Then again, would he ever see his family again, anyway? He still didn’t expect to survive the war.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’d like to, I think, but I don’t know. Let’s go to Chelyabinsk first, and then we’ll see.”
Karen smiled and hugged him tightly. He returned her embrace, powerfully, practically crushing her rib cage.
He suddenly let go. “But I guess first we have to find you a way inside.”
They circled the auditorium, which was difficult, as it was flanked on either side by attached apartment buildings—it meant going around a vast city block.
The buildings were of varying heights, forming a chaotic series of stepped rooftops, many with glass skylights, others transformed by tenants into summer patios.
Finding no unlatched windows or unlocked doors on the first floor of the complex, Petr climbed a tree and reached a low garden patio. From there he stood on the patio railing and was able to lift himself onto a second-story roof. Thank goodness for warm weather! One of the windows flanking the roof was open, and Petr crawled inside.
Karen waited at the stage door for five minutes, but it seemed like hours. She worried less about whether Petr would be caught, and more about what would happen to him if he were. But that was silly: he was a soldier and had faced far more dangerous foes than Madame Nadia and her youth orchestra. But still, she worried.
Then the stage door opened. Petr’s smiling face popped out, and relief washed over Karen. “Come on, I don’t think we have much time,” he warned her.
Karen hurried inside.
“They’re all eating lunch,” Petr whispered as he led her into the auditorium. “I don’t know when they’ll start rehearsing again.”
Karen nodded and halted at the edge of the stage. The instruments and music stands were already set up, awaiting the musicians. She took a deep breath, crossed to the position of the lead cello, and sat down.
Petr followed. “What are you going to play?” he whispered, sounding like a fan now.
Karen reached into her coat and pulled out a folded sheet of music. It was the music she’d taken from her father the day she’d found him dead, the same piece he’d been working on with Dmitri Shostakovich, even after the composer had fled to safety. It was the music Karen’s father had died for, and she treated it with the gentle care of a valuable artifact as she unfolded it and then smoothed it on her music stand. Then she picked up the cello and put bow to string.
The cello was in tune, thank goodness. The lead cellist might have been an unimpressive musician, but at least he knew how to tune his instrument. Karen couldn’t risk taking the time to tune it herself. If she did, the sound would only draw Madame Nadia, who Karen was certain would forbid her from performing her audition.
Her father’s music flowed from the cello, rich and deep. It wasn’t just his music, of course, it was also Shostakovich’s, but Karen so hated the famous Russian composer that she couldn’t admit to anything beautiful and moving coming from his mind. And the music did sound very beautiful and very moving.
As Karen played, she lost herself in the composition. The sound of the cello spoke to her like the voice of her father’s spirit, speaking to her from beyond the grave. It told her he was sorry for having taken her to the doomed city of Leningrad, for having trapped her against her will. It told her he was proud of her for finding the strength to survive. And he thanked her for not giving up.
As Karen continued to play, her father’s voice began to change, subtly. It became less personal. He wasn’t just sorry for Karen, he was sorry for all the unfortunate men and women who were trapped and starving. He was proud of all the survivors, and he wished he, too, could have found the same strength. He couldn’t, but he could leave them this one gift, this gift of music, one he knew was inadequate compared to the lifesaving food and comfort the brave Leningraders really needed. That was what the strong, defiant, starving citizens of Leningrad deserved, not just some symphony. But Karen’s father couldn’t give them that. Neither could Dmitri Shostakovich. They could only give music.
The music brought back vibrant, horrible, sad memories. Karen remembered the dead body of the old woman in the fountain. She remembered the hungry faces of the cannibals. She remembered Sasha’s face, brutally beaten and bloody. She remembered Inna’s face, as beautiful in death as Sasha’s had been gruesome. She remembered the city lit up by dozens of separate fires. She remembered smelling food while being interrogated by Sasha’s father.
But most of all, she remembered the singing: all those men, women, and children, starving almost to death, standing in line and passing buckets in a desperate attempt to keep the bakeries open—barely having enough strength to pass the buckets, and yet, somehow, finding the inner reserves of energy to sing.
Karen agreed with the voice she was hearing in her inner ear, saying that music was not the most important gift Leningraders could have received. But it had worth. It was a beautiful gift. Karen no longer hated her father. And, more miraculously, she no longer hated Dmitri Shostakovich.
She finished the movement and put down her bow. She couldn’t see because her vision was blurry with tears. She wiped her eyes with the cuff of her coat and looked across the stage.
Madame Nadia and the entire youth orchestra were standing there, gazing at her with rapt attention. It surprised her for a moment. She had lost herself so completely in the music that she’d forgotten where she was. She’d even forgotten she was auditioning. She didn’t know what to do.
Madame Nadia had her conductor’s baton in one hand. She placed it under her armpit to free both hands and started to applaud. The rest of the Youth Orchestra joined in the ovation.
Karen put down the instrument, stood awkwardly, and bowed. She had never been so reluctant to accept an audience’s praise. She felt that the power of the music had not come from her; it had merely come through her.
“That is how you play with emotion,” Madame Nadia lectured her students. Then she turned her attention to Karen. “Where did you learn that piece?”
“I studied under Mr. Shostakovich at the Leningrad Conservatory.”
“And he gave you a copy of his work?”
Karen wanted to tell her no, that the copy was from her father, a talented composer collaborating with Shostakovich. But she couldn’t. That would reveal that she was Karen Hamilton, not Inna Kerensky. That would reveal that she was American, not Russian. No matter what the circumstances, Madame Nadia would never allow an American in her Russian orchestra.
So instead, Karen just said, “Yes.”
“A copy of the whole symphony, or just that one movement?”
“The whole symphony.”
Madame Nadia nodded with satisfaction. “I will need to make more copies if we hope to learn the symphony in time for the concert in Chelyabinsk. I will need to begin immediately.”
She held out her palm, expecting Karen to hand over her father’s score.
But Karen didn’t hand over the score. Instead, she grabbed her father’s composition, folded it back up, and stuffed it in her coat pocket.
“Yes, you will need to,” she agreed warily, “assuming, of course, that I am in the orchestra.”
The old Karen was back, the practical Karen, the survivor.
Madame Nadia frowned. “I think that can be arranged. Do you have an instrument?”