3 Great Historical Novels

by Fay Weldon

  The stethoscope felt icy on his left breast. He couldn’t control his shivering, and he knew this wasn’t entirely from the cold.

  ‘Try to relax.’ The doctor was well trained in remaining expressionless. ‘We don’t want to push up the heart rate before we’ve recorded it.’

  Why, wondered Elias, did he say ‘we’? It wasn’t the doctor who was subjected to indignities, not the doctor who had rough sticks thrust onto his tongue and a light shone in his eyes.

  ‘We’re very thin, aren’t we.’

  The doctor’s comment buzzed against Elias’s ribs, sounding almost like a reproach. Judgement follows me wherever I go, he thought. Like a tick burrowing into his skin, it was, and had always been, the bane of his life.

  The doctor continued to move the chilly metal mouth over his chest, murmuring and scribbling on his notepad.

  ‘I’m a conductor,’ announced Elias suddenly. He wasn’t sure why he said this — except, perhaps, that he was beginning to find the silence in the screened-off cell acutely embarrassing. But his information turned out to be not irrelevant after all.

  The doctor raised his head with interest. If Elias was a conductor, that accounted for the imbalance of muscles between the two sides of the body, particularly in the biceps and triceps. ‘Mind you,’ he added, ‘that fellow Mravinsky is a muscular brute all over.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Now it was Elias’s turn to murmur. Was he supposed to respond to this?

  ‘Mravinsky may look angular,’ explained the doctor, ‘but it’s my opinion this has something to do with the length of his head. His skull is extraordinarily long and narrow, and his high forehead adds to the impression of leanness. In fact, he has the chest of a carthorse, and his arms would do a wrestler proud. My wife has quite a passion for him — as, I believe, do most of the women in Leningrad.’

  Elias’s forced laugh turned into a cough. ‘You’re right. Mravinsky is quite the film star. One stands in awe of his physique, not to mention his technique.’

  ‘Some of us are born to lead,’ agreed the doctor, ‘and some to follow. The important thing is to find your place early in life and accept it. Envy does terrible things to the body. I’ve seen people eaten up by it, like some kind of canker.’ He slid his pen into his top pocket with the confidence of a man who has long known his place in life. ‘Are you resident with an orchestra yourself?’

  Elias squared his shoulders and tried to forget that his torso was covered with goose bumps. ‘Yes, I am. The Radio Orchestra.’

  The doctor appeared unimpressed. ‘I don’t go to concerts often. It’s more my wife’s thing. When we do go, it’s to the Philharmonic, on account of Mravinsky, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ repeated Elias. ‘Why not see the best, especially if it’s a once-a-year occasion?’ He noticed there were small rye crumbs hanging in the doctor’s moustache, as well as what looked like a smear of egg on his shirt.

  ‘Music will be taking a back seat for a while,’ said the doctor. ‘Along with most of life’s other little pleasures, I’m afraid.’ Yet he didn’t sound particularly regretful.

  Elias began buttoning his shirt. If the doctor were a member of the Radio Orchestra, he would tell him to leave. ‘Your presence is no longer required,’ he would say. ‘You may return only when you can prove your diligence is equal to your calling.’ He felt like informing the doctor that he had a total of a hundred and six musicians in his charge.

  ‘I must go.’ The doctor sounded as if he’d lost interest in Elias and his profession which was important only in times of peace. ‘I’ve got another thirty-five men waiting to be examined.’

  ‘What now?’ Irrationally, Elias felt abandoned.

  ‘Your notes will be assessed, and if possible the results presented to you before you leave the hospital.’

  Too late, Elias understood that the shape of his future was scribbled on the sheet in the doctor’s left hand. ‘Could you tell me —?’ he began.

  But the doctor was gone, hurrying away to his thirty-five waiting men, or perhaps, en route, to a bowl of cabbage soup in the hospital canteen.

  Elias sank onto the hard wooden chair, cursing his pride. Why did he always alienate others, however friendly they were? He was so damned quick to take offence, even when none was intended. And now he’d even fastened his shirt wrongly, so the tails hung unevenly over his knees. Mechanically, he began undoing the buttons.

  ‘Karl Illyich Eliasberg?’ A stout nurse peered around the screen.

