary had emerged from the inner chamber for the second time and ordered him to keep waiting, he’d had enough. The week’s meat ration had consisted of sheep’s guts, discovered in an outlying warehouse and processed into a repulsive jelly. It was completely indigestible, and his stomach was roaring. With more than a touch of acerbity, he pointed out that it was now well past midday.

  The secretary frowned. Comrade Zagorsky had been a busy man before the war, but now he was busier than ever. Karl Eliasberg would be called once more pressing matters had been dealt with.

  How, wondered Elias, could the Head of the Arts Department manage to be busy? The city was wrecked and its people starved, while the only surviving arts institution was the Musical Comedy Theatre, expressly ordered to continue its capering for the benefit of the soldiers. Perhaps Zagorsky was occupied with sticking his fingers in long-distance pies, telling the Opera and Ballet Theatre what to rehearse while they remained in exile in the Ural Mountains.

  ‘My appointment,’ he said to the secretary, as his stomach rumbled ominously, ‘was for 10 a.m.’

  ‘A ten o’clock appointment does not guarantee a ten o’clock meeting,’ snapped the secretary. Straightening his uniform, flicking imaginary hairs off his sleeve, he disappeared again.

  Yet if I’d turned up now, thought Elias, I would have been sent away on account of my lateness.

  As the hands of the clock crawled on, his nervousness grew. He’d been told nothing, except that Yasha Babushkin would also be attending the meeting. What could the Director of the Radio Committee possibly want to discuss four months after the disbanding of the orchestra? Could a conductor be demoted from a non-existent position? Stripped of an orchestra no longer together? For the hundredth time he polished his glasses, and tried not to gnaw on his split, yellowed fingernails.

  The secretary emerged like a jack-in-the-box. ‘Comrades Zagorsky and Babushkin will see you now.’

  Elias sprang up, discovering too late there was no blood in his feet. He toppled to the floor, nearly landing on the secretary’s well-polished shoes. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled, getting up and shoving his glasses back onto his nose. ‘My circ-circ-circulation is no longer what it was.’

  The secretary had been trained not to register concern, whatever the circumstances. ‘Please hurry. We mustn’t keep our esteemed comrades waiting.’

  ‘No, indeed. Wasting any more time would be unpardonable,’ said Elias tartly. In spite of his tingling feet and the carpet threads hanging off his trousers, he managed to enter the inner chamber with a suitably authoritative air.

  The meeting was over in less than ten minutes. The huge door clanged shut, and Elias found himself back out on the street under a leaden sky. But for once he barely noticed his surroundings as he ploughed through the slush and the mud, skirting around corpses half-covered in snow.

  He dug his fingernails through his threadbare gloves and into his palms. Only through pain could he believe he was awake, that he’d really heard what he thought he had. ‘How about that!’ he repeated to himself. ‘How about that!’

  At the top of Nevsky Prospect, his short burst of nervous energy ran out. By the time he reached the Griboyedov Canal, he had to rest every few minutes, and outside the military canteen his legs gave up altogether. He held onto t
he railings, breathing heavily, his head bowed. He knew he mustn’t linger too long or he’d lose all feeling in his hands and feet, and would never get moving again.

  ‘Karl Elias? Is that you?’

  The voice was familiar but not immediately identifiable. Coughing, Elias raised his head and found himself looking into the pale watery eyes of Alexander, his one-time Principal Oboe.

  ‘My God, I hardly recognised you,’ said Alexander. ‘You were always on the thin side, but now …’ He trailed off as if not wanting to cause offence, though this was hardly the Alexander of old. He, too, had changed; his hair had been neatly trimmed, and he wore a uniform under his patched leather coat.

  ‘Have you joined up?’ Elias had heard nothing of Alexander for the past six months. Whether from tact or ignorance, no one had mentioned him since the day he’d stormed, drunk, from the rehearsal room.

  ‘Yes, the anti-aircraft unit. What about you? You look shot to pieces, if you’ll pardon an all-too-prevalent expression.’

