City of Ghosts by Ben Creed (most important books of all time txt) 📕

‘It is not clear,’ replied Rossel. ‘But she was murdered, we know that much. Why, when and by whom? Well, that is why I am asking questions, Marina.’

The soprano leaned out of her chair as if in a semi-swoon.

‘No animal could ever be so cruel as man, so artfully, artistically cruel,’ she said.

Rossel sighed inwardly. She must think he was an idiot. Was it the uniform? An MGB officer would have had her blabbing away but the militia did not command enough respect. He would have to frighten her.

‘I have a recording of Vronsky’s Inferno at home. In fact, I own many of the maestro’s recordings,’ Rossel began. This was true. He had always admired the composer’s work. Vronsky might, at times, be ‘childlike,’ as she claimed, but he wrote symphonies like someone who had lived a dozen different lifetimes and, in each of them, fathomed the wisdom of the ages. ‘Not the one with you in the lead, the one with Ira Malaniuk. She is superb. Wouldn’t you agree? A performance devoid of all superficiality. As I remember there are nine circles in total. Lust, as you say. Limbo, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence, fraud. And treachery. Our glorious MGB would be strongly in agreement with the poet as he reserves the ninth and most terrible circle of perfidy for traitors.’

At the mention of the MGB, Marina put down her cup on the table and straightened her back. Almost as though they had already brought her in for an interview.

‘Then you quote Dostoevsky to me,’ said Rossel. ‘A man who thought and wrote a great deal about murder.’

Marina gazed at him as he stood to leave, all traces of the smile gone.

‘This new piece of Nikolai’s is influenced by Crime and Punishment,’ the singer replied. ‘Themes of thwarted ambition, destiny, sacrifice. He says Dostoevsky is the Dante of the Russian soul.’

Rossel picked up and put on his cap. He gave her a small salute and spoke formerly.

‘Thank you, Marinochka. It will, I’m sure, be of little interest to him but please pass on my own admiration of this sublime new work to the maestro.’

She nodded.

‘Of course. And what of Sofia, Revol? Are you and she still in touch? For a time, you were the conservatory’s very own Tristan and Isolde.’

He coloured slightly. Then shook his head. Why, even after all these years, was it still so difficult for him to hear her name dropped into a conversation?

‘Ah, I see,’ said Marina. ‘Perhaps, in the end, she grew tired of you?’

*

‘You!’

Rossel spun on his heels.

‘Yes, you. Come here.’

The maestro was sitting on one side of the Kirov’s foyer on a gold chaise longue, almost filling it with his bulk. Before him stood a small grey-haired man. The hapless Karlof.

Rossel walked towards them and then stood next to the trombone player.

Vronsky was, it seemed, still in a playful mood.

‘So here you are, our mysterious visitor from the militia. How perfect.’

‘In what way, Comrade Vronsky?’ said Rossel.

‘I saw you from the balcony. Listening – actually listening. I like the way you listen, attentively, with your eyes closed, paying all proper respects.’ He glanced up at Rossel’s epaulettes with their thin red band and two gold stars. ‘Bravo, Lieutenant.’ Then he gestured to Karlof.

‘Despite all aural evidence to the contrary, Vitaly here believes that he is good enough to play in the brass section of Vronsky’s orchestra at the Kirov Theatre. Don’t you, Karlof?’

Karlof took off his glasses and wiped them with a grubby handkerchief before putting them back on again.

‘I have a family, maestro. I have responsibilities. Please, another chance, I beg you.’

Vronsky sat back in the chaise longue and rested his arms on its gold-lacquered back. Like one of the great marble Romanov eagles that decorated the foyer, brought suddenly to life.

‘Vitaly has a family, Lieutenant, and so has been begging me not to sack him. What do you think of that? Some heroic daughter of the Soviet Union has allowed herself to be impregnated by Vitaly’s apologetic appendage. They should give her the Order of Lenin.’

Karlof’s face reddened. He looked as though, family or not, he was about to turn on his heel and leave the theatre. That would be a mistake. One word from the maestro and Karlof would be lucky if his next job was playing in a folk band in a Siberian village. Rossel decided to change the subject.

‘I am a huge admirer of your work, Comrade Vronsky. Symphony number 3, in particular. You broke new ground – I dare to suggest it was the work that marked you out as a pioneer in Russian composition.’

In a crowded field of Russian musical geniuses, either as Soviet artists or exiled ones, Vronsky had somehow found a distinctive voice between the unabashed Romanticism of Rachmaninov, the exhilarating modernism of Stravinsky and the gut-wrenching emotion of Shostakovich. Vronsky took Russia’s suffering and made it sound beautiful.

Vronsky grinned.

‘The Third? Really, you like that? No one plays it now. “Too experimental for the common man, exhibiting an un-Soviet sense of unfettered individuality,” is what that imbecile Denikin wrote in Pravda.’

He tapped the back of two gold-ringed fingers against the chair and began to beat out a few notes of his suppressed symphony.

‘And quite right, too, of course. We do, after all, live in a country where the will of the people and therefore the tastes of the proletariat, be they, on occasions, ever so slightly tedious, are paramount. The Third, eh? You know your music, for a militsioner.’

‘We have met once before, maestro.’

Vronsky’s fingers stopped tapping.

‘We have?’

‘I was honoured to perform for you once, during the war. An ensemble piece, a rehearsal of something you were developing to honour the courage and nobility of Soviet sacrifice. I’m not sure you ever completed it.’

‘And was I impressed?’

Rossel smiled. Then shook his head.

‘No, maestro, you were not. You told us that it was a first-rate composition but our playing had done something impossible and rendered it fifth-rate.’

Vronsky threw back his