3 Great Historical Novels

by Fay Weldon

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, in a muffled voice. ‘I’m just so extremely tired.’

  Even boiling water for tea seemed an impossible task. It was all he could do to crawl over to the narrow divan and lie down. Nina covered him with a blanket and sat beside him. After some time, when he hadn’t stopped shaking, she lay down beside him and stroked his hair.

  It was a long time before he emerged from the darkness and opened his eyes. He was abashed and amazed to realise that, somehow, he had ended up lying on a bed next to the beautiful Nina Bronnikova. But then the year had been so full of strangeness.

  ‘Are you feeling any better?’ Nina spoke quietly, and as calmly as if the situation were nothing out of the ordinary.

  ‘A little,’ he said, turning his head to look at her. ‘I suppose the stress of today’s rehearsal was greater than I thought.’ He hesitated. ‘Do you think Shostakovich would have any faith in what I’m doing?’

  ‘Shostakovich is just one man,’ said Nina, ‘doing the job he was born to do, in the same way that you do yours. You must try to believe that.’ She told Elias what she’d heard about the Shostakoviches’ journey east: their long wait to board the overcrowded train to Kuibyshev, Shostakovich standing on the platform with a sewing machine in one hand and Maxim’s teddy bear in the other. Seven days and seven nights in a packed carriage: lost suitcases, borrowed socks and underwear. Shostakovich, wearing his old worn suit, wading into the snow at the side of the tracks to rinse crockery, fetching kettles of water from station houses, too shy to strike up conversations, too proud to ask for help, in a constant state of agitation.

  ‘Apparently they got off at Kuibyshev,’ explained Nina, ‘because he couldn’t stand the lack of privacy any longer. They were supposed to go all the way to Sverdlovsk.’

  ‘Shostakovich — shy? But he’s so forthright, even abrasive! And so highly respected. He’s already a legend.’

  ‘He’s a great composer. He may well end up a legend. But in this case, his share of the task is done and now you must do yours. What he might think of your efforts — well, perhaps that’s less relevant than you believe.’

  They lay there together and watched the golden evening light stretch over the wall. From the other side of the city came the distant wail of sirens; otherwise, all was quiet. Finally Elias plucked up his courage, hitched himself up on the pillows and put an awkward arm around Nina. Her bones jutted through her woollen clothing; her ribcage was as frail as a bird’s. But the strength he remembered from their first meeting was still there at her core.

  ‘Don’t you ever worry about anything?’ he asked softly. ‘You seem to have everything worked out.’

  Nina laughed. ‘If you knew how I felt today! The last time I was in that hall was to hear a performance of Mahler’s Fifth. When I walked in that evening, people noticed me. I was considered beautiful back then.’ She closed her eyes, but a tear slid down her face and into the pillow.

  ‘You’re still beautiful,’ said Elias. ‘You’re more beautiful than ever. Distractingly so. You distract me.’ He leaned closer and kissed her forehead, feeling neither tentative nor nervous, and he left his lips pressed against her temple, feeling the even beat of her blood.

  ‘I could conduct to your heart,’ he whispered. ‘It’s as regular as a metronome.’

  Slowly, Nina opened her eyes to look at him. ‘And yours? Is it steady?’

  ‘Some people say that I don’t have a heart. Many people say so. Surely you’ve heard that?’

  She slipped her hand inside his coat and under his shirt, so that her palm lay flat against his chest. ‘How could you possibly do what you do and not have a heart?’

  When the sunlight had slid away from the room and the sky was turning grey, she got up off the divan. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ she said, kissing him lightly on the lips, refusing his offer to see her home. Nonetheless, he went to the open door and stood there until he could no longer hear her uneven footsteps in the stairwell, and then he went to the window.

  She was already in the street, treading carefully through the rubble, her hair glinting black like the wings of a swallow. She was known, and not yet known. He watched her slight, upright figure reach the corner. As she disappeared from sight, he felt a conviction, stronger than any he’d ever felt, that one day she would be his wife.

  Now he was alone but not lonely, and he picked up the neatly folded piece of paper from where it lay on the windowsill. Already he knew it by heart.

  Dear Karl Eliasberg. Warmest wishes for Leningrad premiere.

  Deeply regret my absence. Am convinced performance will be MAGNIFICENT. I greet you warmly.

  D. Shostakovich

  He leaned his head against the cracked window. ‘You can do it,’ he said, refolding the telegram. The chill from the glass entered his skull and spread through his body. It felt like strength.

  Epilogue

  When the sun hits the edge of the mattress, he opens his eyes. Sleep-dust clogs his vision, and the room is indistinct. He senses, rather than sees, familiar shapes around him: the high rectangular window, the small stove, the dangling light bulb.

  It must be late because the sun’s already high. It seems surprising, after all that’s happened, that the sun still rises. He’s no longer the person he was a year ago, and the city, too, has changed beyond recognition. Yet the summer is familiar in all its blowsy green fullness and, as always, the stone walls and streets — however battered — have absorbed its heat.

