Mephisto Aria (30 page)

I watched my comrades of a few days ago shuffle along dumbly like they already know they’re dead. I could be shuffling with them. And Florian?

Still no sign of Karlovsky and I’m desperate to find him before it’s too late.

February 9, 1943

I finally found Major Karlovsky, standing together with Kolya, and I begged him to let me return to get Florian as my medical assistant. Kolya whispered something in his ear, the bastard, and Karlovsky was suddenly suspicious. “What’s the hurry? Is that your butt boy? If he is, you can just go on back to him, for good. But you can’t bring him along. There are no butt boys in the Red Army.”

“No, of course not,” I said. “He’s just a comrade, a very good medic.”

Karlovsky laughed. “Well then, you’ll have new comrades here on this side of the river. Make your choice. Go back to your pretty friend and join the long march to a POW camp or be a man in Chuikov’s Army. Go on.” He took a step backward to let me pass him, even stretched out an arm toward the opera-house collection station where Florian waited. All I had to do was walk. Kolya looked away but I knew he had betrayed me. I hesitated, speechless.

“Smart choice,” Karlovsky said, and the two of them marched away.

February 10, 1943

I was sick all night with regret. I had to see Florian. Maybe together we could work out something to save us both. I tracked down Karlovsky again and begged him to let me return to the German medical station to “fetch my medical instruments,” although it was obvious I already had my medical kit with me. He must have been in a good mood this morning because he agreed, and I hurried through the wrecked city back to the opera-house cellar.

When I arrived, I felt like I’d been shot. The cellar was empty. Where Florian had been lying there was only the leather gauntlet, covered with plaster. Did he leave it as a sign for me, or did it drop when he was carried away? Did he freeze during the night without me to warm him? Had the rats… I couldn’t finish the thought.

The corpses were still piled up like cordwood outside. Like a madman, I rushed along the rows, poking among them, brushing snow and ice from the dead faces. I would have collapsed in grief if I had found him, but it was almost worse that I didn’t. If he’s not dead, then he’s among the prisoners force-marched eastward through the snow. He can’t survive that.

God, he’s gone. He’s gone. Oh, Florian. If I knew where you were in that endless trudging line, I’d run after you. How far can you march before you fall? They’re pulling us apart, dragging you eastward and forcing me toward the west. I have the glove, the sign of my cowardice, but where my heart was there’s a stone. How can I live, day after day, imagining you lying by the roadside, covered with snow? I bought my life with yours, and now I’m an empty shell.

Katherina’s hand shook as she folded the pages of the translation and tucked them along with the original into the journal. Next to her, Anastasia was silent, watching her.

“So that’s where it all came from. The uniform, the glove, the guilt that was hanging over our family.”

“Your father obviously felt like he’d made a devil’s pact, to the point of being superstitious about it. And then, of course, Schalk showed up, offering him even more deals.”

“That explains his cynicism, too. I remember from my earliest years that he said ‘you have to save yourself, because when you need your friends, they will abandon you.’”

Anastasia took her hand, kissing her palm. “But he didn’t abandon anyone. The guards took him out of the cellar at gunpoint. And then, when he had to choose between life and loyalty, all he was guilty of, really, was hesitating. It was just his dream that made him think it was a ‘pact.’ He kept that black gauntlet for forty years, to torture himself, as if it were his contract. But there never was one, even in the abstract sense.”

“He thought there was. It colored his whole life.”

“I know. We all make up our life stories, don’t we? My mother lived in Tsarist Russia in her head, long after it was gone. But your father lived with the devil. Get rid of the glove, darling. Break his fake contract the way you broke that insane contract with Raspin.”

“Raspin? Yes, he was demented, wasn’t he? It took me far too long to realize it. The aria he made me sing at the end. The Mephisto aria. The words are from Faust. They’re the ravings of poor Marguerite, who was forced by the devil to kill both her mother and her child. A totally broken spirit who is then executed. That’s what he wanted me to be, a sacrifice, to get back at my father.”

