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

the hell out of there as soon as possible. The warning signs, stencilled into buildings, had been left as a cheap memorial to the blockade.

As he and Vassya hurried past one now, Rossel tried to remember the sound of sirens and whistle of incoming fire. But a shrill voice emanating from dozens of loudspeakers along the broad boulevard and exhorting all Leningraders to welcome visitors to the city’s commemorations of the Road of Life drowned out every thought. Except the ones to do with their current quest.

Rossel drew his greatcoat a little closer to him. The wind picked up, stirring the snowflakes into a gently dizzying dance, and he drummed nervously on a round metal container hidden in his greatcoat pocket. When they got to the corner of Mikhailovskaya Street, close to the grand entrance of the Grand Hotel Europe, he saw – exactly as Vassya had said he would – the scaffolding and tarpaulin that hid one of the many entrances to the half-built Gostiny Dvor station of the underground railway system. Since she had helped to design it, Vassya knew her way around.

As it was early evening, no construction workers were about. They looked left and right before crossing to the same side of the road where the Philharmonic Hall was and stepped behind a green tarpaulin. Vassya felt in her greatcoat pocket for a key. Then turned it in the rusty padlock attached to a wood and chicken-wire door and opened it.

*

The service tunnels running under the hotel, the concert hall and various other buildings would be blocked off when the metro station finally opened, Vassya said, but while open they had served several purposes. ‘Storage. Shelter during the blockade.’ And for Rossel, a place to stash the recordings he had returned to recover from the tool box he had hidden in a hay byre at the shore of the lake, as well as a way into the Philharmonic Hall without being seen.

The tunnel ran straight to another makeshift door that led to a basement room, then to stairs behind the stage that ran all the way to the top of the Philharmonic Hall, from where they could observe everything. The hut was small, only about two metres square, and perched alongside a sad troupe of three ageing stage lights, at the very back of the auditorium.

The lieutenant checked his watch: 6:45pm. The performance was due to start at quarter past seven. There were already plenty of concertgoers sitting on the red velvet seats with the gold trims in the circle and stalls. The Philharmonic Hall had been built in a classical style, with huge white ionic columns, five large chandeliers – similar in shape to the ones Sofia had loved so much in her ‘ocean room’ at the Kirov – and could seat over fifteen hundred people.

It would be full tonight.

The Blockade was a hugely anticipated Soviet cultural event. Vronsky’s death could not derail it. As Pravda had declared, the Leningrad City Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had unanimously decided it should go ahead to ‘write forever into history the name of this august hero of Hero City’. Everyone who was anyone was going to be there. And, like the first Leningrad performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7, Vronsky’s work would be broadcast far and wide on loudspeakers to thousands of people in the city centre who had eagerly complied with requests to stand in the cold in Arts Square, next to the concert hall, and listen to this masterpiece.

As well as a small control panel, sometimes used to help with the lighting, the gantry also contained two Magnetophon tape decks which were, on occasion, used for public announcements and to play recorded music. They were hardly used but serviceable. Rossel had done his homework well.

The lieutenant took the round tin from his pocket. He opened it and placed the spool it contained inside the second, and seemingly newer, Magnetophon.

Then he took out two cigarettes, gave one to Vassya, who seemed more comfortable than him at their elevated position, lit them up – checked his watch again – sat back in his chair and waited.

*

Shostakovich looked, Rossel thought – even from this distance – more than a little self-conscious. As if he were hoping that no one could possibly believe the Pravda puff-piece about Vronsky – one which some Moscow hack had so obviously knocked off under orders from the Kremlin and attached the composer’s name to – was anything to do with him.

The composer stood in the middle of the stage, next to a large microphone. He had neat hair and brown-framed glasses, radiated anxiety, and was worryingly thin. It was Shostakovich’s task to deliver a faltering eulogy to Vronsky which, in its clichéd verbosity, had clearly been authored by the same hack who’d churned out the obituary.

Now, dressed all in black, and wearing a veiled pill-box hat, Madame Vronsky appeared. A young woman dressed in a Komsomol outfit handed the composer a large bunch of blood-red poppies. He, in turn, handed them to Vronsky’s mother. This morning’s All-Union First Radio programme had talked of how the deceased maestro’s grieving mother had requested this specific flower and colour as her son had always said it made him think of the ‘many children of our nation who gave up their lives for socialism in the Great Patriotic War’. As she accepted the flowers, the audience rose as one and applauded. After a minute, Shostakovich and Madame Vronsky left the stage and took their seats in the side section reserved for the most important members of the audience. The audience sat and the large orchestra – almost a hundred strong – began to wend their way on stage and tune up.

Rossel waited for the babble to die down. Finally, all that could be heard were the occasional parping of a tuba or the low griping of a violin – the last-minute checks that all was well with the instruments.

Nikitin had a new master