“He’s growing up, Papa,” she said as she accepted the glass of brandy he gave her.
“Yes, he is. He’s a good boy, bright and interested in his studies. He plans to go to the State University and study geology and material sciences.”
“Still? I thought his passion for mathematics would’ve taken over . . . or music,” she added with a wry smile.
“He has an eye for the future, and he knows that the Motherland has enormous natural resources. There’ll always be work in extracting those treasures. He also knows that our comrade secretary has had meetings in the West and sees them as a rival, not as the evil we were led to believe they were. In time they’ll need those resources and they’ll pay. He knows that between us, Koyla and I, we can get him a good job in that line of work.”
“And music will never give him the kind of life he could have working in an industrial company,” she added as she watched the moonlight dancing on the water.
“It’s given you a good life.”
“True and I’m very grateful. And now I’m off to bed. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”
Sergei woke early in the morning and read for a while, did one of the math puzzles in the book his aunt had brought him all the way from England, and then got dressed and went down to the beach to watch the water. There was an onshore wind and the green water was whipped up to decent peaks with frothy whitecaps. He was fascinated by the patterns in the wave sizes and how what appeared to be random was actually very regular. Then he made some geometric shapes out of small rocks and tried to change them by moving as few parts as possible. Finally, hunger got the better of him and he wandered back to the house.
As he stepped onto the lawn he heard voices. He stopped and listened. It was his aunt and his grandpapa and they were talking in the summerhouse. Something in the tone of their voices told him it was not a normal conversation. Very quietly he followed the vegetation around to the back of the outbuilding, so he could listen and not be seen.
“You can’t,” Vladimir said with an unmistakable note of finality.
“Ever? Or not just yet? I told you, I wouldn’t do anything until Sergei was an adult. He’s fifteen, so that’s another five years at least.”
“Ever.”
“But, Papa—”
“But Papa nothing!”
It was a roar of fury, and it made Sergei shrink back into his hiding place. He’d never heard his grandpapa so angry.
“All your life you’ve lived for yourself. If we hadn’t stopped you, you would’ve expressed your views without thought to anyone else. God knows what that would have done to your brother’s career and to mine. I know you disapprove, Yulena, but you can’t leave, it is just . . . unthinkable.”
“It’s not because of my views, I’ve explained that. It’s because of my career, my music. There are so many more opportunities in the West. Amazing orchestras and gifted conductors—”
“And Comrade Kondrashin is not gifted?”
“Of course he is. He’s wonderful, but he’s one conductor and one orchestra. In the West, I could play with many and maybe even make a recording. Other artists are doing it, Papa. They request to leave and the government lets them go.”
There was a silence.
“And their families pay. I see what happens in the government. Yulena, I know how these men work. It’s the disgrace, the shame. A child of mine not wanting to live in the Motherland. How could I explain that? When the country of your birth has given you so much, nurtured your talent and trained you—”
“And I am very grateful.”
“Then show it. And what about us? We’d never see you again. Sergei would never see you again. How could you think about doing that to him? You’re all he has. You’ve been like a mother to him.”
Sergei couldn’t hear what his grandpapa was saying; the voice had been replaced by a roaring noise in his head. It was too awful to think about, his beloved aunt Yulena, gone? He stood up and ran across the lawn toward the pathway to the beach, and something inside him just wanted to keep running forever.
When Sergei didn’t come back to the house for breakfast, Yulena set out to find him. He was at the end of the beach, sitting on a rock watching the boats racing each other in the distance. His back was to her, and he didn’t turn around as she approached.
“Sergei?”
“Why do you want to leave me?”
His voice sounded small and frightened. She sat down beside him.
“I don’t,” she said simply.
“You do. I heard you talking to Grandpapa. I know he won’t let you, but why do you want to go anyway? Everyone leaves me.”
“I want to be a better musician than I can be by living here. I want to play with the best orchestras and have instruction from the best conductors. It has nothing to do with wanting to leave here; it’s more about wanting to be there. In an ideal world I’d be able to learn and have all those experiences and then come back. Bring my knowledge home and teach it to others. But the Party doesn’t allow that, not for the likes of me. If I left, it would be forever. Go if you must but don’t come back.”
“That’s unfair.”
“Yes, it is. Life isn’t fair, and sometimes I think it’s less fair here than anywhere else in the world. Sergei, darling, look at me.”
He turned to meet her gaze. He’d been crying.
“I’m going to make you a promise, and I swear to you I will never break it. Okay?”
He nodded. She picked up his hand and cradled it between her palms.
“I promise that I will never leave. I’ll never do anything that means I can’t see you anymore. Whatever happens, I will always be right here.”
Slowly his face was split by a smile, and she could see relief in his eyes.
“That’s very good,” he said quietly.
“Nothing in the world means as much to me as you, not even my precious violin. Now, I bet you’re hungry.”
“Starving.”
“Good, because there are sausages and grenki with your name on them!”
