October Palace: A Fictional Account of Stalinist Russia

I hear the music. It echoes through empty halls crowded with people, down from the hall of dignitaries in their seats, proper, smiling. The music is lovely, strains of cheerful violin measuring out the patter of dancers’ feet. I picture their faces in my head as they listen, as they watch. A coy smile flits across the face of the lady in the third row. She is sitting on the edge, I imagine, her hand resting lightly on that of the man beside her. She pretends to smile at the music, her eyes belying her love. He smiles back – no pretensions there. She glances away, and back.
He wears a military uniform, this flirtatious man. There is a medal on his chest. He sits taller. After the ballet, these two will go to his apartment. They will make love, ending the process they are even now beginning. Perhaps he will make a mistake.
He will help her into her dress again in the morning. He will still be naked, not needing to report for duty that day. As he slips the garment over her head, he will speak without thinking. “At least I don’t have to sell my life to the army today.” He will laugh nervously, realizing what he said. She will laugh along, kiss him lightly. He will relax.
She is an informant.
That night, as he lies in bed rolling over their time together in his mind, wishing for her back again, the knock will come. He will scramble up and hurry to the door, hoping she has returned to him. He will fling the door open and discover not her, but a small posse of police. He will try to hide behind the door, embarrassed in his pyjamas. They will grab his arms, search his apartment, take him prisoner.
Tomorrow that man will hear the music with me. We will share the ballet from underneath the stage.
The flute above whistles a minuet. I sit up on my hard bunk, legs curled to chin, listening calmly. Only now, only lost in the music, can I relax. The other prisoners, too, pause to hear what happens above us. I do not worry about my cellmates when the music flows overhead.
The door squeaks open, louder than it should. I glance toward it and see a guard’s hard face. I twitch, and retreat further behind my curled legs. He picks me out from the shadows. I know by the look he gives me, the wall behind his eyes, that I am wanted. I do not need words. I stand, straighten, and walk out the door in front of me.
The dancers twirl as I march slowly down the corridor. One picks up another, carries her gracefully across the stage, sets her down again and spins her. My guard opens a door and guides me through it. I step across the threshold and walk to the table in the middle of the room. The door clangs shut behind me. I no longer hear music.
Before I have emerged from this room bruised, once with one eye swollen nearly shut. The music is always done when they let me out of the chamber – or maybe it still plays, but I can no longer hear it. I no longer care. I step into the room, away from the music that was once my salvation.
As a small child I sat for hours in our living room, bending over a violin. At first I played the music of the masters: Dvorak, Tchaikovsky. The music was my refuge from the teasing at school, from the boys who laughed at me because I could not figure my sums. One day I would show them. One day I would redeem myself in their eyes. If only they could hear my violin! How she sang to me, sang of hope and beauty and everything Russian! I began to compose my own music from the tunes that whistled in my head. Haunting melodies they were, soul-searing and glorious. My music inspired me. I became convinced that my music would someday inspire all Russia to lead the way into the grand future.
I lost that hope long ago. Russia promised to inaugurate the grand future. My music inspired no one; the world turned away and refused to follow our dream. Our dream died and so did my beautiful Russia, imprisoned with the poets, starving with the peasants, fleeing with the aristocrats.
The music does not fade behind me: it is cut off with a bang as the door closes. The table before me is covered in blood. Some of it is mine. The guard pushes me against the back wall. Before he ties a cloth around my head, I see two men with rifles. Their faces tell me all I need to know. The guard does not ask if I have any last words. He spins me around. I know that I am facing the rifles. I hear the men raise their weapons.
“Oh my God! Oh my Russia!” I cry. A final dirge sings in my head. “St George save us, oh my God!”
The dirge sings in my ears, cut off with a sudden blast. I almost believe it to be a drumbeat. My legs give out. I fall.
“Oh God have mercy – ”