  He stands up and stretches, making his spine crack and his shoulders loosen. As soon as he puts on his glasses, the room jumps to attention. As if for the first time, with the utmost clarity, he notices the straight-backed chair, the right angles of the window, the layered score on the windowsill.

  Below the window, the street is quiet and empty, but he can still see her walking there, threading her way past the broken houses, transforming the world. When he closes his eyes, his fingers feel the smooth coolness of her face. Behind him, the stove has become a small point of warmth, a leaping blue flame, and there’s the bubbling roar of water coming to a boil.

  Later, after a breakfast of strong unsweetened tea and black bread, he’ll read over the stack of paper, listening with his eyes, moving his hands in the air, shaping something invisible to others. If the day stays fine and there are no air raids, he’ll walk along the canal, just a few bridges, and then back home. It’s important not to meet or talk to people in the hours before.

  Later still, he’ll walk the long stretch of Nevsky Prospect all the way to the Philharmonia Hall, slip in a back entrance and shut himself away in a small one-windowed room. Shortly before 6 p.m., while putting on his white shirt (not pressed as perfectly as he’d like, but clean), he’ll turn on the radio to experience the odd sensation of hearing himself speak. ‘Comrades,’ announces his voice in crackling tones, ‘a great cultural occurrence is about to take place in Leningrad. In a few minutes you will hear live, for the first time, the Seventh Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich, our outstanding fellow citizen.’ And he knots a threadbare black tie around his neck, pulls on his jacket and slips a folded piece of paper into his breast pocket. Because he’s clearing his throat, he misses a few sentences of his first pre-recorded public address.

  Opening the door, he walks steadily down a narrow corridor, leaving behind his radio-self still addressing the city of Leningrad. Or, at least, addressing those not already waiting for him in the auditorium, row upon row, stretching to the very back of the hall. ‘Europe believed that the days of Leningrad were over,’ the voice behind him is saying. ‘But this performance is witness to our spirit and courage. Listen!’

  Pausing in the wings, he listens, too. What does he hear at this moment? The scraping of chairs, the small twang of violin strings, a quick arpeggio from a clarinet; and, beyond these, the rustling of clothing and shifting of bodies, some coughing and murmuring, the sounds of anticipation. When he cranes slightly forward, he can see a row of microphones pointed like g
uns towards the stage, ready to catch the Leningrad Symphony and broadcast it to the world.

  He takes a deep breath and steps into the blaze of electric light, far brighter than any sun. Sweat leaps on his back, the orchestra rises to its feet, and the audience also stands, a dark gleaming mass of military badges and medals, and pearls.

  Soon the fluttering will stop and the musicians will become still with concentration, their backs straight, their fingers in position, their bows and mouthpieces raised — and their eyes also raised to him. For one perfect complete moment he stands, poised on the edge of silence. The only sound is the telegram in his pocket, rustling as he breathes, moving as steadily as a beating heart.

  Acknowledgements

  I have found a number of books and articles about Shostakovich and the Leningrad Symphony extremely useful while working on this novel. They include: ‘Orchestral manoeuvres’ by Ed Vulliamy published in The Observer Magazine, 25 November 2001; Shostakovich: A Life by Laurel E. Fay; Shostakovich and His World, edited by Laurel E. Fay; Shostakovich: A Life Remembered by Elizabeth Wilson; Story of a Friendship: The Letters of Dmitry Shostakovich to Isaak Glikman 1941–1975, with commentary by Isaak Glikman, translated by Anthony Phillips; Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich as related to and edited by Solomon Volkov, translated by Antonina W. Bouis; The New Shostakovich by Ian MacDonald.

  I would like to acknowledge W.W. Norton & Company for permission to quote from the poem ‘As if through a straw, you drink my soul’ in Anna Akhmatova: Poems, selected and translated by Lyn Coffin, 1983.

  I am grateful to the following people for their help in varying ways, including general advice and support, close readings of the manuscript and the invaluable offer of quiet writing space: Jill Foulston, Sarah Lees-Jeffries, Rachel Paine and Rob Wilson, Sebastian Schrade, Dulcie Smart, Jon Stallworthy, John Wilson, and Antoinette Wilson. Many thanks to my agent Simon Trewin, my editor Jane Parkin, and Harriet Allan and the team at Random House New Zealand.

  Special thanks to Margaret Quigley, Rachel Quigley, and Gustav Hellberg for their constant support and encouragement.

  About this Book

  June 1941: Nazi troops surround the city of Leningrad, planning to shell and starve the people into submission. Most of the cultural elite is evacuated, but the composer Shostakovich stays behind to defend his city.

  That winter, the bleakest in Russian history, the Party orders Karl Eliasberg, the shy, difficult conductor of a second-rate orchestra, to prepare for the task of a lifetime. He is to conduct a performance of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony – a haunting, defiant new piece, which will be relayed by loudspeakers to the front lines.

