I should have known that he wouldn’t mind it; he even liked it. After he had popped his eyeballs back in and cleaned his spectacles he even waved; thanks to me he’d now collected new despairing dissonances for Opus 110. What was I doing wrong? Next time I’d figure it out. It was simply a question of time and manpower. But I didn’t dare look over my shoulder, in case Shostakovich might be imitating my mannerisms, even sticking out his tongue.
12
In Berlin-West I made my plans all day, although the brightness hurt my eyes; I almost wished for the old wartime blackouts. Or perhaps it was simply that I couldn’t bear to stay awake. Could I bear to live this way anymore? Moment by moment I try not to be gruesome. Hospital wards crammed full of soldiers without legs or eyes, never mind! Shostakovich’s music, fine. NATO’s come to save us from all that. But until we’ve garrisoned our side of the Wall, I’ll dwell in dreams.
First the Iron Curtain, then the Gendarmenmarkt, that was how it would go. Belgian Nazis who survived by selling their memories to both sides advised me to poison his piano; that would get to him; but the little operative codenamed GREINER, whom I was frankly beginning to consider defeatist, insisted that the Soviets had antidotes to everything, even unfortunate facts. I found myself dreading the night; I didn’t know why, for I preferred the east side now; I craved the safe and comfortable feeling which always came over me when I saw Stalin’s massive, star-topped portrait guarding the Hotel Adlon, which had been more or less burned down by drunken Red Army men in search of wine.
All the same, GREINER had taught me that the Gehlen Organization was in the right to pursue Operation ELENKA: Our target (you know whom I mean) was a pianist in exactly the same sense as were those members of the infamous Red Orchestra, who consorted with innocent German women, sold us black market goods at friendly prices, and carried out orders in our offices across occupied Europe; all the while, these fanatically loyal subordinates, whom we’d trusted in our noble German manner, were playing Hagen’s part, stabbing Siegfried in the back with their myriad Judeo-Bolshevik spears. But halt! Our subject was pianists. Oh, yes, they rented flats in Paris, Brussels, even Berlin itself; and at hours and frequencies which their Center, which they undoubtedly called Europe Central, dictated, they hunched over their transmitters (which it sometimes took us great trouble to pinpoint) and played our enciphered tunes of troop dispositions for Operation Barbarossa, strategic objectives for Operation Blau, entrainments for Operation Citadel. Gestapo Müller used to be a friend of mine. He said: Think of them all as dark little Jews, bent over their transmitters at night, clicking away all our dearest secrets!—Actually, he was never my friend; I seem to have been dreaming someone else’s dream. I couldn’t even hum my own songs.
More and more I say to myself: Why bother? Haven’t I already failed at everything? Isn’t it better that I don’t know to whom that strand of long dark hair belongs? Especially since I’ve long since lost it; I’d tied it to my ring of invisibility for luck . . .
Enough dreaming! In 1950 we’d bored a listening tunnel under the Curtain; that had been Operation Gold. Today was the dawn of Operation Quick-silver. In other words, Operation ELENKA will mutate into its own success. I recited to myself: We must base our work on the assumption of victory.
13
Next ploy: I rang up ELENKA on the black telephone.
Crumpling a piece of cellophane up against the receiver all the while, to imitate static, I shouted: Comrade Shostakovich, Europe Central calling! You’ve been summoned to the Teltowkanal at once.
But this is really, I mean, thank you, thank you!
I crumpled cellophane.
And could you tell me please exactly where the, how should I say it, this Teltowkanal—oh, oh, excuse me, someone is knocking now. What if it’s, how should I say? Just a moment; just a moment!
And that tricky bastard hung up on me!
Well, never say die. Flashing my passport, I crossed legally behind the Curtain, this time at Friedrichstrasse, because I was now both a foreigner and a diplomat. I was a one-man column of marchers luxuriously flowing in a specific direction.