  ‘Yes, I am Elias!’ He sprang to his feet, crossing his arms over his bare chest.

  She barely looked at him. ‘You’re to wait in the main hallway. The health officers will assess your case and call you when they’ve reached a verdict.’

  Clumsily, hastily, he launched himself after her, his tie trailing. ‘Can’t you tell me if I’ve passed?’ He cringed, both at his ingratiating tone and his choice of words. You’re not hoping for top results in a composition exam, you fool! In fact, if he ‘passed’ this test, his only reward would be a rifle in his hands, boots on his feet, and a terror more complete than anything he’d ever experienced.

  Still, he drifted like a child behind the nurse.

  ‘I can’t say.’ Her feet slapped on the cracked floor. ‘But from what I’ve seen and heard —’ she pushed through the door — ‘you’re not fit for much.’ And with that they emerged into a hallway crowded with men, many of whom turned to stare at the formidable-looking nurse pursued by a half-dressed, bespectacled weakling. ‘I can’t say,’ she repeated, scanning the corridor. ‘It’s not my job.’

  Elias trudged to the end of the corridor. His head was down, but he was sure all eyes were on him, pitying him. The war had ripped open the small safe world of Leningrad, but nothing else had changed. Keeping his eyes fixed on the ground, he concentrated on small tasks: re-knotting his tie, straightening his collar. Soon the desultory conversation, the roll-call of names and the clash of the swing doors merged into a muddy shade of grey that was close enough to peace.

  After a long time he heard his name being called. His heart tripped and started up again, out of time. This was it. He forced himself to look up — and saw a bearded face, tired eyes, a slightly grubby collar. It was Nikolai.

  ‘I thought it was you at the end of the line! What a surprise!’

  Elias let out his breath. ‘Yes, it’s me, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Don’t apologise.’ Nikolai shook his damp hand. ‘I’m glad to see someone I know. I can’t tell you what an ordeal my day’s been — even before I reached this hellhole.’

  Stupidly, Elias stood pumping Nikolai’s arm as if trying to produce water from a well. He found it hard to let go.

  ‘Have you had your medical yet?’ Casually, Nikolai extracted his hand from Elias’s grip and wiped it on the seat of his trousers.

  ‘Hours ago. At least, I think it was hours. I seem to have lost track of time.’ Was it this that was making him feel so odd? Normally he could estimate the time of day to the nearest minute.

  ‘Surely your position will give you exemption from —’ Nikolai looked down the dingy hallway, where men stood leaning on walls or slumped on the floor — ‘from this mayhem and what it will lead to?’

  ‘I believe so. For a while, at least. But I’ve heard of others — others who haven’t allowed their positions to protect them. I feel I should follow suit.’ It wasn’t usual for Elias to volunteer information, but today his tongue was behaving as unpredictably as his hands. ‘Our musical colleagues, for example. Some of our most esteemed colleagues have tried not once but several times to pass the medical. I find this … inspirational.’

  ‘You’re not talking about Shostakovich, are you?’

  ‘Oh, he’s one example,’ said Elias diffidently.

  Nikolai frowned. ‘I’m extremely fond of Dmitri, and his music is ground-breaking — but I don’t know if he’s the best person to emulate. He operates entirely within his own moral system, and effects his own self-imposed duties wit
h little thought of the consequences.’

  Elias looked up at the high windows, at the swaying cobwebs and the pigeon droppings spattered on the dusty glass. He half-closed his eyes against the sun (he couldn’t see, he didn’t want to see). ‘But Shostakovich has such purpose! He’s someone I ad-ad-admire. Someone I t-t-try to —’

  But before his stutter could grow worse, and before Nikolai could voice any other unwelcome opinions, a clerk with a pencil-thin moustache approached them. Mr Eliasberg, he announced, had emphysema of the left lung and had been given a Grade 4 rating, meaning he would not be required for military service in the immediate future.

  Elias stammered out thanks to the clerk, and a farewell to Nikolai, and he reeled from the building. The warmth of the late afternoon washed over him; the air felt like silk. He leaned on the stone balustrade until his legs felt strong enough to carry him. Once in the street he proceeded in his usual composed manner, but his bearing was that of a liberated man, and his relief was so profound that he began whistling under his breath. He stopped only when he remembered that, although he felt as if the war was over, the worst was still to come.

