My God, Dmitri Dmitriyevich! I implore you, please be careful! That fellow over there, what’s his name?
Why, that’s our fine, so to speak, friend Comrade Alexandrov. Don’t you admire the sheen of his boots? He always puts the welfare of the proletariat at the very—
Dmitri Dmitriyevich, he’s trying to listen! Shall I take you home?
By no means, my dear Isaak Davidovich. I only wanted to remark that Comrade Stalin was a brilliant composer of orchestral fugues. And you know which instruments he played them on? Why, the, the, the organs, of course! Isaak Davidovich, I’m sorry; I shouldn’t be saying such things; I’m just a sonofabitch—
Elena Konstantinovskaya had told him that during her time “away” her sleep had been continually troubled by the clicking, scraping and shrieking of steel loops along the perimeter-wire as chained watchdogs ran back and forth, lunging at prisoners. He had never been able to forget this detail. It was this which had suddenly invaded his mind as he sat there at Galina’s wedding. Right then he started working out how to transmute it into music, because… Well, how could he say why? That clicking, scraping and shrieking, he’d find a way to include them in Opus 110.
Afterwards, half-drunk or perhaps merely quarter-drunk, he approached the elegantly squarish shaft of the Leningradskaya Hotel (built 1948-53), with its belfry on top, and on the steeple no cross, of course, but a star. He paced slowly round and round.
Dmitri Dmitriyevich, so happy you got our invitation! said the men in raspberry-colored boots. Have you met Comrade Alexandrov? We wanted to talk to you about joining the Party.
Ah, to be sure, yes, yes, Shostakovich replied in a voice as waxen as a corpse’s toes, I promise to apply just as soon as I finish my symphony about Lenin. That way I’ll, so to speak, have something to offer. And maybe I ought to compose a few bars about the German-Polish question. Right now I’m only a worm, you know, only a—so to speak—a worm. But…
Wasn’t your Seventh Symphony supposed to be about Lenin?
Oh, dear, the Seventh, I mean, but at the time I wasn’t ready. Lenin is, well, I myself intend the fullest preparation, in order to do full justice to this topic. For example, the liquidation of classes ought to be expressed pizzicato—
Let’s quit clowning around. We’re more aware than you might imagine of your real attitude toward Soviet power. All things considered, Dmitri Dmitriyevich, you’ve been lucky. We continue looking into your case. Back in ’36, for instance, the only reason you weren’t dragged down with Tukhachevsky was that your interrogator got arrested. Well, guess what? He’s been rehabilitated!
Posthumously, right? Or have you been, so to speak—
The jokes you allow yourself, Dmitri Dmitriyevich! Really, sometimes it almost makes one believe that somebody’s holding his hand over you! Well, think about what we’ve said. We expect your full collaboration. And remember: The “organs” aren’t going to forget you—
This was the time that his First Cello Concerto in E-flat Major premiered. In the last movement was a parody of Stalin’s favorite tune “Suleiko”—so deeply buried, to be sure, that not even Rostropovich, to whom the concerto had been dedicated, could have ever sniffed it out—no matter what the fellows in raspberry-colored boots said, Shostakovich valued his head, oh, yes, good friends!—but when they were all alone, with vodka in their glasses, the composer hummed it out like a furious hornet, and how could they not all hear it then? Su-lei-ko! Rostropovich burst out laughing, but Shostakovich already felt faint and was biting his nails and peering all around him. Rostropovich poured out vodka. Then Shostakovich set out with the Soviet cultural delegation to tour American cities.
In April 1960, when in token of his impending elevation he found himself elected First Secretary to the RSFSR Congress of Composers, Khruschev was there, booming away with his inimitable vulgarity about the good music that any proletarian could hum along with, as opposed to the bad music, the intellectual kind that sounded like “the croaking of crows.” Everyone within reach was compelled to play the sycophant, of course. The luckier ones lurked in darker corners of the reception hall. Shostakovich, of course, clung to that darkness, hiding amongst his colleagues, gazing blankly through his spectacles while a thousand tortured or malignant smiles successively devoured one another upon his lips.
A man in a dark suit was taking photographs. His flash resembled the blinding night-lights of Butyrki Prison. Why not imagine that he resembles this Professor Vigodsky of Elena’s? I must send Glikman over there so that he can tell me what the man, you know. I want to kill him! And they have a daughter now, so it’s… Meanwhile, the blackest vacuum must be conquered; the mission of the cosmonauts was to prevent American astronauts from overcoming our leading position. (At that very moment, the Americans were threatening us in Cuba.) While all the opinions on this matter were enthusiastically the same, the cacophony of untuned voices represented the intonation discrepancies of valve instruments. Now they had spied him out and were spiraling in upon him. When they inquired whether he supported the total Sovietization of space, he nodded obediently. Truth to tell, the planets unnerved him. For some reason he was frightened by the Great Red Spot of Jupiter. No doubt we’d get to Jupiter eventually; our cosmonauts would, so to speak, force the Vistula… The sad, subtle music of “Lady Macbeth” was sounding between his ears—doubtless the only performance in all Russia. That bully Khruschev, he could see him right now singing the part of those workmen who’d thrown the fat cook in a barrel and were feeling her up, pinching her tits and shouting: Give me a suck… ! He’d find a way to concentrate the venom of those measures and inject it into Opus 110. And now Comrade Alexandrov was saying…
He hated them. He hated them all.
Suddenly Khruschev’s forefinger came lunging at him. Shostakovich smiled in alarm.
Now, Dmitri Dmitriyevich here, Khruschev was shouting out, he… well, he saw the light right at the beginning of the war with his whatchamacallit, his symphony.
Shostakovich thought to himself: He speaks with a mixed cadence—no, a deceptive cadence…
That’s right, comrades! cried an apparatchik. Nikita Sergeevich has hit it right on the head! Our Dmitri Dmitriyevich might have brought some unpleasant times on himself, but he’s seen the light!
Khruschev strode up to him and extended his hand. Bitterly, Shostakovich permitted him to shake it. (His arm was troubling him especially today. After 1964 he would be compelled to forgo public performances.)—Why, Dmitri Dmitriyevich, they told me you were as skinny as a rail, and here you are, a regular barrage balloon! You must have been eating your share and more of our fine Russian bread!
Excuse me for that, esteemed Nikita Sergeevich, please forgive me—
Just a joke! Let’s get down to business. When are you going to come around and join the Party?
Khruschev smelled of sweat. His own belly was as big as the rotunda of the Kirov Theater.
Oh, dear, oh, me, sighed Shostakovich. The difficulty is, I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, Nikita Sergeevich, I never could understand the, the, you know, when they talk about surplus value—
Leave that crap to the intellectuals! shouted Khruschev. Just tell me you’re a Party man. Are you a Party man?
I, I support the Party with all my—
Now the epigones all applauded, and the people’s composer L. Lyadova, a woman not exactly his type, rushed over and kissed him… .