‘You were superb,’ said Marfa to her son, when only the three of them remained.
‘Absolutely,’ said Aleksei, but he knew that his voice again sounded unconvincing. His sentiment was sincere, but he had never been good at giving compliments, even to – especially to – his own son. ‘I don’t know where you get it from,’ he added, for want of anything to say.
The implication struck Aleksei immediately. His wife had been unfaithful to him with this Vasiliy. How far back did that go? How many others had there been before? Dmitry had been born in 1807, less than ten months after Aleksei and Marfa had married, at a time when Aleksei had been almost constantly on the march. When he had made it home, it had been only for a few days at a time.
But there was no doubt that Dmitry was Aleksei’s son. To look at them now, even though Dmitry was eighteen and Aleksei forty-four, the similarities were unmistakable. Both had the same square face and flat chin. Their nostrils flared when they laughed or became angry in a way that caused many to remark upon the resemblance. Dmitry wore his hair shorter and it was naturally darker and straighter. He was considerably taller, taller than most of his countrymen, while Aleksei had a heavier build, though at eighteen, he remembered, he too had been skinny. A life in the army had forced muscle and sinew on to those bones. He hoped the army would do the same for his son – he knew that a life sitting at the harpsichord would not.
It was only Dmitry’s eyes that were his mother’s. They were the same dark brown that expressed everything that his – or her – face tried to hide. Aleksei’s own eyes were blue and – he prided himself – inscrutable. Only one man had ever seemed capable of divining his thoughts, and that man was long dead, his frozen corpse lost amongst so many others as it floated down the Berezina. Even then, Aleksei knew, Iuda had not been able to see into his soul, simply to think like him. From the same starting point he had unerringly managed to reach the same conclusion. That was even more frightening. As for Dmitry, perhaps his eyes too would become opaque as he learned with time to hide his innermost self from others. Aleksei hoped he would never need to, but if he did need to, that he would succeed.
‘But you know what you’re going to allow me to do with it,’ came Dmitry’s voice bitterly. He had replied to Aleksei’s statement almost instantly, and yet even in that instant, Aleksei’s mind had wandered. Dmitry brought him back to a conversation that he never enjoyed, not in any of the dozen times they had had it.
‘Mitka, don’t start this again,’ he said.
‘Why not? Because it’s something that you never dreamed of doing?’
The ‘why not?’ of it was clear enough to Aleksei, though he would never say it. ‘We’re not rich, Mitka,’ he explained instead. ‘You have to live.’
‘I’m not asking you for money,’ insisted Dmitry. He paused. Money was precisely what he had asked Aleksei for a few months earlier, when this great decision of his life was being made. If Dmitry had been older, or if the two of them had been less close, then a smile would have broken out. Aleksei thought of another Dmitry, Dmitry Fetyukovich, after whom his son had been named. They had had some terrible arguments, but the last expression that had ever passed between them had been a smile.
‘Beethoven’s made money,’ said Dmitry, changing tack. Aleksei had met Beethoven, briefly, in Vienna in 1817, and heard him play, even though by then he was totally deaf. He knew from that encounter that fame and wealth are all too easily associated in the public mind. Beethoven was not poor, but much of his income came from constant work in both composition and performance, both of which became ever more difficult as his deafness increased. But it was not that which convinced Aleksei that his son could not be a success as a musician. He had heard Beethoven play. He had heard his son play. There was no comparison. Dmitry might scratch a living as a performer in some hostelry. He might even make it to the heights of the pit of an Austrian opera house. Either way, he would earn his real living – a meagre one at that – by teaching. There was nothing wrong with that, but the disappointment would destroy Dmitry, Aleksei was sure. Better to nip it in the bud.
But he explained none of this to his son. ‘Beethoven’s German. So was Mozart, more or less. Germans and Italians have a chance. The West’s like that. You’re Russian, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Have you heard of Frederic Chopin?’ asked Dmitry, in the way that Aleksei had observed so many children do, in hopeful expectation of their parents’ ignorance. Aleksei had heard of him, not least through Dmitry’s obsessive reverence.
‘He’s not Russian.’
‘He’s Polish,’ shouted Dmitry, ‘which is as good as – for now. He played for the tsar when he was just eleven. He’s destined to be a new Mozart.’
‘Mozart was buried in a pauper’s grave,’ said Aleksei to his son. ‘Do you want to spend your life in poverty?’
Dmitry slammed the lid of the harpsichord shut. ‘There are some things more important than money!’ he shouted, and stormed out. Aleksei heard the door close behind him with a thud.
‘He only says that because he’s never been short of it,’ said Marfa. ‘That’s thanks to you.’
But Aleksei knew his son was right. There were plenty of things in Aleksei’s own life that were more important than money – that was why he spent so many roubles trying to keep hold of them.
Marfa put her arm round his waist and rested her head on his shoulder. ‘Let’s go to bed,’ she said. ‘He’ll have calmed down in the morning.’
Aleksei considered, but he was too annoyed for sleep. ‘You go,’ he said. ‘I’ll be with you soon.’ He watched her depart and understood that it was not Dmitry with whom he was angry. Nor – justified though he might be – was it with Marfa. The bitterness inside him could only be directed at one cause, not even at a person, but merely a name: the faceless Vasiliy.
Aleksei gazed out across the Neva. He was at the very heart of Petersburg. This was the point where the river split into two, the Great and Lesser Nevas, part of many divisions as it formed a delta and flowed into the Gulf of Finland. It was a magnificent site. In almost every respect, Aleksei preferred Moscow to Saint Petersburg, but compared to the Neva, the Moskva was a mere ditch. The late-summer sun glistened on the rippling waters that stretched out in a vast azure expanse. The Danube itself could make no claim to be blue in comparison with this. Directly in front of him, at the point of the fork where the rivers divided, stood the two red lighthouses that guided ships into port. Beyond that, north of both rivers, was the Peter and Paul Fortress, founded by Pyotr the Great 122 years before, giving birth to the city itself. Rising from within the walls of the fortress was the yellow-and-gold spire of the Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, beneath which lay the tombs of the tsars.
Aleksei turned and looked around. He could see all along the English Quay, the Winter Palace in one direction and the Admiralty and Senate Square in the other. The city was busy, but he did not see the man he was expecting. He looked at his watch. It wasn’t quite four in the afternoon, so his contact was not late. Aleksei turned back to the river, leaning forward and resting his hands on the low wall, his fingers splayed out to support his weight – five on his right hand and three on his left. He had been without those two fingers of his left hand now for fifteen years – almost the whole of his son’s life.