  ‘I’m over-tired, that’s all,’ said Elias, trying to recover his dignity. ‘I’ve been at Party Headquarters all morning, on Radio C-C-Committee business.’ Suddenly he began shaking violently and his vision blurred. Alexander became nothing but a long thin streak against a hazy background.

  ‘Stay here,’ said Alexander, striding away.

  There was little else Elias could do. He managed to stay upright by holding tightly to the compound railings; the frozen iron burned through his gloves and seared his fingers. You’ve just been handed a future, he tried to remind himself. But in the strangeness of the present moment — his body shutting down on him, his thoughts becoming hazy — this no longer seemed important, or even real.

  Then he felt his right hand being uncurled from the fence and wrapped around a tin cup. ‘Bean soup from the canteen.’ It was Alexander. ‘It’s bloody disgusting, but it might help.’

  The warmth alone was enough to bring him back to a half-living state. Silently, desperately, he drank the watery soup, scooping out the beans with his fingers and cramming them into his mouth. When he’d finished he took a deep breath. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I think you may have just saved my life.’

  ‘It’s nothing. Here, take this.’ Alexander glanced towards the canteen, and shoved something into Elias’s pocket. ‘I’ll lose my own bread rations if they see me.’ Elias tried to thank him again, but he waved his hand dismissively. ‘You would have collapsed otherwise. And probably never got up again, by the skeletal looks of you.’

  Elias ignored this. Sensation had returned to his hands and feet, and with it came a heady relief that made him feel dizzy, expansive — and forgiving. ‘I don’t suppose …’ he began. ‘Is there any chance you want to come back to the orchestra? I could get you exemption from service.’

  ‘The Radio Orchestra?’ Alexander stared at him. ‘I thought that was all over. Finished. Kaput.’

  Should he tell? He hadn’t been forbidden to, exactly. ‘The orchestra’s been ordered to regroup,’ he blurted out. ‘The Arts Department is planning a season of symphonic concerts to raise morale in the city — and we’ve been ordered to perform them.’ He felt the same combination of elation and fear as he had earlier, standing before Zagorsky’s desk. ‘I’ve got no idea how many of our musicians are still alive, but I’d be glad to have you back, if you care to come.’

  Alexander gave a fleeting smile. ‘I see. Even drunks and bastards are preferable to dead men.’ But he didn’t speak with venom. Perhaps, thought Elias, this was as close as he could come to an admission of guilt? ‘Even if I didn’t like artillery work,’ said Alexander, ‘which I do, there isn’t any way in the world I could be your First Oboe again.’ He pulled off his glove and held out his right hand. All four fingers were missing, and the back of the hand was a swollen mess of shiny skin. ‘A shell attack in December. But I can still manage the guns.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Elias swallowed hard. ‘As for the orchestra’s sake — well, it’s a pity. I have a feeling we will sorely need you.’ He waited until Alexander had replaced his glove, then shook hands with him a trifle awkwardly. Turning away, he felt the bread Alexander had stolen for him weighing down his pocket. ‘By the way,’ he said, turning back, ‘how’s your sister?’

  ‘My sister? I don’t —’

  ‘She was suffering from diphtheria last year. Or was it another illness beginning with D?’

  Alexander clapped his hand to his forehead. ‘Oh, yes, that sister. You’d hardly believe it but she made a miraculous recovery. She’s the picture of health now. That is —’ He bit his lip. ‘She’s starved like the rest of us, of course. Very thin, not able to get out much.’ He peered at Elias. ‘You sly dog! You know!’

  Elias gave a small smile. ‘Give her my regards.’

  Revelations, after snow

  Nikolai ran his hand over the ice-cold wall, then looked up at the ceiling. A steel girder had crashed through one corner of the room, revealing a splintered piece of sky. The windows were either cracked or broken, and the chilly spring winds whistled in from every side. ‘They expect us to rehearse in here? And perform that? Did they even listen to the broadcast from Kuibyshev?’