“I think he was demented long before your father met him. War brings out sociopaths and there were plenty on both sides. But he was smart enough to create a philosophy out of it, and a business too. Plus he knew how to manipulate people so that they played out his master-morality. It was a sort of Faust meets Nietzsche. You got drawn in because his last illusion was that he could write an opera to reveal the beast in men.”

“I can vouch for the ‘beast in men.’ I had some of them lying on top of me on that damned rock. But I particularly resent it that he used the opera stage to ‘prove’ this hateful world view, and almost got away with it. What does that say about us? We’re theater people, after all. Illusion is what we do.”

“Yes, but we do it for fun and put away the costumes afterward. We have nothing to prove except that music is beautiful. I don’t know. I’ve just run down a mountain and made love with a woman for the first time. I’m not ready for hard questions like that.”

“I’m not, either.” Katherina curved over Anastasia and brushed her lips over tousled hair. Then, abruptly, she sat up again.

“Is something the matter?”

“I have to sing at that concert,” Katherina announced. “I’ll do it without a fee. They should let me. I’m the daughter of a Stalingrad hero.”

“The commemorative concert at Volgograd? Yes, I think you should.” Anastasia sat up, enthusiastic. “Maybe Boris can help. He has a few friends in the Soviet State Recording Studio. Ones that will have forgiven him for marrying a defector. They will surely have contacts who have other contacts in Andropov’s government. You know how those old war-buddy networks are.”

“Isn’t that forbidden? Making deals with Western capitalists?”

“Hush. Let me finish.”

“I’m listening,” Katherina said. “You were saying…Andropov’s government.”

Anastasia gazed inwardly, as if calculating. “The Andropov government is trying to put a respectable face on communism. You know he’s got an anti-alcohol program, and he’s trying to live down his past as head of the KGB. I bet the concert was his idea in the first place, and all the scheduled performers are Russians. Just imagine what it would do for their credibility if they also had a German perform. I’m sure they’ll snap up your offer in an instant.”

“You really think so?”

“Definitely. How can it be a ‘reconciliation’ if it’s Russians performing for Russians? You’d be the only German Stalingrad descendant who could also perform. It would be a public relations coup. It may take a while to reach the relevant people and get them to contact the committee, but it all seems possible.”

“Where do you suppose they’ll hold the concert? The journal says the opera house was destroyed. Did they rebuild it?”

“There is another concert hall close to the site. The Tsaritsinskaya Opera Company performs there with its own orchestra. It’s provincial, compared to Leningrad and Moscow, but the symbolic value of the concert would be stupendous.”

“Assuming that we can pull it all together in time, will you come with me?”

“I can’t. I’m a defector, remember? But don’t worry about me. I’ll be here waiting for you. Do you know what you want to sing?”

“Yes, I do,” Katherina answered without hesitation. “Your aria. That is, Marguerite’s aria, from Berlioz’ Faust. The one you recorded. ‘D’amour l’ardente flame.’”

XXXVI
Aria da Capo

February 2, 1983

The connecting flight from Moscow was late and so the Tupolev 134, with every one of its eighty seats occupied, did not reach Volgograd air space until three in the afternoon. In the mid-winter light, the ground below bore little color beyond the white of snow and the nuanced grays of cities.

As the aircraft reduced altitude in its approach, Katherina stared out the porthole, trying to make sense of the landscape below. She tried to imagine Volgograd as it had been forty years before, as the tenacious Stalingrad. Even in its current so far uninteresting form, it held an almost mythical significance for her.

“If you’re looking for the Volga, it’s frozen solid and covered with snow this time of year.” Her seat mate, a bearded fifties-something man in a slightly rumpled business suit, spoke in thickly Russian-accented German.

“Oh, you speak German,” she said. “Yes, of course. I should have remembered that it would be frozen. I’m assuming it’s that strip of white snaking along between the gray patches.”

“I heard you conversing earlier with the stewardess,” he explained. “Is this your first visit to Volgograd? Perhaps to see the historical sites? Our business visitors rarely include such lovely women as yourself.”

Katherina glanced briefly at him, reluctant to pull her gaze away from the maze of shapes below. “I’m singing in a concert to commemorate the Battle of Stalingrad. That’s why I’m trying to see the city from the air. Can you tell me what I’m looking at?”