14
Skipping silently between the land mines, I came to a burned tank, ducked down, caught my breath, and peered carefully around to see East Germans working by torchlight, hauling away limestone from the shell of our Reich Chancellery on their special narrow-gauge railway. Well, why not? It was dead, and its half naked skeleton was flanked by hills of its own gravel and powder. If only they could trundle away my last few vanities and illusions! I wanted to fulfill myself by casting off everything dubious. I wished to become a perfect skeleton. No doubt if I only swallowed the correct pill I’d be able to reach a zone where the Chancellery still stood, and then if I strode down the Marble Gallery, which was as long as a runway for light aircraft, I’d get farther and farther from this brave new night of red-starred constellations. Unfortunately, they were breaking up the Marble Gallery right now. They were using it to make headstones for Soviet heroes. Talk about illusions!
They’d already torn down the American Embassy by the Brandenburg Gate. I had to laugh; it seemed so pointless! They’d reopened the Volksbühne Theater for proletarian shows. They’d renamed everything they could. We’d changed Bülowplatz to Horst-Wessel-Platz, so they changed it to Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. I should have known! Wilhelmstrasse became Otto-Grotewohl-Strasse, and who the hell was Otto Grotewohl? Let’s just say that he was no Kaiser. If you don’t mind, I’ll keep calling it Wilhelmstrasse. They deny the broken earthworks of their war memories by memorializing the future; I do the same by living in the past. Frankly, that’s why we’ll always need two Germanys. (But everything’s all dreams, all nothingness.) Dorotheenstrasse became Clara-Zetkin-Strasse; well, I can live with that; I’m not against women, even women Communists. If only one of them would kiss me again! But Reds have no time for kisses. Besides, who would kiss me? I’m a traitor to both sides, and I’m long in the tooth; my eyeballs are sinking into my face, so to hell with everything except for that one black hair which can’t say no to me. They’d stolen the pearl-studded golden ball with a golden crucifix attached to it by bands of gold; they’d crowned Stalin with our crown of precious stones; they’d given him our crosshatched dagger, our golden scepter. They could shove it up Stalin’s ass—oh, I was in a fine mood these days! PFITZNER had informed me that my colleagues were getting disappointed. Well, how was I supposed to neutralize an unkillable target? For that matter, what had PFITZNER done to further our goal? He could at least have obtained the cooperation of a small neutral country. I detested PFITZNER. And these land mines on the Wilhelmstrasse where our Foreign Office used to be, those ruins in the night, their spires and lacunae sweeping up and down like the spans of fancy bridges, all that was enough to irritate anyone.
Over there stood the Schauspielhaus, almost untouched. Why hadn’t they demolished it yet? I once saw Marlene Dietrich there in 1927. Now they used it for giving uplifting speeches about work quotas. Never mind. I was used to falling asleep; their speeches wouldn’t trouble me. Besides, the pale man at the Gehlen Organization had promised me that we’d get everything back.
I went and hid behind one of those impressive pillars, which were scarcely even scorched, and took my bearings.—No, I’d underestimated those Slavs! The voice of Elena Kruglikova rose into the sky.
15
That was when I realized the following: I am Shostakovich’s shadow.
But what do we each stand for? We’re opposites, granted. So, if his significance gets added to my significance, is the result zero? In that case, why proceed?
I was beginning to wonder if the only way to kill him was for me to kill myself.
That cold night zone opened up before me; it was even wider than the boulevard which the sleepwalker had once planned out for Berlin (it would have put the Champs-Élysées to shame by twenty meters); I sped through space until I met him at the stroke of midnight; he seemed to be expecting me, for just as I floated in thr
ough the window, Elena Konstantinovskaya screamed and he feebly raised one hand in front of his eyes.
That was when I discovered that I’d somehow forgotten to load my pistol; I hadn’t slept enough lately.
Shostakovich said: You know, my dear friend, there’s something you have that I don’t. You display, how should I say, resolution. To be sure, I stick to my own guns in my music; no one can dictate that, but otherwise I, well.
I told him, and I was being sincere: Actually, Herr Schostakowitsch, I admire you.
That’s too kind; that’s too kind. Oh, how you’ve dirtied yourself! You deserve to, well, well, why upset you? I’m willing to agree that something in me has to die. How can we both end this torture? Perhaps poison will . . .
That’s just what I proposed to GREINER, Herr Schostakowitsch, but he—
(Where was Elena? She’d dissolved into the air. What if she’d never been here? I was getting very sleepy.)