The music swirled around him as he closed his eyes and listened. The scherzo had sounded technically demanding and frenetic, as if the man were possessed. When the passacaglia started, Sergei stirred suddenly in his seat, because it was a motif he recognized. It was the Stalin theme from the Seventh Symphony and a little bit of—what was it? He knew it, almost there. It was Beethoven! It was the fate motif from the Fifth Symphony. Aunt Yulena would be so impressed that he recognized it. As the movement progressed, the violin seemed to cry above the deep resounding notes of the orchestra, as if its heart were breaking.
Sergei sat in the Great Hall with his grandparents, mesmerized, listening to David Oistrakh play Dmitri Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto no. 1 in A Minor with the Moscow Philharmonic. Somewhere on that stage his aunt was playing her Guarneri violin; he couldn’t see her but he was sure he could hear her. Oistrakh played the 1702 Conte di Fontana Stradivarius and Sergei definitely agreed with his aunt’s opinion: her instrument was superior. But this piece of music was important and Sergei understood why.
Between 1948 and 1955 the piece was banned after Shostakovich’s second denunciation, but now the world could hear it, in all its glory. Music was the rhythm of life, and no matter what the Party did or said, they could never suppress the soul and spirit of the people, expressed in music! His heart swelled with pride at the thought of all those people sitting behind them listening to this exquisite composition, and some of the most beautiful sound was coming from his aunt and her violin. One day she would be center stage and he’d be right there to cheer her on.
Chapter 36
Russian Embassy, London
Winter 1965
It was a freezing cold concrete room with just one small table and two chairs. Yulena shivered and drew her wrap tightly around her body. She wore a thin black evening dress, her
performance dress. At her feet sat the violin case and she glanced at it regularly, as if to reassure herself that it was still there.
So they’d ordered her to return to Moscow. Why? And why had she been brought here instead of taken to the hotel to collect her things? The guard had said they’d take her to the airport. She hadn’t argued, much.
Other guards were talking to the remaining three members of the quartet independently, and she assumed they’d meet up again at the airport. But this room truly frightened her; this room had a bad feel. It wasn’t in the dungeon, it had no sense of the Lubyanka, and besides she was a war hero, with a Gold Star, they wouldn’t dare. The door swung open, and a man in a military uniform stepped into the room. His insignia told her he was a captain.
“Comrade Valentina.” His voice was cold, his eyes blank, his face expressionless.
“Good evening, Captain.”
He sat down.
“What do you know about ideological subversion?”
“What?”
Her astonishment was genuine. His expression, or lack of, didn’t alter.
“How long have you been a practicing lesbian?”
There was a sudden stab of fear through Yulena’s chest.
“I want to talk to my father on the phone,” she said quietly, “Colonel General Vladimir Valentino.”
The day that changed Sergei’s life forever started like any other. He was in his first year of getting a bakalavr’s degree in geology at Moscow State University, and he loved the work. It was his aim to finish this degree inside the normal four years and then work for another two years to get a magistr’s degree, before taking a job in one of the huge State-owned mineral refining companies.
His grandparents supported his plans and were considering retiring to the dacha in Sochi, which would leave the large Moscow apartment his alone. His father had returned to Moscow to work for the new general secretary, Comrade Leonid Brezhnev, leaving his German wife behind. Koyla didn’t want to live in such luxury and couldn’t imagine living day to day with members of his own family, so he had been given a small apartment close to the Kremlin. Yulena was in Europe with the quartet, and Sergei knew his grandpapa kept in regular contact with her. Sergei loved to speak to her on the phone, and she told him all the new English words she’d learned, even if there was usually a terrible echo.
On this day he finished class and walked briskly across the frozen ground to catch the Metro home. He was already showing the build of his grandfather, but his body was heavily muscled from the ice-skating and football he loved. As he reached the apartment building he stopped. Something was different. There was a plain black car parked outside, innocent enough, but his lifetime of experience told him this was a Party car. He took the steps two at a time and paused again outside the main door; there was a muffled sound he couldn’t identify coming from inside. Quickly he unlocked the door and opened it.
They were in the lounge. His grandpapa stood at the window, his back to the room, his broad shoulders slumped. His grandmama sat on the sofa, her face in her hands, sobs shaking her whole body. His father was beside her, his face pale, his hair streaked with gray, and his cheap, ill-fitting suit straining against the muscles in his arms. A man Sergei didn’t know stood apart, in one corner, a hat in his hands, his eyes downcast. Sergei recognized instantly that it was a tableau of grief.
“What’s happened?”
Everyone looked at him.
“Sergei.”
His grandmama’s voice almost caught in her throat, as if the thought of him had suddenly occurred to her. His grandpapa strode over to him and hugged him very tightly. Sergei could smell pipe tobacco and old sweat. What could’ve upset them all so much, something too awful to contemplate, too terrible to articulate into a question?
“Sit down, my boy.”
He guided Sergei to the sofa, beside his grandmama, who reached out a hand and stroked his hair. His father spoke for the first time.