He stood up and then bent over her shoulder, supporting himself on the seat in front. “It will be hard to make out the landmarks with so much snow, but in just a minute, you should be able to see the Mother Russia statue. That will show you the Mamayev Hill where the Stalingrad memorial complex is located.”

“Oh yes, that’s something I want to visit while I’m here. You see, my father fought at Stalingrad,” she said with pride, surprising herself.

“I see. And, judging by your age, it appears he survived. A lucky man. I myself was one of the children hiding in the tunnels and basements.” He sat down again.

Katherina twisted toward him in her seat. “So the story is real. I read some place that thousands of civilians were trapped in the city throughout the battle.”

“What you read is true. Stalin didn’t allow the people to evacuate until much too late. And my family could not evacuate at all because my mother was a worker at the Red October metal factory. After our house was burned by exploding fuel tanks, we slept in the factory, until bombs gutted it. After that, we went into hiding. We had no food or even water most of the time, although I was five years old so I don’t remember very much. I do remember the soldiers rescuing us and giving us food. We were so hungry, and of course, it’s a little boy’s dream to be sitting down with real soldier heroes. Ah, there it is!” He stood up again. “There’s the ‘Mother Russia Calls’ statue.”

Katherina pressed her forehead against the glass and saw an enormously tall structure, dark against the surrounding snow, drift into view on the right. Although the distance and line of sight did not allow a good view, she knew from pictures that it was a statue of a woman striding forward with upraised arm and swinging an enormous sword.

“She’s very tall,” the gentleman added. “Some eighty-five meters, with her sword. You can see her from much of the city.”

“Very impressive,” Katherina replied politely. “And those buildings around her are part of the memorial?”

“Yes. One of them is a burnt-out building they’ve left to show what the whole city looked like. That cylindrical building there is the Hall of the Warrior Glory. Very beautiful inside, with mosaics of golden glass all around. The names of about seventy thousand of the soldiers are inscribed on the walls. That, of course, does not count the civilians.”

“Is there a special cemetery?”

“No, not yet. But one is planned. However, there is a tomb where General Chuikov is buried. Perhaps you don’t know the name. You are so young. Vasily Chuikov is one of the generals who were victorious at Stalingrad. He went on to capture Berlin too. He died just last year and is buried on the Mamayev Kurgan.”

Katherina thought of swollen infected hands that saved her father’s life and could almost imagine the general’s cheerful peasant face with its row of gold teeth. “Yes, I have heard of him,” she said softly, and at that moment decided to lay flowers at his tomb.

Katherina stood facing the spotlights of the Tsaritsinskaya Opera Theater. She held the skirt of her white gauze concert dress with one hand and raised the other toward the balcony. The common soldiers sat there, she knew, or rather the white-haired men and women who had survived the “cauldron” of Stalingrad. She wanted them to know she was bringing something back to them.

She sang her father’s song, which he had carried with him across the Eastern front. It tied him to his young lover and haunted him for forty years. Upon his death, it had passed through the voice of Anastasia Ivanova to her, Sergei Marovsky’s child, and now she gave it back to the air of Stalingrad.

With the full orchestra swelling beneath her, she sang the climax of the aria that belonged to all four of them. In a language that did not distinguish between “him” and “her,” she celebrated the mouth, eyes, caress, and kiss of the beloved, of all beloveds.

O caresses de flamme! Que je voudrais un jour

Voir s’exhaler mon âme Dans ses baisers d’amour!

When it was over, she curtsied deeply. The other performers joined her onstage then, and the audience of politicians, diplomats, survivors, and their families gave them an ovation. The survivors, especially, clapped long and passionately, acknowledging not only the concert but, of course, themselves. For everyone among them, the Battle of Stalingrad had been the nadir of their existence; for everyone, the memory was a deep and twisted scar. And yet they had emerged from the chasm and could celebrate in music what hardly could be said in words. Katherina felt it in the air around her: gratitude, reconciliation, and fathomless melancholy.

When the cheering stopped, all the artists gathered at the reception in the entry hall of the theater.