In the winter of 1954, not long after reactionary circles in the USA formed the SEATO aggressive bloc, Nina died suddenly. After that, he dreamed that she was calling him. His other nightmares resembled groups of Red Army men and women in uniform, posing in fading photographs. And so he proposed to Galina Ustvolskaya. But she had long since been imprisoned by her awareness that just as in winter the cobalt blue of the Russian atmosphere so quickly greys into darkness, so within him and all his projects any instant of brightness inevitably faded into dreary obscurity. He knew many jokes, to be sure, but in truth it was not very much fun to be around D. D. Shostakovich! That was why she refused him, he supposed. Not that she herself was exactly, how should I put it, fun-loving. All the more reason for her to seek a man who could, well, you know. I’m not saying he wasn’t hurt. But whatever he might have felt or experienced in this regard, let’s just say that it happened in another cadence, a down cadence, naturally, but I, I, anyhow, what’s the point?
He married M. A. Kainova, Komsomol functionary. Well, didn’t Elena used to belong to the Komsomol? (They’d expelled her before they’d arrested her.) Although the main purpose of this union was to gain a mother for his two half-wild children now being brought up after a fashion by the maid Mariya (you see, I endanger everybody, their father used to say, I attaint everybody, and so, so, so, therefore… ), his friends suspected that he’d rushed into this wedding because solitude frightened him almost as much as his own compositions which were now invariably as thick, wide and grey as battleships. But talk about brightness! Everybody he knew was gloomy, or else accused him of being so (Elena, you’re lucky you didn’t marry me); hence why not commit a different error? Now we’ll find out if brightness actually suits D. D. Shostakovich, or whether he’s better off, you know. Margarita, inspired, so she said, by the boats and shining water of Roman Karmen’s “Our Friend India,” which they saw together at the Kino Palace, wanted to go someplace warm for the honeymoon—a beach on the Black Sea, for instance. He almost panicked, and they hadn’t even… I’ve read that when Glikman came to pay a formal visit to the new couple, everybody was silent except for the bride, who proudly announced that she understood nothing about music.—And that’s all to the good, Isaak Davidovich, because I’m going to make Mitya concentrate on important things. Do you know what he’s promised me? He’s agreed to join the Party as soon as the time is right!—Shostakovich hung his head miserably. He sat down at the piano and played a chord which resembled a cold blue September Sunday morning in Prague. When they’d drunk up all the vodka, he walked Glikman out.—Keep him in hand, Isaak Davidovich!—Goodnight, and all my respects to you, Margarita Andreyevna!
Out of pity, the guest had decided to say nothing to his friend, but Shostakovich, trembling and stuttering as they stood in the snowy brightness of the tram stop, cried out to him: Oh, I’m such a bastard, and now I’ve, I’ve, so to speak, disgraced myself before you because I, she drove you away, I realize that, and when I’m with her all I want to do is sit in the corner and not even write music anymore, because she, you see, taunts me; I think she does it on purpose! Don’t you agree? Why didn’t I listen to you, dear Isaak Davidovich? I know you didn’t approve. You probably think I married her just to get a young, so to say, a youngish piece of ass, but it’s the nights, you see, not that Nina and I ever slept in the same bed after Maxim was born, well, hardly ever; there were, if you understand me, moments when we, when, you know, but she mostly left me alone, which was what I wanted; you saw how it was when you stayed with us in Kuibyshev back in, when was it now, in ’42 it must have been, because you’d come for the score of my, my, Seventh Symphony, which was nothing but an, I, I, an intermezzo. Those nights when… I could give you any number of sad examples. Do you remember those years, Isaak Davidovich? If only a German shell had—but at least I got to dream out my music, and she never treated me with indifference.
Of course she didn’t, said Glikman, laying a hand on his arm. Nina loved you.
Yes, oh, yes, she did, my dear Isaak Davidovich, while all the time I…
Glikman, who knew him so well, murmured thoughtfully: That’s right. Last year, when Nina died, that made twenty years exactly, didn’t it?
Shostakovich flushed. (The sickening compassion in his friend’s eyes, he’d write that into Opus 110, too, oh, yes he would!) Then, slowly drawing a line in the snow with his foot, he said: Nina was still alive when it, I mean to say, the anniversary fell, technically speaking, in May. Twenty years! And she herself was twenty. That’s the magic number. Isaak Davidovich, you’re absolutely correct. I don’t suppose you ever hear from, from her. If you did, would you tell me? On second thought, please don’t, because that would be, you know.
As you wish.
I’ve heard it said, hissed Shostakovich in very low voice, that he courted her in a suit. He had a suit even on the front line in Spain. He looked quite dashing then. I think it was the same suit he wore when he photographed Dmitrov—
You own plenty of suits, Dmitri Dmitriyevich.
On the other hand, Lebedinsky says she looks a bit, how should I say, in need, and if I could do anything to… I even know the day in May, and if I ever forget it I still have (I took it with me when we got evacuated from Leningrad) the program from that music festival, when we, it was when I played my piano concerto that I met her; she, she remarked that my music reminded her of the white nights…
With all due respect, you could have married her, Dmitri Dmitriyevich.
Yes, but unfortunately—
Excuse me, but I disagree. She was the one for you. Even after Nina told you she was pregnant you still could have gone through with it. Please forgive me, Dmitri Dmitriyevich, I’m speaking only as your friend—
You’re right, of course. I’ve always been such a coward—
Don’t say that, I beg you! cried Glikman in agony.
You were there, weren’t you? I seem to remember you dancing with her…
I’m sorry, Dmitri Dmitriyevich, but I wasn’t there.
Are you quite sure? Denisov tells me that she wears her hair in a knot now. And that very first night I felt—oh, my God!
Perhaps it’s not too late even now. I could make inquiries—
Everybody knows, isn’t that so? Nina knew, Tukhachevsky knew; my children know all too well; whenever that sonofabitch Comrade Alexandrov drops by he likes to twit me about it. Well, well, let all their actions speak for themselves! It hurts to remember. And I, maybe she’s not, I, I, please tell me what I should do, Isaak Davidovich! Please—
Marry her.
She’s married. To Vigodsky.
Marry her.
Even Galina Ustvolskaya, do you know what she said? I wanted her for a, so to speak, a substitute. I calculated that if I couldn’t have Elena, at least she might… And needless to say I tried to be smart about it. In these times one gets experienced at hiding things! Because I admire her, her, her mind. What a formalist! I mean, a revisionist; that’s how they come after us now. Well, I still know beautiful music when I hear it, thank God. And she… And I also… Well, she laughed in my face! You don’t know what a spiteful one she is! It was quite a situation. We were in bed when I proposed, at which point she—
Are you sure you want to tell me this, Dmitri Dmitriyevich? Perhaps tomorrow you’ll feel embarrassed.