  Elias, too, was dismayed by the state of the room. ‘Perhaps they can provide us with some heating,’ he said, trying to focus on practicalities so as not to panic at the thought of the overwhelming task that had been handed to him. He’d managed to pick up the premiere of the Seventh Symphony on his battered radio set, huddled beside the bed where his mother lay unconscious. For over an hour he’d barely moved, filtering out the crackling of the radio, fighting towards the music below. His brain had absorbed every upbeat and dying fall; his fingers longed to pick up a baton. ‘I’ve missed it,’ he confided to his mother, whose breath was rattling in her lungs. ‘Oh, God, I’ve missed it.’ Then — ‘I have missed him.’

  Nikolai was looking worried. ‘It’s Shostakovich’s most enormous symphony yet. They must be crazy. What do they think you are, a magician?’ He looked over his shoulder as he spoke, in a parody of the old pre-war caution. But they were alone. The door swung on one hinge, and the corridor was deserted, strewn with glass and dead leaves. ‘I suppose it’s that damn political commissar. If we manage to play the Seventh, we’ll boost not only Leningrad’s morale but Zhdanov’s career into the bargain.’

  ‘Zhdanov has already got hold of the score. It was flown in from Moscow last week.’

  ‘Over Nazi lines?’ Nikolai raised his eyebrows. ‘He must be serious, then.’

  ‘It’s no longer even a subject for debate. It was already a decree before I set foot in the Party office.’ Elias spoke matter-of-factly, but ever since he’d learned of his appointed task he’d been lying awake at night rigid with terror and desire. Never before had he been offered such a chance — and never before had so much been at stake. For a moment he was almost glad that Shostakovich had been forced to leave the city. The thought of the composer sitting in on rehearsals, listening intently to Elias’s interpretation of his Seventh Symphony, made his stomach lurch.

  ‘At least Dmitri will be a happy man,’ said Nikolai. ‘It’s only right that the Leningrad symphony should be played in Leningrad. If not for the siege, of course, it would have been premiered here by —’

  ‘By Mravinsky.’ Elias gave a small smile, trying to suppress the old jealousy. ‘By Mravinsky, and the esteemed Philharmonic.’

  ‘Well, everything’s different now! I know you’ll do a fine job.’ Nikolai began peeling mouldy carpet off a pile of rusted music stands. ‘Do you know how many of the orchestra are still … still with us?’

  Elias swallowed hard. On the list of musicians he’d been shown, twenty-five names had been crossed out in black: officially dead. Fifteen were circled in red: the only ones known for a fact to be alive. ‘I’m not sure yet. I’ve asked military headquarters to register anyone capable of playing an instrument.’

  ‘Men from the Front? At least they’ll be adept at marches
.’ In spite of his attempt at a joke, Nikolai looked exceedingly doubtful.

  ‘We need ten horns. Six or more trombones, six trumpets.’ Elias spread his hands. ‘Even if we can dredge up those numbers, will they be strong enough to play?’

  The room was freezing, in spite of the weak sun creeping through the streaked windows. ‘We should go.’ Nikolai was shivering. ‘We’ll be spending all too much time here over the coming weeks.’

  ‘Yes, and I must report to the Smolny Palace,’ said Elias, ‘to beg the generals for the loan of some of their trumpet players.’

  On the steps of the Radio Hall, they paused and looked down at the street. You think we’re buying human meat from the black market? Elias heard Olga Shapran’s voice ringing in his head. You think we’re cannibals? Now that the spring thaw had come, her words had a new and horrifying meaning. Even worse than seeing people killed by bombs or starvation was realising what had happened to them afterwards. As the grubby blanket of snow was drawn away, it became apparent that many of the corpses had been dismembered.

  Severed legs with chunks of meat cut out of them, and women’s bodies with the breasts sliced clean away. Torsos with cuts across their backs and stomachs, filleted like sides of beef. Flesh had been stolen from the dead to feed the living. These were the gruesome lengths to which some Leningraders had gone to stay alive.

  Surveying the carnage, Elias felt utterly despairing. He covered his face with his hands. What use was art in the face of this? Was Shostakovich’s music nothing but a beautiful mask to disguise the savagery of human nature?