The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes Read Free Book Online Page A

presence.’
    The interrogator looked at him for a long while. Then came a change of voice, as if to prepare him for the seriousness and menace of his position.
    ‘Now, I think you should try to shake your memory. It cannot be that you were at the home of Marshal Tukhachevsky, in your capacity as a “good friend” as you put it, on a regular basis over the last ten years and that you did not talk about politics. For instance, the plot to assassinate Comrade Stalin. What did you hear about that?’
    At which point, he knew that he was a dead man. ‘And yet another’s hour is near at hand’ – and this time it was his. He reiterated, as plainly as he could, that there had never been any talk of politics at Marshal Tukhachevsky’s; they were purely musical evenings; matters of state were left at the door with hats and coats. He was not sure if this was the best phrase. But Zakrevsky was barely listening.
    ‘Then I suggest you think a little harder,’ the interrogator told him. ‘Some of the other guests have verified the plot already.’
    He realised that Tukhachevsky must have been arrested, that the Marshal’s career was over, and his life as well; that the investigation was just beginning, and that all those around the Marshal would soon vanish from the face of the earth. His own innocence was irrelevant. The truth of his answers was irrelevant. What had been decided had been decided. And if they needed to show that the conspiracy which they had either just discovered or just invented was so perniciously widespread that even the country’s most famous – if recently disgraced – composer was involved, then that was what they would show. Which explained the matter-of-factness in Zakrevsky’s tone as he brought the interview to a close.
    ‘Very well. Today is Saturday. It is twelve o’clock now, and you can go. But I will only give you forty-eight hours. On Monday at twelve o’clock you will without fail remember everything. You must recall every detail of all the discussions regarding the plot against Comrade Stalin, of which you were one of the chief witnesses.’
    He was a dead man. He told Nita all that had been said, and he saw beneath her reassurances that she agreed he was a dead man. He knew he must protect those closest around him, and to do so needed to be calm, but could only be frantic. He burnt anything that might be incriminating – except that once you had been labelled an enemy of the people and the associate of a known assassin, everything around you became incriminating. He might as well burn the whole apartment. He feared for Nita, for his mother, for Galya, for anyone who had ever entered or left his apartment.
    ‘There is no escaping one’s destiny.’ And so, he would be dead at thirty. Older than Pergolesi, true, but younger even than Schubert. And Pushkin himself, for that matter. His name and his music would be obliterated. Not only would he not exist, he would never have existed. He had been a mistake, swiftly corrected; a face in a photograph that went missing the next time that photograph was printed. And even if, at some point in the future, he was disinterred, what would they find? Four symphonies, one piano concerto, some orchestral suites, two pieces for string quartet but not a single finished quartet, some piano music, a cello sonata, two operas, some film and ballet music. He would be remembered by what? The opera which had brought him disgrace, the symphony he had wisely withdrawn? Perhaps his First Symphony would make the cheerful prelude to concerts of mature works by composers lucky enough to outlive him.
    But even this was false comfort, he realised. What he himself thought was irrelevant. The future would decide what the future would decide. For instance, that his music was quite unimportant. That he might have come to something as a composer if he had not, through vanity, involved himself in a treasonous plot against the head of state. Who could tell what the future