Chad Thumann - The Undesirables

Madame Nadia had chosen the composition because it showcased a living, famous Russian composer. But perhaps that, too, was a mistake. She thought she was being patriotic, but in truth she had no idea how Stalin felt about Stravinsky. After all, Stravinsky had never returned to Russia after the Revolution. Perhaps he was a czarist. Perhaps, in her desire to seem patriotic, Madame Nadia was unwittingly celebrating an enemy of the State. That wouldn’t just lead to a cold reception at the summit; it would also lead to a one-way trip to the Gulag. By the time they arrived in Chelyabinsk, it would be July—the summit was set for July 4 in order to honor their American guests. That gave them just enough time to rehearse a new piece of music.

Madame Nadia reached her office and sat down behind her desk with a sigh. She’d made an enormous mistake. But it wasn’t too late to fix it. She began rummaging through her desk drawers for sheet music. Peter and the Wolf? Prokofiev was still living in Moscow, and the kids loved his little musical drama. But she was performing for adults. She tossed it aside. She considered The Nutcracker next, another child’s favorite and another ballet like The Rite of Spring. She tossed that, too, in the discard pile. Tchaikovsky, though, was a good choice. Everyone loved Tchaikovsky, and he died before the Revolution, so he couldn’t be criticized as being anti-Bolshevik. But which piece?

The echo of a door knocker interrupted Madame Nadia’s thoughts. It was the auditorium’s stage door, and the sound made her drop everything. That door was the address she’d given for donations. She stood up and brushed her hands down the front of her dress. Then she checked her hair in a hand mirror. Her bun had come undone. She hurried to reknot it as the knocker echoed once more. She put down the mirror and hurried to the stage door.

She didn’t need donations, not really. But potential benefactors didn’t have to know that. The trip to Chelyabinsk had already been paid for by the Soviet government. A patriotic fervor was gripping Moscow, especially since the Siberian divisions had miraculously delivered them from the Nazis’ clutches this last winter. Everyone was eager to do their part by working hard and donating to the war effort.

Madame Nadia had been sly in associating her orchestra with war morale, and she wasn’t about to deny anyone the satisfaction of pledging a donation. Even though her orchestra didn’t need the money, she sure could use it. It was her way of making a few extra rubles on the side. There was nothing wrong with it. So long as it remained a secret, no one would be hurt, and everyone would win.

She arrived at the stage door, hesitated a moment, put on her most serene smile, and swung it open. Greeting her were two teenagers, a boy and a girl, dressed smartly if not in the latest fashion. They were not quite what Madame Nadia had expected, but she had to be careful. You never knew, after all, who had money these days. Perhaps they were the children of important Party officials, bearing a gift from their parents.

“Welcome,” she announced. “I am Madame Nadia. How may I help you?”

“Good morning, Madame Nadia,” the girl replied with the slight dip of a curtsy. “My name is Inna Kerensky, and this is my brother, Petr.”

The boy glanced at the girl with momentary surprise, but he quickly gathered himself. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance,” the boy declared with a bow.

Madame Nadia stared at the two teens. There was an awkward silence. Why were they here? Had they brought a donation, or hadn’t they? Madame Nadia didn’t want to ask outright. That would be uncouth. Then she noticed one of her flyers dangling from the girl’s hand. “Ah, I see you have one of my flyers. Were you at the concert in the park?”

“I was, Madame,” the girl replied eagerly.

“I very much hope you enjoyed it,” Madame Nadia continued.

The girl hesitated, so the boy added, “We enjoyed it immensely. Thank you, Madame.”

Madame Nadia smiled. But the girl frowned. She opened her mouth, hesitated again, and gathered her courage. “Actually, I felt it sounded a bit amateurish.”

Madame Nadia reddened with anger. She knew it was the truth. She’d told the orchestra the exact same thing herself. But she wasn’t about to be lectured by a teenage nobody. “And I suppose you could have done better?” she shot back.

“Yes, I could have,” the brazen girl replied. “I am quite familiar with The Rite of Spring. Your lead cello, in particular, was poor. If I had been playing, I think I could have made a significant difference.”

Madame Nadia was getting angrier by the moment. This wasn’t a donation, after all. It was an audition. The girl wanted to play lead cello in the orchestra, in her orchestra. “I’m sorry, but this is a youth orchestra. You must be under eighteen.”

“I am seventeen,” the girl told her.

“Auditions are on the first of every year,” Madame Nadia continued, unyielding. “That was six months ago.”

