Dr Berlin

by Francis Bennett

  It was an occasion without formality. There were no speeches, no toasts, no formal words about Radin or his achievements, though his spirit, Berlin felt, was everywhere in the room and was given further life by Olga’s photographic record of her father.

  The conversation throughout the evening centred on Viktor; there were stories about working with him, about bruising encounters with his refusal to climb down when he thought he was right. Anecdotes were recounted of his eccentricity and his courage, particularly his inability to conceal his dislike of those who lacked the scientific understanding to recognise the importance of what he was doing, yet who had sufficient political power to thwart his plans. Berlin felt a certain comfort in the presence of those who had known and admired Viktor in a life where, he imagined, his advocacy of his own rightness must have made him many enemies. He had survived on the strength of his achievements but he must also have had powerful protectors, some of whose identities he was probably unaware, yet without whom he might well have been abandoned years before. In the Soviet Union, achievement was no guarantee of survival.

  Listening to stories about Radin and telling his own, seeing photographs of that familiar face at different stages of his life: the domed skull, the piercing, attentive eyes, the way he pushed his head forward when he talked to you, replaced Berlin’s memories of the shrunken figure in a wheelchair in a hospital garden outside Moscow. However briefly, the Viktor Radin he had known and loved was restored to him. Perhaps, after all, the state had got it right. Radin wasn’t dead, only absent.

  ‘Will you do something for me, Andrei?’ Olga had taken his arm. ‘Will you talk to Natalia Kuzmin? She’s Peter Kuzmin’s widow,’ she whispered. ‘Over there. By the window.’

  He’d noticed her when he arrived, standing alone, looking down at the street below. She had a glass of wine in her hand but she had hardly drunk from it. Her face was pale and drawn, her thin hair pulled back in an untidy attempt at a bun. She radiated a quiet desperation. Berlin had seen no one approach her or recognise her presence.

  ‘Peter worked with Father at Baikonur,’ Olga explained. ‘He was killed in an accident a few months ago. Since his death, there’ve been all sorts of stories about his failures. He’s been made the scapegoat for everything that’s gone wrong. The authorities are using these rumours as a reason to deny Natalia a state pension. She no longer has my father to protect her, and it seems no one else has the courage to take his place. She has two young children to bring up. Go and talk to her, poor woman. She’s so desperate. People hear these rumours about her husband and avoid her.’

  Olga was distracted by one of her guests wanting to say goodbye. Berlin was relieved. He had no stomach for a conversation with Kuzmin’s widow. It was cowardly, he knew, and he felt guilty. She was an innocent woman, suffering for losing a husband whose death was used by those more powerful than her to conceal their own shortcomings. Facing her desperation would be like meeting his own, and he had no wish to do that.

  ‘Andrei, my friend,’ a deep voice boomed across the room. Berlin was embraced by a man in a general’s uniform. General Orenko’s large frame was now covered with loose flesh. The athlete’s body that Berlin had admired when he was a schoolboy had become overweight in recent years and was now paunchy and soft. The muscles that had once hurled the javelin so far had slackened and turned to fat. Igor Orenko had been his brother Anton’s friend. He had not aged well.

  ‘I hear a whisper about a visit to Cambridge. Is that so?’

  ‘Not from Anton, I trust?’

  Orenko smiled. ‘Unless my information is wrong, Anton is somewhere beneath the Polar ice cap, guarding us while we sleep against threats of war from the West.’

  ‘Who then?’ Berlin asked.

  ‘A good general never reveals his sources.’ More loud laughter. ‘Shall we just say a little bird told me?’

  ‘I’ve been invited to give a series of lectures in October.’

  ‘Autumn in England. What better time to be there?’ Orenko smiled. ‘Viktor always said you were a fortunate man.’

  ‘If Viktor told you that, he was mistaken.’

  The general produced a leather wallet filled with cigars. ‘Would you care for one of these?’

  Cuban cigars. He hasn’t seen one for years. ‘Thank you, no. I prefer my own.’

  ‘I saw Viktor the day before you did,’ Orenko said between puffs as he lit his cigar. Berlin noticed that he had carefully steered them into a corner of the room. ‘He told me he intended to give you Engineer Kuzmin’s report predicting the disaster at Baikonur. I presume he did so?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you believe what you read?’

  ‘Not at first.’

  ‘What made you change your mind?’

  Berlin hesitated. Should he speak openly to Igor? They had known each other for most of their lives. It was a risk but one he was prepared to take.

  ‘Some days later I read Viktor’s account of the death of Cosmonaut Alexandrof. There were undeniable similarities between the two accounts.’

  ‘How did you react to what you learned?’

  ‘I was shocked. If both accounts are true—’

  ‘I have had both documents checked for authenticity. They are genuine, I can assure you of that.’

  ‘It appears we are living through the history of an illusion.’

  Orenko studied the end of his cigar. ‘You are not alone, my friend. All of us are victims of the same illusion, though too few of us are aware of the risks we run.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Viktor was one of the few who understood what was happening.’

