Free The Conductor by Sarah Quigley Page B

were red-rimmed. ‘They went cold on me. Now I’m onto something else altogether.’ He lay back in his chair. ‘A kind of march, I think.’
    Sollertinsky groaned. ‘Not a march. Well, I have to support you, whatever nonsense you’re up to. But whatever will Mravinsky say?’
    ‘I don’t care what Mravinsky says.’ Shostakovich looked mutinous. ‘Let him stick his baton where the sun doesn’t shine. Anyway, I might not let him near it — whatever it is, whenever it is finished.’
    His words held no truth: everyone knew that Yevgeny Mravinsky,at the helm of the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, was the only conductor Shostakovich trusted, and it had been this way for the past three years, ever since their roaring battles over the Fifth Symphony, when Shostakovich had sat stony-faced in the fourth row, refusing to offer suggestions, and Mravinsky sat at the piano, thumping out every melody at the wrong speed until he’d finally provoked Shostakovich into action. By the fifth rehearsal, metronome markings had been written into the score and a firm friendship had developed, cemented by Mravinsky’s being awarded the All-Union Competition for Conductors with Shostakovich’s symphony.
    ‘Anyway,’ added Shostakovich, in a kind of protestation, ‘there was a march in the Fifth! At least, the hint of a march. And I haven’t done one since.’
    ‘So you’re entitled to a march. Whatever lights your fire. But I fear for your domestic harmony. I don’t expect your mood will be improved by working on a march.’
    Shostakovich swigged another mouthful of brandy. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Some kind of foreboding.’ He looked sombrely into his glass. ‘What will we do if the rumours are true and the Germans are planning to double-cross us?’
    Sollertinsky walked back to the window. ‘I don’t know. At any rate, we’ll be told what to do — or it will be “suggested” to us. Since when did we have what’s commonly called a choice?’
    Shostakovich joined him at the windowsill, gazing out at the crowded pavements, the bustling women with their baskets, the buildings throwing long shadows across the streets. ‘What will be, will be. But I promise you, I won’t leave Leningrad willingly.’ Sighing, he suddenly became practical. ‘I promised Nina I’d be home before Maxim’s bedtime. What’s the time?’
    ‘Twenty-five past six,’ said Sollertinsky, without looking at his watch.
    ‘Damn! Are you sure?’
    ‘I’d bet my monthly salary on it.’ Sollertinsky pointed to a figure rushing across the square. ‘Karl Eliasberg. He always hurries but he’s never late. As regular as a Swiss metronome and twice as reliable. Do you know, I bumped into him last week and he dropped a score of Mahler! Rather incongruous for an old stick insect like Elias — but apparently he has a passion for the music.’
    ‘What?’ Shostakovich was picking up his books, and dropping them again, and knocking papers off Sollertinsky’s desk, and finishing his third brandy.
    ‘Mahler,’ repeated Sollertinsky. ‘Elias must know there’s no hope of performing that German music — not now, possibly never again. Still, he seems almost as obsessed with it as you are.’
    ‘I can’t think about Mahler right now, nor Karl What’s-his-name-Berg. I absolutely must get home.’
    ‘Calm down! I’ll see you out!’ Sollertinsky placed the nearly empty brandy bottle back in its hiding place. ‘Cheers, Ludwig. Don’t drink it all in our absence.’
    As they were leaving the office, they heard a door slam and quick footsteps on the landing above. Shostakovich peered up the stairwell. ‘Hello there! Many thanks for the other night!’
    ‘You’re welcome! It would have been less of a party without you.’ It was Nikolai.
    ‘Party? What party?’ queried Sollertinsky. ‘Could there possibly have been a party in Leningrad to which I was not invited?’
    ‘Sollertinsky missed a delectable performance, did he