  The march

  All day the sky had looked like the ground. In the morning, the clouds lined up in neat undulating rows, like a freshly ploughed field. Later they dispersed, merging into each other so that by mid-afternoon they resembled an endless grey stretch of sand. The world, it seemed, had inverted.

  Shostakovich — looking up, wiping his hands on his trousers — remembered his first trip to the sea. He’d been five, sickly, wrapped up in rugs. It must have been summer then, as it was now. Through a crack in the cart, he’d seen fields bristling with flax, heard the seed-pods popping, and smelt their honeyed sweetness. When the horse had stopped suddenly — at a gate or a ford — he hadn’t been able to stop his stomach heaving, and a mess of chunky bile dribbled out over the blanket. He’s a bad traveller, someone had said, mopping him up with paper that scratched his chin. Dmitri’s always been the delicate one. The next thing he remembered was being lifted out of the cart, salt air sweeping through his lungs, clearing away the smell of horse-shit and the heavy yellow scent of hay. ‘The sea!’ he’d cried, and he left his rugs lying on the sand and headed towards the vast expanse of ocean. Glittering, unpeopled, it was infinitely more inviting than the cosy dacha behind the dunes, with its rounded rose bushes, a jug of cornflowers on the windowsill and a bubbling pot on the fire.

  Recently, he felt as if he’d lost sight of the sea. He’d allowed himself once more to be wrapped in rugs (institutional, familial) so he could no longer reach that enormous, necessary loneliness. Loneliness was undoubtedly a vital part of it all, though not always easy to achieve. He winced as he remembered the previous night (the pain was far sharper than that of the reddening welts on his hands). ‘I’m working, goddamn it!’ he’d shouted. ‘Get out of my room!’

  Nina’s mouth had become smaller and tighter, as if trying to suppress the drama that always surrounded her husband. ‘Your room! Your home, your children. Everything is yours until it demands something of you, at which point you disappear like a snowflake in a fire.’

  She was right. He’d recognised this even in the midst of his desperation to be left alone. How deftly she exposed his character! As neatly as gutting a fish: no squeamishness or mercy, in with the blade, and there were his innards, spilled out for the world to see. Yes, he admired her astuteness — but he wished she’d get the hell out of his working space.

  Slowly, ostentatiously, she gathered up her books, walked from the room and closed the door.

  Shostakovich watched the door handle; when the latch reached its resting position, there was a click. The noise both sealed him off and liberated him.

  ‘Alone at last,’ he said loudly enough for Nina to hear. ‘Finally, alone!’ She understood the reasons for his fierce demands — why, then, did he always have to fight for his rights?

  And so, with the added pressure of having to prove himself right, he’d written all night, and had turned up for work with the Home Guard with heavy eyes and a body that was already intolerably weary.

  ‘You look tired.’ It was Boris Trauberg, the oafish pianist whose appointment at the Conservatoire had been opposed by both Sollertinsky and Shostakovich. He’d spent the last twenty minutes poking ineffectually at the sides of the trench, sweating profusely, making no progress at all. ‘Little wonder you’re exhausted. Ditch-digging is no occupation for men like us.’

  Shostakovich spat on a callus on his hand and looked at Boris’s shiny face. He resented being placed in the same category as a toad, even by the toad himself. ‘I was working last night. If I look tired, it’s because I only had a couple of hours’ sleep.’

  ‘Working?’ Boris looked annoyed, as if he’d hoped war would level all creative differences. ‘Can we expect another hit for the people — a new national anthem, even?’ He closed his eyes and hummed a few bars of the Internationale rather badly.

  ‘I believe our leader remains happy with the current version,’ replied Shostakovich. ‘Until he commissions a new one, I’ll continue working on my own compositions. Of which —’ he bowed over his shovel, as if Boris the Toad were worthy of respect — ‘of which I can’t speak for superstitious reasons. I’m sure you understand, from whatever it is you’re working on.’ Knowing that Boris had as much artistic ability as one of Sollertinsky’s pug dogs, he waited with interest for a response.

  Boris stared suspiciously at him. ‘I’m keeping in practice, if that’s what you’re implying. It would be foolhardy not to. We’ll only be doing this donkey’s work until planes are organised to lift us out of here.’