  Berlin had never heard Viktor speak about the general, yet Orenko was giving him the impression that there had been intimacy with Radin. Was that true? Or was Orenko trying to convince him that he and Viktor had been close? If so, for what purpose?

  ‘When the First Secretary made public the revelations about Stalin’s crimes at the Twenty-second Party Conference,’ the general continued, ‘many of us – and I was one of them – imagined that our society would become more open, that the constraints imposed on our lives would be relaxed. We were deceived: little has changed. We are paying a high price for that deception. Viktor predicted what would happen if significant changes were not made, and he has been proved right. The destruction of his rocket and Alexandrof’s unnecessary death were caused by a malaise that is the inevitable consequence of our corrupted system. Its effects are not limited to Baikonur. They are increasingly visible everywhere.’

  He knocked the ash from the end of his cigar with his finger and examined its glowing tip.

  ‘Now Viktor Radin dies, and within a few days of his death we have the First Secretary, on a visit to Romania, promising to build an orbiting satellite from which we will launch nuclear missiles against America. Where did he find that idea? It’s nonsense. We’d need ten Radins and double the resources to make that work. It isn’t going to happen. At the same time the Kremlin insists that Radin is not dead. Such a lie is unsustainable. Sooner or later, the West will penetrate our illusion, discover how weak we are and perhaps then take their chance to strike against us. That will force us to move quickly to our only defence, nuclear weapons, which will destroy us as much as those we fight. Does that prospect not terrify you?’

  ‘Of course it does.’

  ‘How can we stop it happening? Unless we do something, we will be dragged into a conflict we cannot avoid.’

  Olga suddenly appeared by his side. ‘Igor,’ she says. ‘Your driver has arrived.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Orenko turned back to Berlin. ‘That is the question that deeply concerns some of us. How do we stop the inevitable happening?’

  2

  They are alone in Vinogradoff’s apartment. Today Kate is playing as she played when he first heard her in London, and she doesn’t need to look at his expression to know that Vinogradoff is pleased. She has caught the mood of the music, the light, delicate touches when the notes seem to be dancing; the solemn, soulf
ul moments that banish any thoughts of joy or pleasure, and then the powerful movements up the scale as the theme struggles to reach a bridge into a new world of hope and contentment, to complete its harsh and difficult journey from the pain of the present towards the hoped-for peace of future redemption. She has found a musical voice in Moscow, and she knows it is her own.

  The last note vanishes in the silence of the room. Vinogradoff suggests she play another piece for him and she does so, relieved that the gift she thought she had lost has returned, and that now she can justify his faith in her. When he tells her finally it is time to stop, she is reluctant to end this wonderful morning of discovery.

  As she gathers her music from the stand, she is aware of an unusual nervousness in Vinogradoff’s manner, as if he has been dreading the moment of her departure. He remains silent. She is sure he wants her to stay but she does not understand why. He stands some distance from her, watching her put away her music, his expression full of anxiety, struggling to find words, when usually he is full of gossip from the private world of Moscow music. A muscle in his cheek twitches involuntarily, dragging at his eye. He is a highly strung performer, and wrestling with inner tensions is to be expected in a man of his temperament but somehow she senses that the source of his anxiety lies elsewhere.

  ‘If you have the time,’ he says, his voice suddenly conspiratorial, ‘there is one more thing I would like you to do. Of course’ – this said backing away from her – ‘I would not want to delay you if you have somewhere more important to go.’

  She has no idea what he wants, but he is her teacher, the man who will make a musician of her. How can she refuse?

  ‘You are under no obligation,’ Vinogradoff says. ‘This request is outside the arrangement we have made. If you would prefer not to, I would understand.’ He puts his hand through his hair. ‘Perhaps it would be better that way. Perhaps I am asking more than I have a right to ask.’

  ‘Of course I’ll stay. What could be more important?’

  For a moment he is frozen by her decision, as if he cannot believe her reply. Then he unlocks his briefcase and takes from it some music which he gives to Kate.

  ‘Please play this for me.’

  She is pleased he wants her to play again because her head still swirls with the exhilaration of the piece she has just finished. She looks quickly at the score. It is a solo cello part, the music handwritten. It has no title, there is no composer’s name, nothing she recognises.

  ‘Who wrote this?’ she asks, taking her place on her chair once more.

  ‘Play it for me.’ The command in his voice startles her. He has never issued an instruction before. ‘Now. This moment – before I lose my courage.’

  She does not understand what he means but she responds to the urgency in his voice. She settles the music on her stand and begins to play, long, sweeping notes in the lower register. Vinogradoff listens intently, his eyes closed in concentration, his fingers covering his face. Almost immediately she is inside the music; she is a river flowing sedately through green meadows on a warm summer afternoon. The sound she is creating is the life of the river – brightly coloured butterflies playing over the surface of the water, a kingfisher waiting for its prey, a dragonfly hovering, a trout leaping out of the water to catch a fly, carp resting from the afternoon sun in the shadow of the river bank, the green stems of reeds bending gently with the stream.

