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

Union’s war anthem,’ said Eliasberg. ‘I was handed that list by the political officer who oversaw the Philharmonic Hall. I was told to round them up – I would get help, but mostly it was left to me to find enough musicians to stage this contest. Those six names were already underlined – I swear to you, it was nothing to do with me. Some apparatchik had arranged everything for the contest. I just did what I was told.’

From the bowels of the Bolshoi Dom came a muffled scream. Eliasberg flinched.

‘Many of the names I recognised – some were old comrades from the Leningrad Radio Orchestra. Others were new to me, including those ones you are most interested in. Yet amid the dreadful carnage of the siege, it became the most important mission of my life – to find these musicians, to save their lives, to keep Soviet culture itself alive in a city that was otherwise dying. So I kept the list. At some point I must have tucked it into the score of the Shostakovich symphony, my other treasured souvenir from the war. But I do not remember.’

And in that instant, in that momentary contortion of the maestro’s face, the clues began to fall into line like a parade. If he could just transform the cascade of deductions and connections into one moment of clarity to make it all work, everything would make sense. He was sure of it.

But he had to go step by step. One thing at a time, Lieutenant.

‘Tell me about the great contest, maestro. You conducted the two submitted compositions. What do you remember about that?’

Rossel’s voice was steady. Another papirosa gave him further comfort.

‘The contest pitted Shostakovich against Vronsky – you are familiar with Vronsky?’ said Eliasberg. ‘It was a vicious rivalry for years before the war. There was a competition, an audition of sorts. A contest to find the composition that would be the musical accompaniment to the war effort. A foolish idea.’

‘Why so?’

‘You cannot make music by competition, Lieutenant. Music flows, or it does not. Inspiration strikes and a composer’s ability turns it into something divine or something banal, depending on the talent available. Music by competition results only in bombast.’

‘Are you saying the Leningrad Symphony is nothing but bombast?’

‘Of course not,’ said Eliasberg. ‘Shostakovich had instinctively realised what was required to win. He had already sensed the mood of the people – and the Party. Vronsky was the up-and-coming man at that point, but only his political connections could have won him the contest. I know – I was there. I conducted both submissions for the audition.’

‘And do you remember those compositions?’

‘One of them I know from memory,’ said Eliasberg. ‘The Shostakovich. At the contest it was still embryonic but it was clear how it could blossom into a true masterpiece – the work that became the seventh symphony, the Leningrad. Vronsky’s piece was bizarre – a sinfonia concertante. Six soloists and orchestra, though a much smaller group than the one Shostakovich demanded. Neither one thing nor the other. Insipid stuff – in musical terms, Vronsky never had a chance.’

‘That must have infuriated him,’ said Rossel.

‘Yes, his public mask of indulgent affability, the genial artist everybody knew, slipped. He was furious. Exploded and stormed out after his piece had been played, I remember. But his time has come again with this new opera, The Blockade. While Shostakovich’s reputation has, of late, fallen once again in the eyes of the Party. And in the mind of Vronsky, victory is everything, you see. It does not stop. I have never, in all my life, met a man with such a hunger for personal glory. Even when we were at school together, he was . . .’

Rossel leaned forward.

‘You went to school with Vronsky?’

Eliasberg nodded.

‘Where was this?’

‘On Krestovsky Island, out on Lake Ladoga. Before the revolution.’ A wistful look crossed his grey eyes. ‘At first, for me, it was a very happy place.’

‘At first?’

The conductor shifted in his seat.

‘There were twelve of us in Professor Loban’s class. Only ever twelve – it was the most elite of elite upbringings. Loban’s Apostles, we were called by the servants and ground staff. The tsar owned the palace itself but the royal family were seldom seen there. They allowed respected courtiers and politicians to live in it during the summer months. Stolypin, the prime minister, was the most regular tenant.’

‘Stolypin himself?’

Eliasberg nodded.

‘The very same. His daughter was badly wounded by a bomb – one of the many attempts to kill him. Because of that, I think, he was kindness itself to us children on the odd occasions we saw him.’

Stolypin sent so many suspected Reds to the gallows they rechristened the noose ‘Stolypin’s neck-tie’. The kindness of such a man was always limited, thought Rossel, and highly selective.

‘And Professor Loban? Tell me about him.’

‘Fyodor Loban, a great man, a great educator. He created the school himself from scratch, selecting gifted boys from across the empire, those supremely talented in different areas: science, languages, mathematics and music. Stolypin, when he was chairman of the tsar’s Council of Ministers, funded the scholarships and the school itself. He had an ulterior motive – he wanted to attract the tsarevich Alexei to the school and use this to exert even greater influence on the royal family but the tsarina refused to let him attend. Such a delicate child.’

‘You were one of the chosen? That must have felt like a great honour?’

Eliasberg gave a small smile.

‘As I said, it was a happy place.’

‘Until?’

‘Until the arrival of an unexpected thirteenth apostle. Back then he had a pretentious nickname for himself. Something Greek, now what was it again? Thanatos, yes, that was it.’

Rossel felt an itch prickling across the mark on his neck.

He leaned further across the table.

‘Vronsky?’

Eliasberg flopped back in his chair as if he had been punctured. He breathed in through his nose, more and more, seeming to give himself new energy with the foetid air. At last, he pulled himself upright and