Do you hate me? he demanded.
Of course not, Herr Schostakowitsch! I just told you how much I admire you.
But I hate you. I consider you a wicked, terrible man. The nightmares you’ve caused my friends, especially, how should I say, Elena . . .
But this is harmless; it’s not real!
What can you hope to get out of my death? Money? An Adenauer Prize? It must be money. You love money over there.
Begging your pardon, Herr Schostakowitsch, but I’m on a list.
Oh, he said. So that’s how it is. And to save yourself you’re willing to, to—
I begged him to forgive me then. I realized that he was correct. In an instant, he’d completely turned me against the Gehlen Organization.
I refuse to forgive you, he said. I feel no pity, oh, not! Because you’ve been nasty, you see. Let me tell you something: Like all murderers, you’re too, how shall I put this, optimistic.
In my now habitual state of disgrace and despair (I’ll never forget how Elena Konstantinovskaya looked at me before she faded away), I turned away from him, wandering west between various rubble-hills which were stuck through with steel spears. So he hated me! I lost myself in a tumble of bricks, a mass of plinths, iron collars, steel strings, rocky guts all crammed under ruined arches. He hated me! I felt as sunless as Dresden in winter. And I dug my way back under the Iron Curtain and into a blindingly bright afternoon in West Berlin, the long white boulevard stretching from the Arch of Triumph to the Hall of the People with its knife-winged dark eagle, the only entity which wasn’t white; the boulevard was perfect and it was empty; beyond the Hall of the People it articulated leftward into the clouds; white parks and guardhouses surrounded me, and then everything faded into a glare so excruciating that I finally comprehended that I would always be in the dark as to the real strategic purpose of this operation.
16
That meant that I must be awake at last: I knew that I didn’t know.
17
As soon as I’d rested, I penetrated beneath the Curtain through a disused S-Bahn tunnel which led to the center of the earth, which I can now assure you is a hemispherical room whose pattern of blue and white tiles have been chessboarded, staired and umbrella’d for centuries. Here I discovered rows of listening devices like pictures in a gallery, each machine affixed to reality by its two wires, each one labeled: ZOYA, VLASOV, GEHLEN . . . They went on and on, infinitely. Where was SHOSTAKOVICH? But after all, I had to see him; I had to face him! In a crypt in Berlin I’ve spied the effigy of an infant whose hand reaches innocently out at the world which he has been denied, while a stone eagle guards him. I was the child within the tomb! I had nothing, not even an eagle, because he hated me.
But I found resurrection in the delicious moonlight of Berlin-East. And like a champagne cork I popped up into the air, speeding into Europe Central! It was quite gusty; I would have enjoyed carrying my Variometer, to check variations in barometric pressure. But my Variometer was another item I’ve lost over the years. Prague’s hills crowded with trees and towers were all dark; Riga was buried under autumn leaves; and in an empty snowy park in Moscow I found Shostakovich walking round and round.
Smeared with iron-colored grime I interrupted his circles; I blocked his way; I snivelled and insisted: Herr Schostakowitsch, I’m sorry—
Indignantly he interrupted: I must tell you this, my dear German friend: I feel it’s the worst cynicism to, to, to besmirch yourself with ugly behavior and then speak beautiful words. I, do you know, I think it’s preferable to say ugly words and not commit illegal acts . . .
But nothing could take me away from him now! He was everything to me. He—and Elena, of course. (Where was Elena?)
Oh, how cold it was! I had to get down and grovel in the snow. But it paid off; I fulfilled my objective. People rarely choose to accept my apologies. But in the end, Shostakovich did. He’s a very nice man.
What I dreamed of by then was inventing a method to bring about a reconciliation between him and Elena (who was codenamed LINA); was I supposed to shoot him before or after that? How about not at all? You see, I’d come to adore the man, and I valued his happiness more than my own. Many’s the time I’ve peeped in on him as he’s composing. When he closed his eyes, I saw how happy he truly was; with my Zeiss lenses I was able to obtain a magnified view of the veins in his eyelids, which pulsed in time with what must have been his Fifth Symphony, described by R. Taruskin as a series of components, gestures or events that are immediately recognizable as signs or symbols whose referents are not specified by any universally recognized and stable code. Now he was smiling! His fingers spread out on the table and he seemed to be playing a complex chord on the piano, or perhaps milking Elena’s left breast—how I loved him for his happiness!