“I could not attend the auditions on account of being trapped in Leningrad.”

Madame Nadia was left speechless. The nerve of this girl, claiming to have been in the martyred city of Leningrad! Everyone in Russia knew about the city. The Soviet propaganda ministers had recently decided to publicize its fate. Rather than keeping it secret, they now celebrated its starving citizens as martyrs to Nazi villainy.

This girl was obviously hoping to play on Nadia’s patriotic emotions. Well, it wouldn’t work, because it was clearly a lie. No one escaped from Leningrad, no one. “I am sorry for your misfortune,” she said curtly. “But you are welcome to audition on January first of 1943.”

Madame Nadia stepped back and began to swing the door shut. But it stopped before latching. The girl had stuck her foot in it. “Please, Madame, I need to get to Chelyabinsk.”

“Then you will have to find your own way there,” Madame Nadia snapped. “The orchestra, and the train, are full.” She kicked the girl’s foot away, then quickly bolted the door.

Karen glared at the stage door, wanting to kick herself. She’d overplayed her hand, acting like a prima donna know-it-all. She hated prima donnas but had assumed the persona intentionally. She’d been around musicians long enough to notice that prima donnas usually got their way. But only because they were talented, Karen now realized. That had been her mistake. Karen had talent, but this Madame Nadia didn’t know it.

Madame Nadia had never heard of Karen Hamilton. And, even if by some miracle, Madame Nadia had heard of Karen, had somehow known Karen was studying on a performance scholarship at the Leningrad Music Conservatory, she still could not know for sure that this girl knocking on her door had talent. Besides, the girl knocking on her door wasn’t even claiming to be Karen Hamilton but someone completely different—a girl named Inna Kerensky.

Karen may have bungled it, she might be down, but she wasn’t yet out. All she had to do was demonstrate to Madame Nadia that she had talent. To do that, she needed to audition.

The fact that formal auditions were closed was meaningless. Karen’s father had always reminded her that an audition could take place anywhere, anytime.

“Can you get me inside?” Karen asked Petr, her eyes glued to the door.

Petr ignored the question. He was dwelling on something else. “Why did you tell her I’m your brother?”

“Oh, that,” Karen replied, breaking her concentration on the door. “I don’t know. It just came to me.”

“Came to you? Why?”

“You’re a war hero. They wrote about you in Pravda. I didn’t want her to recognize your name.”

Petr thought about that. He’d been lucky. Not even Duck’s family had recognized him. If they had, they might have asked why he wasn’t at the front.

“I had to say something, didn’t I?” Karen added. “We couldn’t use your real name, could we?”

“But why claim I’m your brother?”

Karen suddenly realized that she’d been acting as much on emotion as on logic. Pretending that Petr was her brother had seemed like a flash of brilliance that would serve both her personal and emotional goals. But she had never admitted those emotions, not even to herself. And she now hesitated admitting them to Petr. The silence between them grew.

“Is that how you think of me?” Petr asked, almost timidly. “Like a brother?”

“No,” Karen said, wondering at the source of Petr’s sadness. Had he begun to think of her as more than a traveling companion—more, even, than a friend? She hoped so, because she’d begun to feel the same way.

“Then why did you say it?” Petr persisted.

Karen looked him in the eye. “Because you’re not a musician. Unless we’re related, you’ll never be allowed on the train.”

“Of course not. Why should I be allowed on the train?”

“Because I want you to come with me.”

There, the truth was out. Karen was afraid of saying it, afraid of how Petr might react. But now it was out, and there was no taking it back. Petr stared at her in silence, his mind turning, trying to process Karen’s bold statement. Their conversation had just moved across a slippery slope, their emotions vulnerable. It was difficult enough being honest with themselves about how they felt. Being honest with each other could lead to rejection.

He thought he knew what she meant, but was that just wishful thinking? He needed clarification. “You want me to come with you to Chelyabinsk? Is that it?”

Karen shook her head. “I want you to come with me to America.” In America, Karen knew, Petr would be safe. But that’s not really why she’d asked; it wasn’t for a selfless reason but for a selfish one. She loved Petr’s company. She treasured being with him. She wanted him to come with her because she didn’t want to be apart from him. Absence didn’t make the heart grow fonder, she now knew. It made the heart grow absent, too. She’d been apart from Bobby for so long now that he didn’t even seem real anymore. She didn’t want the same thing to happen with Petr.