When they got home, she wanted to know the wife’s fate. He couldn’t believe that she didn’t know. Of course it was all in Opus 110, but I admit that that’s elliptical; all the same, you’d think that, well. Sitting down at the piano bench, resting his aching wrists on the lid which mercifully hid the extended grin of those black and white keys, he told her, watching her reflection in the shiny wood between his hands: The first one, er, shot herself. During the Civil War. That must have been very… Although I myself—don’t look at me like that, Irinochka! They say she was caught stealing bread, and didn’t want to disgrace her husband. I never asked him anything, of course. And the second one disappeared.
But—
In a poisonous whisper he breathed into her ear: All right, then, she got liquidated by the “organs.” After they liquidated him, obviously; I mean, you wouldn’t want to put a finale before a—
Her eyes became as big as bomb craters.—Mitya, are you sure she wasn’t implicated? I don’t remember those times, of course, but—
Yes you do! he shouted. We all remember them!
His voice diminished into something as unnerving as a gap in the front line, and he said: But we, we pretend, you see…
Anyway, said Irina steadily, the performance was very beautiful.
And he shot, I repeat, he shot your own father, yet you’re so naive as to maintain—
Be careful, Mitya! Anyhow, my mother said—
To protect you, you little fool! Don’t you even know that much? And from a Polish father, a Jewish mother, how could you not know what goes on in this world? And then what happened to your mother, you, well, that’s how it is for all of us. Irinochka, please, please forgive me for my, for, for speaking to you in this monstrous fashion; I know I’m a… Poor child! What a lot of pain I’ve caused you! And you knew it anyway, didn’t you?
Breathing heavily, she said: You say all this, and meanwhile you joined the Party.
At this he punched himself in the face again and again with his half-crippled old fist.
Well? she said.
It was blackmail, Irinochka… If you love me, you won’t dig that up… Khatchaturian’s been a member for years…
He lived on to 1964, the thirtieth anniversary of his first meeting with Elena Konstantinovskaya, when the decay of his limbs and joints compelled him to forgo all public performances. (After all, in the Soviet Union aren’t old relics an offense against history?) My dear friends, are you familiar with that statue who lost his hands in Dresden, from the Allied, you know? That’s how it is now, with D. D., how should I say, Shostakovich! Retaining his civic capacities at least, he rose in the assembly hall, panting and trembling a little, splaying his aching fingers like tree-roots, gazing into the socialist horizon beyond the microphone, and expressed his confidence in the future. He was one of our reliable leading cadres. Every time he spied anybody in authority, a policeman or even a janitor, he felt sick with terror. Glaring at the yellow drapes, pretending that he didn’t know that this slogan had been discredited, he declaimed to his fellow Party members: LIFE HAS BECOME BETTER, COMRADES; LIFE HAS BECOME MORE JOYFUL. People begged him to be more careful.
Anyway, he muttered to his friends, it’s over. The second movement was the worst.
Mitya, you’re drunk and you really don’t look so good. Whatever do you mean?
Opus 110, naturally. That’s when we all died. I wrote the second movement like a Katyusha: eight rocket launchers in a go! It was supposed to be horrible. But now they’ve killed us off, so we don’t have to be careful.
This was the year when he publicly denounced the Soleil des Incas of E. V. Denisov. The golden sheen of his Medal for the Defense of Leningrad was alive on his breast with armed figurines oriented left, making a wall of guns and bayonets against the enemy; above them, a central tower climaxed in a Soviet star.
Staring as though his features were as terrifying as the bomb-crushed face of some stranger who’d introduced himself a quarter-hour before, Denisov asked why he’d done it. He replied: Well, well, Edik, you know, because I was frightened, of course…—(A Party functionary had been there.)—It’s, it’s, just the same as at movie theaters when we all rise to, to the Horst Wessel Song! Or, or, or Deutschland über Alles! I mean, you can… In fact, I consider Le Soleil des Incas to be a, well, a masterpiece, a real masterpiece. Acoustically speaking, the barbed wire of the second movement is as distinct and cleanly patterned as the concentric polyhedrons of a spiderweb. This is not a work for idiots. I sincerely hope you won’t alter a single note…
Mitya, didn’t you realize that I can’t be your friend after this?
Forgive me, I beg of you. I admit that I’m a bastard. But it’s our, our, our life. Back in ’48, or maybe it was ’46, when, you know, even Maxim had to…
Goodbye, Mitya.
Do you know, do you know, the—the French horn ought to be played, as a general rule, between its fourth and twelfth partials. Well, if somebody who’s up to his ears in blood commands that you play it at the seventeenth partial, then a certain degree of distortion—
Denisov was already turning away, now and forever.
Have pity, Edik! Remember the vulnerability of my children!
(To his wife, whose gentleness he valued more and more, he muttered: You see, I’m such an insensitive criminal type! A, a, an enemy of the people, actually. But he’ll never… Guess what a great comrade said? Anyone in this world who does not succeed in being hated by his adversaries does not seem to me to be worth much as a friend. Guess who? He’s, so to speak, a German. An Austrian, actually. A late Austrian. My sexy little Irinka, thanks for your… But I’ll survive. I’ll get through this.)
He lived on to 1965, when they made him Doctor of the Arts. That honor was truly indispensable!
They urged him to write more popular songs, with civic content. Oh, what patrons of the arts! Now that he was a Party member, which meant that he was truly one of us, he really needed to toe the line a little more exactly. The best reputations require maintenance; even fresh white bricks will slowly tarnish in, for instance, Dresden. They suggested that he use as his templates A. I. Ostrovskii’s “Let There Always Be Sunshine,” and A. G. Novikov’s “March of the Communist Brigades.” My, oh, my! They said to him: There’s so much filth around us, Dmitri Dmitriyevich! Be careful that you don’t get smeared with any of it.—He assented with diplomatic grimaces. Later that day, when his daughter looked in on him, he sat down at the piano and accompanied himself, singing in a crazed cracked voice:
Do you remember that, Galisha? It was on the radio when you were still a, a little… What nice perfume you have on! Is it “Red Dawn,” or…? That’s what I’m supposed to emulate. The effect is, you know, enormous.
She shook her head and said: You’re doing this to yourself.
How’s married life? Is it true what they say? I’ve heard that women sometimes… never mind. “Let There Always Be Sunshine.” By the way, did you hear that your brother’s won another award? Will you be attending the ceremony? I’m very… Your hair looks extremely, how should I say, effective. Oh, me! Is that a new style?