“What if we skipped the concert, just let him audition?”
“An audition will be more difficult. The committee will judge his schooling, his technique, they’ll want see he’s the right kind of candidate, that he’ll uphold their reputation.”
“And you don’t think they will?”
“I say it again, the child doesn’t even have a piano in his home.”
A movement from the corner. Mr. Leibniz’s wife raises her right arm. Mr Leibniz stands and guides the arm back down to her lap, but she raises it again, her head lolling, puppetlike, listening, tuning in to whatever silent impulses are surrounding her.
“Under the desks, under the desks.”
She calls this out in a warbled voice, no strength in the breath, but Maria recognizes something in the words, the force of intent there. This phrase formed a routine that cut through her school days too.
Flakes of snow ruffle against the window, and the old woman turns her attention to these, and Mr. Leibniz shows confusion, his eyes questioning. Maria realizes that his education took place at an earlier time.
“It was a school exercise. In case of nuclear attack.”
“Ah yes. Of course I’ve heard about them.” He sits beside his wife, holds her hand. “They must have been terrifying.”
“Actually, I loved them. I remember very little of school. But I remember the nuclear drills. I remember how we’d do them sometimes on rainy days, straight after assembly, when everyone’s clothes were still wet, and we’d crouch under the tables and I’d smell the damp and steam and feel close to everyone.”
“People talked of nothing else. There were plenty of grand statements about our absolute power, but the fear was so immediate, naturally. Those missiles sitting in Italy and Turkey, pointing straight at us. I’m sure you felt it too as a child, probably more so.”
“I remember raising my head during one of the drills—we were under strict orders to lie still—and looking around and thinking that this is what it would look like if a bomb actually hit. All of my friends crumpled on the floor, only the teacher still standing.”
She laughs at this detail.
“At that age you think teachers are indestructible.”
Mr. Leibniz pats his wife’s clenched hand. “If only that were so.”
After a silence he says, “Katya brings the past in here, she guides my memories, makes me relive the things that departed from me as a young man or things which I chose to ignore.”
“Are there particular years that she remembers more clearly?”
“Yes. Sometimes in the middle of the night, she sits up in bed, listening, hearing things. She has an incredible sensitivity to noises in the night. I know she’s reliving the Stalin years, the months before I was taken away. We had so many nights when we were waiting for a knock on the door.”
“It must have been terrible when it finally came.”
“Not so terrible. There was actually a great sense of relief. I stood in this room in my robe and slippers, and they pushed through from the corridor, surrounding me, and told me to get dressed, and I remember an odd sense of justification, that at least I hadn’t made the whole thing up in my mind. Waiting in dread is an incredible strain.”
“How long were you in the gulags?”
“Ten years. Then they closed them and I came home and stayed out of sight. I tuned pianos and walked in the park.”
Maria rises and steps to the piano near the door, taking it in; it strikes her as being much bigger than the proportions of the room would seem to allow.
“It was a gift. It belonged to an engineer, a lonely man, very respected. When he died, it was passed to me according to his wishes.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“Do you ever play?”
“No. I don’t have that kind of patience. My husband used to, occasionally.”
“Used to?”
“Yes.”
Mr. Leibniz doesn’t press.
She runs her hands along the marquetry designs on the side, takes pleasure in the feel of the curve; like a hip bone.
“Would you have done things differently, before you were arrested, if you could have those years back?” she asks.
“What could I have done?”
“I don’t know. Surely people put up some kind of resistance.”
“There was no resistance. Resist what? There were no rights or wrongs, no grey areas, there was just the system. I did all I could do, I survived. I’ve lived long enough to take care of my wife. That was my only ambition.”
It’s time to go home. Alina is working late and Maria will need to cook. She takes Mr. Leibniz’s hand. His wife is elsewhere.
“Thank you for speaking with me. I’ll make sure Zhenya doesn’t miss any more practice.”
He senses a change in her, a doubt in her grip. He dips his head, seeking eye contact.
“I speak to you as a man surrounded by forgotten years. The only change for my wife and I will be death. Resistance is for the young. And you, whether you realize it or not, are still young.”
Maria smiles and squeezes his hand, a flush of deference in her cheeks.
In the corridor she looks down at the pools swelling around the mat, solid snow transformed into liquid, trickling down into the stairwell. On the floor below she hears movement and the groan of the irritable step. It fires an image in her mind and she continues the sound in her imagination, boots trampling up the stairs, the arrogant strides of authority pacing their way to this landing, knocking on this door, standing where she is standing. Soldiers filling up the corridor. Mr. Leibniz in his robe, dream-muddled. That feeling of utter helplessness, not a single person to speak out for you, a feeling so strong she could reach out and touch it with her hand.
Chapter 25
At half past ten Grigory finishes his shift and makes his way to the cafeteria. The place will be closed, but he has a key. If he hasn’t eaten, they leave a meal for him in the fridge. A tub of mackerel with beetroot and mayonnaise, or sometimes cow’s tongue and roasted turnips. He hardly tastes it, eats it cold. Often he has to concentrate just to lift the fork to his mouth. He rarely uses a knife; the instrument has shed its innocence for him.
First he sees the strip of light below the door. As he nears, he can take in the smell. He recognizes it instantly: zharkoye. One of the other surgeons must have finished as late as he; the nurses and attendants rotate surgeries so their meals are earlier in the evening. He pauses, thinks about turning back for his room; conversation is inevitable. But the smell of onion proves irresistible, the thought of a warm meal so comforting.
He opens the door and sees a woman standing over the cooker. The mother of the boy.
She turns, smiles.
“They said you were almost finished. It’s ready for you.”
The surprise makes him wary.
“How did you get in?”
“One of the nurses.”
“She should have asked permission.”
“From who? No one’s going to deny you a decent meal. They practically kissed my feet when I suggested it.”
“I’m not your responsibility.” He says this and then regrets his words. He can leave his authority back in the surgical ward.