“We have something to tell you.”
“Who’s died?”
“What makes you ask that?” His father’s voice was sharp.
“Whatever’s happened, it’s very bad and that usually means someone’s died.”
“Your aunt has had an accident in London. She was told to return to Moscow and two security guards were escorting her to the airport—”
“Is she dead?”
Sergei shouted at his father, rising to his feet at the same time. It was his grandpapa who intervened and turned the boy around to face him.
“Yes, she’s dead. We don’t know—”
Sergei wrestled away from him, ran straight to his room, and slammed the door, throwing himself on the bed and screaming into his pillow. An emotion he’d never felt before was forcing its way up his throat. He could taste the acid bile in his mouth. He felt sick, and he wished the ugly sound he could hear would stop. Someone was screaming. The door opened and his grandfather walked quickly to the bed. Sergei sat up and threw himself at the old man’s chest. The large arms held him tight, and the screams turned to heartbreaking wrenching sobs from deep, deep within his soul.
They weren’t told much more. She’d begun to party with the European jet set and had slipped away from her escort to meet regularly with a Soviet exile, Sasha Orlov, who was living in London. When she was warned about her behavior, she ranted to her escort about lack of freedom and Party oppression. They feared she was going to defect so they ordered her back to Moscow, but on the way to the hotel to collect her belongings there was a car accident. They would send her body back for burial, and all her possessions would be returned to her family. Vladimir applied for permission to travel to London and bring her home himself, but that was declined. Comrade General Secretary Brezhnev himself told him to be patient and to wait for her to be returned to the Motherland, where she’d be buried with all the honor due a Soviet war hero.
Sergei was inconsolable. He refused to believe that his aunt had had any intention of defecting. She simply would not have left him, of that he was certain. He told everyone about the promise she’d made to him three years earlier at the dacha, and then he decided she’d been murdered by the KGB. Finally his grandpapa had to talk severely to him and tell him that such stupidity must stop. It was a tragic accident and that was that.
In the end, Vladimir declined a military funeral and they buried her in the Novodevichy Cemetery, within the leafy gardens of a tranquil convent situated inside a bend in the Moscow River. She was surrounded by some of Russia’s most famous poets and writers, and Nada remembered that Yulena had once told her that her beloved professor Dmitri Shostakovich had expressed a desire to be buried there. Her headstone had a violin engraved on it and a quote from Beethoven, “To play without passion is inexcusable!”
Sergei visited her grave as often as he could and brought her flowers and poured out his heart to her. When her possessions were delivered to the apartment, he took the violin to her and plucked the strings, held it in his arms, and promised her he’d always keep it safe. Vladimir wanted to discuss what to do with the violin, but Nada persuaded him to leave it for now, to let the boy keep it as a comfort until his grief had abated.
There were a hundred things he wished he’d said to her and now it was too late for all but one. When no one was around to overhear, Sergei swore an oath to his aunt that he would discover the truth about her death, that one day someone would be held accountable.
Chapter 37
Moscow
Spring 1990
Something inside of him made him feel like running, or skipping, or cartwheeling, an unusual emotion for a large, forty-three-year-old man. He was wandering through the Hermitage Gardens, his favorite park. You could keep Gorky Park; this place had an air of culture and refinement about it. People sat and played chess in the early spring sunshine, stretched out on the banks of the pond and read books, or strolled arm in arm through
the stunning gardens. It made Sergei feel alive just being here, being back in Moscow after so many years.
He’d graduated in 1971 with a magistr’s degree and joined the exodus to the Urals but more willingly than most. The Urengoy gas field was in need of prospecting, and instinct told Sergei it’d turn out to be worth the trouble. Discovered in 1966 just south of the Arctic Circle, it was to be the world’s second-largest natural gas field with over ten trillion cubic meters in deposits.
After a short, successful career in natural gas, he’d moved on to something more glamorous, diamonds. It meant moving east, to Siberia, but the Mir diamond pipe was a strong pull. And so he found himself in the town of Mirny. Once again it was just below the Arctic Circle, where winter could last up to ten months of the year with the temperature -50˚C or colder, and the brief summer would bring temperatures in excess of 40˚C. Nowhere else on earth was the temperature range so extreme.
After the war, the Soviet Union had found itself totally dependent on the De Beers cartel for the supply of industrial diamonds; without diamond drilling stones you couldn’t prospect for oil and gas, without diamond die stones you couldn’t produce precision parts, and without diamond abrasives you couldn’t grind machine parts or armaments. So prospecting had begun in earnest and eventually resulted in significant discoveries in one of harshest climates on the planet.
When Sergei first arrived, he was confronted with environmental problems that seemed insurmountable: steel tools frozen and brittle, oil frozen into solid blocks, and rubber tires that shattered when you tapped them. Then when summer came, the permafrost became a sea of mud. What began as a search for industrial diamonds had become a huge source of gem diamonds, two million carats a year, a production rate that rose dramatically over the years to come.
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