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

‘Svetlana. After Stalin’s daughter. In this picture, nineteen. Sveta, Svetochka, Svetulya. My little light, my little flower.’

Nikitin pressed the picture to his lips, as if he was kissing an icon for its blessing. Through the fug in his brain one thought jumped out at Rossel. In the kitchen of his kommunalka, Nikitin had only mentioned one child, a son.

The major was maudlin now. Two tiny droplets pooled in the corners of his eyes and sought a convenient wrinkle down which to trickle.

‘I can’t imagine how it would be for me,’ he said, ‘if little Sveta went missing.’

He kissed his photograph again, a long, reverent fatherly kiss. And then, slumping forward, began to snore.

35

‘Major Nikitin has requested me to interrogate the murderer Eliasberg,’ Rossel said, tapping the conductor’s personal file. ‘Cell fourteen.’

The guard stared at him. ‘Where is the major?’

Rossel’s head was reeling with the vodka but was counting on adrenalin to carry him through. As long as Nikitin didn’t wake up too soon.

‘The major is studying the file of the accused to prepare his case,’ he said. ‘You could, of course, ask him yourself.’

For a second Rossel thought the man would call his bluff. But it took a fool to challenge the orders of an MGB major. The guard pulled aside the viewing hatch and glanced in before opening up.

Eliasberg jumped to his feet and stood next to his chair. He was pale and shaking.

In five paces Rossel was face to face with the conductor.

‘Karl Ilyich,’ he said. ‘You are lying about the list we found in that score of the Leningrad Symphony. I know none of those people was killed by you.’

Eliasberg’s long, soulful face and dark, expressive eyes now looked into Rossel’s own, hunting for what he must believe was impossible: mercy. Rossel gave him a policeman’s wooden stare in return. He walked round to the other side of the desk. Eliasberg’s knees gave way and he fell into the chair.

‘Stand up,’ said Rossel. ‘I did not say you could sit.’ The maestro struggled to his feet once more, hands on the front of the desk for support.

Rossel picked up the list of fifty names. ‘Who are these people?’ he demanded.

Eliasberg’s eyes blurred with tears. ‘I confessed. I willingly confessed.’

Rossel shook his head. ‘In the camps – Major Nikitin says, at best, you will be going there – your life will be in the hands of people who will despise everything about you: the quickness of your mind, the softness of your hands, those academic, bourgeois tones. In Vorkuta recently, I heard they actually chopped a man’s head off with an axe in front of the inmates simply for the purposes of entertainment. They stood around and applauded like it was an afternoon recital. Why are these people on this list?’

The conductor was silent. Rossel knew he was trying to guess the answer his interrogator wanted. For the MGB, that was the ideal state of their prey. For his purposes, it was useless. Galya, his parents, his music. And now Sofia. All mysteries to him. All ripped from him. He needed the truth. It was all that mattered. And though Rossel felt his heart almost still as he acknowledged the thought and all its implications, he was prepared to ignore even Beria’s orders to get to it.

‘Maestro,’ he said. ‘This is my militia identification. Read my name. I don’t care if Major Nikitin or Comrade Beria himself thinks you are guilty. I want to know the truth. You know who is on this list and why, and it has nothing to do with your relationship with Mravinsky. But I think it relates to an event that is very important in my investigation.’

Eliasberg reached out and took the ID in his long fingers. He peered at it for a moment and handed it back.

‘Read the list again,’ said Rossel. ‘And read my ID again.’

The conductor held the paper close to his face. After a moment, he put it back on the desk, very slowly.

‘The first performance of Shostakovich’s seventh symphony in this city was conducted by you and the Leningrad Radio Symphony Orchestra – your orchestra,’ said Rossel. ‘My name is on this list but I was not in your orchestra because by that time I’d first had my fingers broken a few cells down the corridor from where we are now, and then been sent to the front. Other names here were also not members of that ensemble. So, it is not a list of the radio orchestra.’

Eliasberg’s eyes widened.

‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Rossel. ‘I really am not one of them. To continue. Sofia Fedotova was not in your orchestra. She was a singer. She turned her back on music after the siege and became a nurse. Nadya Bazhanova, a clarinettist. Not good enough to make it and joined the MGB. Maxim Avdeyev, French horn. Went to the gulag, came back a priest. An insane one, but a priest all the same. Felix Sorokin. Joined the Red Army. They, plus myself and someone by the name of Gusts Landau, comprise the six underlined names in the list of fifty. The question is why.’

Rossel held Eliasberg’s gaze.

‘Nadya, Maxim, Felix and Sofia were indeed murdered – the MGB is not lying about that,’ he continued. ‘There is another victim who we have yet to identify but Comrade Landau, whoever he was, is a prime candidate. And then there is me. The fact that we are all on this list may be a giant coincidence but I am inclined to doubt it. So, I need to know, maestro, the true nature of this particular list. What was it for?’

Rossel took out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to Eliasberg. The conductor, his hands shaking, accepted. Rossel lit it and the maestro blew smoke out into the air where it hung between them like a bilious fog.

‘Early in 1942 there was a contest to decide whether Shostakovich or another composer would be chosen to write the Soviet