  ‘I’m surprised you’re in such a hurry to leave the city that’s offered you such great opportunities. After all, your professional career took root in Leningrad’s Conservatoire and your future is flourishing on its soil.’ Greatly helped, he felt like adding, by the fact that you’re a distant cousin of the cultural minister.

  ‘But I won’t be leaving the Conservatoire.’ Boris pursed his rubbery lips. ‘At present I am digging for it, and soon I will be evacuated with it.’

  ‘The Conservatoire will remain,’ said Shostakovich. ‘Musicians and composers will come and go. But the Conservatoire will live on in its permanence and greatness — exactly, one hopes, as Mother Russia will.’ He spoke as sarcastically as he dared. Opposing the Toad’s appointment had been risky enough, considering the status of his third cousin. Implying that the Red Army might be at a disadvantage — poorly armed and undertrained, lacking in supplies, and especially in expertise after the purge of Tukhachevsky and other experienced generals — well, such an implication might be enough to send Boris bleating to the Kremlin.

  ‘You speak the truth.’ The Toad chose to interpret his words as complimentary. ‘We’re nothing but bricks and mortar in the great wall of national culture.’

  Shostakovich winced. There was no reason in the world to voice such sentiments unless facing a jail sentence or worse. ‘A shabby assortment of bricks,’ he said, glancing at their companions. A few were digging in a desultory way, but most had thrown aside their tools and were sitting in the shade, engaged in earnest discussion. They might as well have been in a lunch restaurant, he thought, or the staffroom of the Conservatoire. The sight of Horowitz waving his puny white arms as if delivering a lecture on nineteenth-century orchestration, and of Possokhov’s skinny ankles protruding from his suit trousers, made his heart sink. Boris was right. These men belonged in concert halls and lecture theatres. As defence workers, they were as useless as babies.

  A young officer strode up beside them. ‘What’s going on here? Why are you wasting time gossiping?’ His voice had only a thin veneer of authority. With his smooth chin and round blue eyes, he looked young enough to be one of their sons. ‘Well?’ he snapped.

  Boris gave an ingratiating smile. ‘We were discussing Comrade Shostakovich’s musical contribution to this confounded war. He was about to elaborate on
his work in progress.’ He glanced sideways at Shostakovich. Now you have to tell me! said his treacherous smirk.

  The officer gave a start at Shostakovich’s name and his right arm jerked, as if suppressing a salute. But he’d been trained to overlook individual attributes in favour of the wider causes of Party and Country. ‘We’re not here to talk music. We’re here to dig! The ditch has to reach the hospital walls by evening, and we’ll stay here until it does.’

  Boris ducked his head deferentially, but once the officer’s back was turned, he winked. ‘We may be hollowing out the ground,’ he whispered. ‘But we’re filling in time, if you get my meaning.’ Slithering into the shallow trench, he jabbed at the rock-hard earth with his shovel. A tiny rivulet of soil, not even enough to fill a thimble, ran over his borrowed boot.

  The officer turned back to Shostakovich. He opened his mouth, but any awkward apology was drowned out by a blast of martial music. Around the corner of the Forelli Hospital appeared a long line of men marching in an unsteady way, three abreast. Some were in threadbare uniforms, but most wore their own thick trousers and jackets.

  ‘Volunteers from the Kuibyshev District. Just look at them.’ Again, the officer’s voice was a tangle of emotions: contempt mixed with what sounded like pity.

  Shostakovich stared at the ragged men. ‘They’re scarcely armed! There’s barely one rifle between five of them.’

  The young officer remained silent. Perhaps it was more than his life was worth to comment on the decision to send men to the front line armed with home-made hammers and swords made from melted-down printing presses.

  The volunteers laboured on, their eyes trained straight ahead. As the final rank approached, Shostakovich dropped his shovel and started forward.

  ‘Fleishman? Is that you?’

  The man at the end of the row turned, and a fleeting smile appeared on his face. He raised his arm in greeting but continued to march.

  ‘Fleishman! Stop!’ Shostakovich took a useless step forward. The ditch between them was narrow, but the space was uncrossable: one was a civilian, the other had become a soldier.