On one of those assassination visits, which now numbered more than the total number of Allied bombing raids on Berlin, he’d confided to me that there was a certain other world he sometimes lived in, a world beneath the piano keys; not caring to hurt his feelings by revealing that I already knew that, I calculated the sum instead: Let me keep this all straight; first there’s Berlin itself, divided into East and West just as Europe is; second of all, there are the four sectors of Germany; meanwhile, within the Soviet zone, there’s this other zone, this place where everything is beautiful and pure (this is why I loved him; this is in fact an extremely Germanic conception); but who can go there? Only Shostakovich himself? Can Elena go there, too? She left him because she didn’t want to go there; but what if she’d actually left him because he believed her capable of entering that world and she knew that she couldn’t? Whenever I listen to Opus 40 I believe that she can, but if that’s the case, where did the operation break down? He’d told me that toward the end she was really trying; she framed the first page of the score to Opus 40, a composition which was truly her as he knew her; and she hung it up on the wall of her little flat on Kirovsky Prospekt in Leningrad, to show him that she, that she, you know (these last six words come verbatim from Shostakovich). All right, but could he ever bring her there? Please God, why not?
He’d also told me of a nightmare which had attacked him for years: He tries to make love with Elena but every time he takes her into his arms the telephone rings.
I begged him for the password. I wanted admission to that world east of East, the world beneath the piano keys. If I only had that, I’d be free; I wouldn’t need to worry about which list the Gehlen Organization kept me on.
He said: But that’s sad, because you’re not my, how should I say, I mean, your name’s not Lyalka! What’s the basis of our relationship? I mean, frankly, you really haven’t been very, you know. Moreover, it’s not your world.
Where is my world then, Herr Schostakowitsch?
Build one, my dear friend . . .
I don’t know how.
So much energy, so much, how should I say, aggression, so much talent! No doubt you could make something look good. You’ve worked hard—
But that’s the kiss of death, Herr Schostakowitsch!
I’m sorry; this is all very . . .
I filled his glass with West German schnapps and he cried: Oh, thank you, thank you!
Then I implored him again, so he said: You can get in, but you can’t get out.
Whatever do you mean, Herr Schostakowitsch?
Where were you in this war? How can you not understand? Never mind. Listen to this chord!
And he closed his hands around the air. I heard a bell-like sound.
Oh, my God! It was the most beautiful sound that I ever did or ever will hear—and the saddest.
I would have done anything for him then; I would even have stuttered like him.
But there remained what Goethe would have called the eternal Elena-question, because, well, how should I say . . . ?
The eternal note! Love Elena or die! Love Elena and die! It must be one of the two. Oh, if only I could, well, you know.
18
The next thing I knew, I had fallen for Elena Konstantinovskaya. To hell with Shostakovich! I wanted her for myself. Oh, don’t tell me I don’t know what Aryan beauty is; I’ve seen Lisca Malbran posing in a peasant dress. But so what if I never saw another film with Lisca Malbran in it? Elena was the one I loved.
At the office, they most definitely weren’t happy. They’d nearly lost their faith in me. I don’t dare tell you what HAVEMANN said . . .
They declined to offer me a chair in the outer office where two men sat diagonally at each oak desk, one of them by the telephone, the other at the typewriter; oak filing cabinets rose all the way up to ceiling, and I longed to know which drawer contained me; probably HAVEMANN knew, but HAVEMANN, after administering his reproof, left me alone, after which no one would look at me. I could scarcely stand myself now—oh, how I longed not to exist!
Finally the buzzer rang. GRAENER and NEY escorted me down the corridor of white steel filing cabinets, turned right at the hall of black steel filing cabinets where an operative stood whistling, pretending to study a certain fingerprint record when all the while he was glaring at me over the top of the document, and then GRAENER and NEY abandoned me on the threshold of the inner office.
Europe Central Page 70