“Don’t worry about him. He understands a great deal that we have no clue about.”
“Of course. But you know that all the storms here are only reflections, pale shadows, of those he called ‘self-made’?”
They stood in the middle of the empty street, having walked a ways from the house, and talking.
“Of course we know that. What did you think of him? How is he?” Sanya asked.
“He seems happy,” Liza answered without much conviction.
“Women,” Sanya said, and grimaced.
“Did I say something wrong?” Liza said, alarmed.
“No. But I thought he looked tired. And he was unusually quiet tonight.” Sanya put his arm around her shoulders.
* * *
It was very slippery. Liza held Sanya by the arm, and they walked slowly and cautiously in the direction of the subway.
“Now it has become clear to everyone that he’s a genius. In the Russian sense of that word, not the European.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” Liza said, becoming uneasy. She was used to catching his meanings from the slightest word or gesture.
“Well, he’s not simply a person with a divine gift for poetry or music, but a person who, like an icebreaker, moves ahead of time and smashes walls, breaks apart the ice, forges new roads, so that all the little ships and boats can sail behind in his wake. The most sensitive people, the most gifted and capable, follow in the path of the genius, and the crowd surges after them—and what was once a discovery becomes a commonplace. Average people—and here I mean myself, not you—are only able to grasp things through the efforts of genius and the general unfolding of time. The people of genius are harbingers; they precipitate the movement of time.”
“Yes, yes, of course. And the Thirty-second Sonata is evidence of that. It transcends all time—Beethoven’s own, and ours as well.”
“Beethoven was a genius. Unequivocally. He completed classical music, creating a canon and then destroying it himself. The classical structure ended—and only themes and variations remained. He crossed the boundary of boundaries. He composed however he wished—no more rondos, scherzos, all those dance forms—they were just gone.” Sanya waved his hand in dismissal. “There are no words for it.”
Liza stopped.
“No, I can’t agree with you there. The rondo, the scherzo, and all those dance forms were with Beethoven right up to the end. And what do you think ‘Arietta’ is, in the last sonata? It’s the shadow of a minuet! The shadow of some minuet up in heaven, to which angels dance, if no one else. If they exist! It can’t be considered a dance—but it’s a symbol, a hieroglyph. Already beyond the bounds of life, outside time, in an incorporeal world.”
Liza gripped Sanya under the arm. It was terribly slippery, and the ice-clad trees played in the light cast by the streetlamps. She pressed his upper arm through the sleeve of his jacket, as she used to do when they were young, sitting side by side at the Conservatory and exchanging secret signs of understanding.
“Yes, of course. But time has its own complexity…” Sanya couldn’t stop. “It becomes stratified, and no longer moves from point A to point B. It’s more like the layers of an onion bulb, everything happening simultaneously. Closer to the end … Hence the tendency toward citation. It seems that what is truly valuable doesn’t age. In the world, there is an enormous multitude, as well as a multitude of worlds. The world of Beethoven, the world of Dante, the world of Schnittke, Joseph’s world … The secret is in that…”
“Enough, enough. Stop! I have another quote, do you remember?” Liza interrupted him, and slowed her pace.
“The secret is ta-ta, ta-ta-ta-ta, ta-ta,
and more I have no right to say.”
“Yes, of course. He was a rather bad poet. But he did touch upon the secret in his prose. Don’t you think so?”
“I don’t know, Sanya. It seems that now we’ve grown up, I know much less than I did when we were younger.”
* * *
They walked for a while not saying anything, barely able to keep their balance, afraid to fall and bring each other tumbling down—the pavement was like a skating rink under their feet.
“We haven’t come across a single taxi! We should have ordered one beforehand.” Suddenly, Liza remembered something she had been wanting to say for a long time. “I saw Vera last year in Paris. She was giving a master class. At first I thought, ‘How sad, she’s not giving concerts anymore.’ Then I sat in on one of her classes, and I realized it wasn’t unfortunate at all. There are so many performers, and she is creating a school of piano performance. Or continuing one. The Russian School. And you are also part of the Russian School, as Kolosov’s student.”
“In the conventional sense. You know, until the day he died Yury Andreevich never forgave me for leaving.”
“He was a unique person. A patriot in his own way. And we are cosmopolitans. Music is our homeland.”
“And the Russian School you were referring to? No, you’ll never make a good cosmopolitan. You, with your Tchaikovsky, are also a musician of the Russian School.”
“Why do you all hate Tchaikovsky so much?”
“I got over that long ago. Our friend Joseph can’t abide him, though, for his unconcealed emotion and pathos.”
“Well, there may not be a lot of pathos in the poet’s work; but he also belongs to the Russian School.”
“No, he belongs to the world.”
“I beg to differ, my friend. He writes in Russian.”
“Yes, that’s so. In Russian.”
* * *
A cab stopped next to them, almost grazing Liza. A large, drunken man clambered out. Sanya gestured to the driver to wait, stroked Liza’s hair, and kissed her. She ran her hand down his face, from his temple to his chin. Anyone seeing them might have thought they were lovers saying good-bye.
“Do you want us to drop you off somewhere?”
“No, I live nearby. I’ll be all right.”
“See you, then.”
“See you.”
* * *
It was after one in the morning, January 28, 1996. That night, the poet died.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my dear friends, whose love has been a lifesaver.
I am grateful to Elena Kostioukovitch for her daily support of many years—for the wonderful conversations, sharp criticism, meticulous editorial work, and for her priceless friendship.
Alena Smorgunova and Yuri Freilin, for their participation in writing the book.
My friends the Alexanders—Smolyansky, Okun, and Bondarev—for their attentive and creative reading, copious comments, and unwavering interest in the book.
Sanya Daniel, Vitya Dzyadko, Igor Kogan, and Elena Murina, for being fearless and upstanding witnesses of their era—or perhaps, not completely fearless, which makes them even greater in my eyes. I am grateful to them for our long Muscovite conversations about our shared past.
I am endlessly grateful to my dear friends in Israel for their heartfelt, reliable support during the hot summer of 2010: my guardian angel Lika Nutkevich, Sergey Ruzer, Luba and Sandrik Kaminsky, Igor and Tata Guberman, and Lucy Gorkushenko for their warmth, care, and constant concern.
I am grateful to my beloved, courageous friends Lena Keshman, Tanya Safarova, Ira Yasina, and Vera Millionshikova for our correspondence and conversations, which were so crucial during the summer of 2010 when the work on the book—and my strength—were coming to an end.
A special thank-you to my musician friends who led me through the enchanted forest of music: Vera Gornostayeva, Olesya Dvoskina, Volodya Klimov, and Olga Schnittke-Meerson.
I would like to apologize to those who I have failed to mention at this moment, for which I will surely kick myself later. How could I have forgotten you?
Finally, with gratitude, I would like to remember the dear departed who have served as the inspiration for my characters, the innocents who stumbled into the meat grinder of their time, those who survived, and those who were maimed; the witnesses, the heroes, the victims—in their eternal memory.