  But the music is more than description, it is the fate of the river itself, unstoppable, inevitable, life-bearing and life-threatening, slow here, faster there, eddying or racing over stones as it pushes its way inexorably towards the sea.

  It is music that she can instinctively understand, about struggle and survival, about journeys, the joy of arriving, the pain of leaving. About coming to Moscow and the difficult process of finding out who she is, of falling in love, of the fear of losing that love for reasons that she can never hope to overcome.

  The last note fades like a view losing itself in the distant haze of a summer afternoon. When she looks up, Vinogradoff is staring at her, his eyes wet with tears.

  ‘Thank you, thank you,’ he says quietly. ‘You played it as if you had known the piece all your life.’

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ she tells him. ‘I am grateful to you for letting me play it.’

  ‘You have given me great pleasure.’ He bows before her, a gesture she has seen him make only to his audience. ‘That was your best performance since you arrived here, and it is music you have never seen before.’

  ‘It is yours, isn’t it? You composed it.’

  She is whispering, as if they might be overheard. Vinogradoff doesn’t answer at first. She knows why. He is weighing up whether he can trust her with his secret.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was that the first time you’ve heard it played?’

  The question seems to take him aback. He clearly wants to say as little as possible, to close the incident as quickly as he can, to get on with his life as if the last few minutes had never happened.

  ‘I have heard it in my head many times but never before played by someone else.’

  She is astonished. ‘Why did you give me the privilege? I’m your newest student – I’m not even Russian.’

  ‘I thought you might understand it,’ he says. ‘I did not know it at the time, but the way you played, I might have written the music for you.’

  ‘How can I thank you?’ she asks.

  ‘By telling no one. No one. By keeping my secret.’

  He has taken a huge risk letting her play even this small part of his composition, and now she has to convince him that she – a foreigner – knows the importance of what he is saying to her, that his secret is safe with her. In this strange society that she is struggling so hard to come to terms with, she has discovered that there are harsh penalties for private acts that would go unremarked at home in England. Betraying a secret can lead to arrest, trial, years of imprisonment or worse.

  ‘Promise me you will tell no one that you have played this. No one, however close.’ There is a desperate appeal in his eyes that she has never seen before. ‘This must remain our secret. In this strange country, one can never be sure who one’s friends are. If people learned about what we have done this morning, it might be difficult for both of us.’

  She looks away, unable to absorb the probing intensity in his expression. How can music, the pure, gentle sound of a cello, pose any kind of threat? What kind of madness rules their lives?

  ‘I promise I will never tell anyone,’ she says. ‘You may trust me to be silent.’

  The tic in his face relaxes. He returns his composition to the depths of his briefcase.

  ‘If I had not believed that, I would never have taken the risk of letting you play my music.’

  He takes her hand and kisses it. How terrible that playing a piece of music can make them conspirators. In this world of secrets, she now has a secret too.

  3

  Avoiding Bill proved more difficult than Marion had imagined. She hadn’t anticipated his frequent telephone calls, nor the frantic notes he left in her pigeonhole. She found the increasing volume of his appeals painful to ignore.

  I have to see you, Marion, he wrote. It is very important. When can we meet?

  She imagined her silence was sufficient reply. She had not allowed for his persistence nor his desperation. Early one morning, she answered a ring at her doorbell and there he was, a tired, unshaven figure, looking as if he hadn’t slept for a week.

  ‘I’m sorry, Marion. I know it’s early. Please forgive me. But I must see you.’

  ‘Come in.’

  She led him into her small sitting room and drew the curtains. He sat down. She perched on the arm of the sofa, pulled her dressing gown tightly around her and waited. When he spoke his words burst out of him. What he was telling her, he said, he had told no one else. She felt cold at the thought of how central to his life she remained.

  ‘They told me last night that Jenny’s never
coming out of that dreadful place; she’s been declared insane. She has no understanding of the present any more, she’s lost all connection with reality. She doesn’t even recognise me when I come to visit – she screams when she sees me and tries to hide. She thinks I’m someone who’s come to kill her. Her doctors have asked me not to visit for the time being because my presence so upsets her. She’s vanished into a fantasy world of her own invention, and she’s never coming back.’ He paused for a moment to catch his breath. ‘I felt like an executioner, leaving her there on her own. I know it’s for the best but that doesn’t stop me feeling guilty.’

  ‘I’m sorry it’s come to this, Bill. It must be awful for you.’

  He reached for her hand and held it against his cheek. ‘Marion, please—’

  ‘No, Bill, don’t. It’ll only make the pain worse.’

  ‘You must hear what I’ve got to say.’

  ‘Of course.’ She hated herself for agreeing, but how could she not?

  ‘I’m going to divorce Jenny. She won’t know anything about it, thank God. I signed all the papers a few days ago. I will be free soon, Marion. We can have our life together, the life I’ve dreamed of. We can help each other write the books we’ve always wanted to write. Without Jenny I can rebuild my career. I know I can – but only if I have you, Marion. I must have you beside me. You’re my hope, my strength. I can’t do this without you. You’re the only one who can bring me back to life.’