  Eliasberg’s musicians are starving, and scarcely have the strength to carry their instruments. But for five freezing months the conductor stubbornly drives them onwards to perfection, depriving those who falter of their bread rations. Slowly the music begins to dissolve the nagging hunger, the exploding streets, the slow deaths… but at what cost? Eliasberg’s relationships are strained, obsession takes hold, and his orchestra is growing weaker. Now, it’s a struggle not just to perform but to stay alive.

  This is a profoundly moving novel about the resilience of the human spirit and the emotive power of great music.

  ‘Superb. An extraordinary period of history brought to life by a daring novelist’

  Lloyd Jones, author of Mister Pip

  ‘In a besieged city, a starving orchestra brings to life a great new symphony that will speak for Russia at war. Quigley’s novel, like the story it tells, is a heroic enterprise’

  C.K. Stead

  ‘Deserves to be mentioned alongside Jane Smiley, Andrea Levy and Rose Tremain’

  Sunday Herald

  ‘A symphony on the power of love – the love of music, home, family, city… A triumph on every level’

  New Zealand Herald

  ‘Quigley’s story of the creation and performance of a masterpiece is a masterpiece in itself’

  Nelson Mail

  About the Author

  Sarah Quigley is a New Zealand-born novelist, poet and critic. She has a D.Phil in Literature from the University of Oxford, and has won several awards for her writing. The Conductor was the highest-selling adult fiction title in New Zealand in 2011, remaining at number one for twenty weeks. Quigley lives in Berlin.

  About Head of Zeus

  We hope you enjoyed this book.

  We are Head of Zeus, a brand new publishing house dedicated to new authors, great storytelling, and fabulous ideas.

  To find your next read – and some tempting special offers – why not visit our website?

  First published in New Zealand in 2011 by Vintage.

  This edition first published in the UK in 2012

  by Head of Zeus, Ltd.

  Copyright © Sarah Quigley, 2011.

  The moral right of Sarah Quigley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN (TPB): 9781908800022

  ISBN (E): 9781908800824

  Printed in Great Britain.

  Head of Zeus, Ltd

  Clerkenwell House

  45–47 Clerkenwell Green

  London EC1R 0HT

  www.headofzeus.com

  Contents

  Cover

  Welcome Page

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  PART I Spring–Summer 1941

  The knock at the door

  The note

  The bench

  Anticipation

  The birthday

  Nikolai, grieving

  The price of furniture

  An almost inescapable legacy

  Night watch

  In Sollertinsky’s office

  The first fight

  At the fish market

  The turning point

  PART II Summer 1941

  The Cossack and the dead boy

  Trying to lie

  Brandy, talk and the twelfth of July

  The truth about Nina Varzar

  The horseman

  The secretive nature of the Elias men

  The march

  Counting down

  Into the limelight

  Meetings and partings

  She will not go

  The plea

  PART III Autumn 1941

  The descent

  Running for cover

  The night of fire

  A kind of retreat

  Heroes

  Mining the past

  What is the worst

  Relatives

  The gift

  Rivals

  The thief

  Orders

  PART IV Winter 1941–Summer 1942

  The crawl

  Resolutions

  Attending to business

  Revelations, after snow

  A new front

  The missing

  Elias comes home

  The letterbox

  Priorities

  Dress rehearsal

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About this Book

  Reviews

  About the Author

  About Head of Zeus

  Copyright

  About this Book

  Reviews

  About the Author

  About this Trilogy

 
Table of Contents

  Start Reading

  The House Awakes

  6.58 a.m. Tuesday, 24th October 1899

  In late October of the year 1899 a tall, thin, nervy young man ran up the broad stone steps that led to No. 17 Belgrave Square. He seemed agitated. He was without hat or cane, breathless, unattended by staff of any kind, wore office dress – other than that his waistcoat was bright yellow above smart striped stove-pipe trousers – and his moustache had lost its curl in the damp air of the early morning. He seemed both too well-dressed for the tradesman’s entrance at the back of the house, yet not quite fit to mount the front steps, leave alone at a run, and especially at such an early hour.

  The grand front doors of Belgrave Square belonged to ministers of the Crown, ambassadors of foreign countries, and a sprinkling of titled families. By seven in the morning the back doors would be busy enough with deliveries and the coming and going of kitchen and stable staff, but few approached the great front doors before ten, let alone on foot, informally and without appointment. The visitor pulled the bell handle too long and too hard, and worse, again and again.

  The jangling of the bell disturbed the household, waking the gentry, startling such servants who were already up but still sleepy, and disconcerting the upper servants, who were not yet properly dressed for front door work.

  Grace, her Ladyship’s maid, peered out from her attic window to see what was going on. She used a mirror contraption rigged up for her by Reginald the footman, the better to keep an eye on comings and goings on the steps below. Seeing that it was only Eric Baum, his Lordship’s new financial advisor and lawyer, Grace decided it was scarcely her business to answer the door. She saw to her Ladyship’s comfort and no one else’s. Baum was too young, too excitable and too foreign-looking to be worthy of much exertion, and her Ladyship had been none too pleased when her husband had moved their business affairs into new hands.