The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes Page B

you, Iosif Vissarionovich, everything is fine. Only, I am suffering somewhat from stomach ache.’
    ‘I am sorry to hear that. We shall find a doctor for you.’
    ‘No, thank you. I don’t need anything. I have everything I need.’
    ‘That is good.’ There was a pause. Then the strong Georgian tones, the voice of a million radios and tannoys, asked if he was aware of the forthcoming Cultural and Scientific Congress for World Peace in New York. He said that he was.
    ‘And what do you think of it?’
    ‘I think, Iosif Vissarionovich, that peace is always better than war.’
    ‘Good. So you are happy to attend as one of our representatives.’
    ‘No, I cannot, I am afraid.’
    ‘You cannot ?’
    ‘Comrade Molotov asked me. I told him I was not well enough to attend.’
    ‘Then, as I say, we shall send a doctor to make you better.’
    ‘It is not just that. I get air-sick. I cannot fly.’
    ‘That will not be a problem. The doctor will prescribe you some pills.’
    ‘That is kind of you.’
    ‘So you will go?’
    He paused. Part of him was conscious that the slightest wrong syllable might land him in a labour camp, while another part of him, to his surprise, was beyond fear.
    ‘No, I really cannot go, Iosif Vissarionovich. For another reason.’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘I do not have a tail-suit. I cannot perform in public without a tail-suit. And I am afraid I cannot afford one.’
    ‘This is hardly my immediate business, Dmitri Dmitrievich, but I am sure that the workshop of the administration of the Central Committee will be able to make one that is to your satisfaction.’
    ‘Thank you. But there is, I am afraid, another reason.’
    ‘Which you are also about to tell me.’
    Yes, it was just conceivably possible that Stalin did not know.
    ‘The fact is, you see, that I am in a very difficult position. Over there, in America, my music is often played, whereas over here it is not played. They would ask me about it. So how am I to behave in such a situation?’
    ‘What do you mean, Dmitri Dmitrievich, that your music is not played?’
    ‘It is forbidden. As is the music of many of my colleagues in the Union of Composers.’
    ‘Forbidden? Forbidden by whom?’
    ‘By the State Commission for Repertoire. From the 14th of February last year. There is a long list of works which cannot be played. But the consequence, as you can imagine, Iosif Vissarionovich, is that concert managers are unwilling to programme any of my other compositions as well. And musicians are afraid to play them. So I am in effect blacklisted. As are my colleagues.’
    ‘And who gave such an order?’
    ‘It must have been one of the leading comrades.’
    ‘No,’ the voice of Power replied. ‘We didn’t give that order.’
    He let Power consider the matter, which it did.
    ‘No, we didn’t give that order. It is a mistake. The mistake will be corrected. None of your works has been forbidden. They can all be freely played. This has always been the case. There will have to be an official reprimand.’
    A few days later, along with other composers, he received a copy of the original banning order. Stapled to the top of it was a document recognising the decree as illegal, and reprimanding the State Commission for Repertoire for having issued it. The correction was signed, ‘Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, I. Stalin.’
    And so he had gone to New York.
    To his mind, rudeness and tyranny were closely connected. It had not escaped his attention that Lenin, when dictating his political will and considering possible successors, judged Stalin’s main fault to be ‘rudeness’. And in his own world, he hated to see conductors described admiringly as ‘dictators’. To be rude to an orchestral player who was doing his best was disgraceful. And these tyrants, these emperors of the baton, revelled in such terminology – as if an orchestra could only play well if whipped and derided and humiliated.
    Toscanini was the worst. He had