Moscow Nights: The Van Cliburn Story-How One Man and His Piano Transformed the Cold War by Nigel Cliff Page B
Authors: Nigel Cliff
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stopping to murmur, “Isn’t that beautiful?”
The Spicers’ only child, a daughter, had died five years before, and Van became like a son to them. They worried that he had few interests outside music. The Spicers were hot Yankee fans, but he loathed sports. His room gave no clues to a special girl: there were only three pictures in it, of Mother, Daddy, and Rosina Lhévinne. He was obsessed with Barbara Stanwyck movies; otherwise, his main nonmusical interest seemed to be people, whose company he unaffectedly adored. Allen Spicer, an Old Princetonian, was especially perturbed that Van never opened a book or newspaper. The boy paid little attention when the United States detonated the first hydrogen bombon an atoll in the Pacific Ocean, or when Dwight D. Eisenhower won the1952 presidential election by a landslide, in part by attacking the Truman administration for not doing enough to combat the creeping Communist threat.
“Van,” said Allen, “if you don’t read the headlines, you won’t even know if there’s a war on.”
Van grinned. He lived in a world of eternal verities, where time was an illusion. If, in the spring of 1953, he heard about the convulsions shaking the tormented empire his beloved Russia had become, he could scarcely have imagined that they would soon give him the chance to silence his musical skeptics.
• 3 •
The Successor
AT DUSK on March 1, 1953, Dacha no. 1 was eerily quiet. Not a curtain had twitched since the early hours when the four dinner guests staggered out after the usual boozy bacchanalia, collapsed in the backs of their limousines, and sped back to Moscow. For the first time anyone could remember, the master of the house told the guards to turn in for the night, and they slept soundly until ten. Normally he woke between then and midday, but the morning had gone and then the afternoon, and now they were beginning to get scared, scared at what might have happened and even more scared that they might have to disobey his orders not to disturb him.
At around 6:00 p.m., a light came on in the small dining room. The guards breathed a little and waited, at full alert, but 10:00 p.m. came, and still there was no call.
“Go on, you go, it’s your responsibility,” junior guard Pavel Lozgachev said to the head guard, Starostin.
“I’m afraid,” he murmured.
“Fine, be afraid, but I’m not about to play the hero,” Lozgachev retorted. Just then a package arrived from the Central Committee, and delivering the mail was Lozgachev’s duty.
“All right, then,” he said. “Wish me luck, boys.”
The thickset sentry stomped down the long corridor that joined the lodge to the main house. They always made a noise to warn theBoss they were coming, while pulling themselves into the attitude he liked: erect, not too soldierly.
The door to the small dining room was open, revealing wood-paneled walls newly covered with blown-up magazine photos of young children: a boy on skis, toddlers picnicking under a cherry tree. Lozgachev stepped in, and suddenly his legs abandoned him. The Boss was lying on the carpet in his vest and pajama bottoms, an acrid stain spreading round him. He grunted and weakly raised his hand.
Somehow the guard moved across the room. “Comrade Stalin, what’s wrong?” he asked. “Should I call a doctor?”
This was a dangerous proposition. Since November, Stalin had arrested hundreds of medics, including his personal physician, on suspicion of plotting to murder him and other top leaders. Many were Jewish; Stalin had convinced himself that Jews, with their links to America, were incurable enemies of the state.“Beat them until they confess!” he ordered his torturers. “Beat, beat and beat again. Put them in chains, grind them into powder!” The propagandists announced the results:“It has been established that all these killer-doctors, monsters in human form . . . were hired agents of foreign intelligence services.” With Pravda declaring that
The Spicers’ only child, a daughter, had died five years before, and Van became like a son to them. They worried that he had few interests outside music. The Spicers were hot Yankee fans, but he loathed sports. His room gave no clues to a special girl: there were only three pictures in it, of Mother, Daddy, and Rosina Lhévinne. He was obsessed with Barbara Stanwyck movies; otherwise, his main nonmusical interest seemed to be people, whose company he unaffectedly adored. Allen Spicer, an Old Princetonian, was especially perturbed that Van never opened a book or newspaper. The boy paid little attention when the United States detonated the first hydrogen bombon an atoll in the Pacific Ocean, or when Dwight D. Eisenhower won the1952 presidential election by a landslide, in part by attacking the Truman administration for not doing enough to combat the creeping Communist threat.
“Van,” said Allen, “if you don’t read the headlines, you won’t even know if there’s a war on.”
Van grinned. He lived in a world of eternal verities, where time was an illusion. If, in the spring of 1953, he heard about the convulsions shaking the tormented empire his beloved Russia had become, he could scarcely have imagined that they would soon give him the chance to silence his musical skeptics.
• 3 •
The Successor
AT DUSK on March 1, 1953, Dacha no. 1 was eerily quiet. Not a curtain had twitched since the early hours when the four dinner guests staggered out after the usual boozy bacchanalia, collapsed in the backs of their limousines, and sped back to Moscow. For the first time anyone could remember, the master of the house told the guards to turn in for the night, and they slept soundly until ten. Normally he woke between then and midday, but the morning had gone and then the afternoon, and now they were beginning to get scared, scared at what might have happened and even more scared that they might have to disobey his orders not to disturb him.
At around 6:00 p.m., a light came on in the small dining room. The guards breathed a little and waited, at full alert, but 10:00 p.m. came, and still there was no call.
“Go on, you go, it’s your responsibility,” junior guard Pavel Lozgachev said to the head guard, Starostin.
“I’m afraid,” he murmured.
“Fine, be afraid, but I’m not about to play the hero,” Lozgachev retorted. Just then a package arrived from the Central Committee, and delivering the mail was Lozgachev’s duty.
“All right, then,” he said. “Wish me luck, boys.”
The thickset sentry stomped down the long corridor that joined the lodge to the main house. They always made a noise to warn theBoss they were coming, while pulling themselves into the attitude he liked: erect, not too soldierly.
The door to the small dining room was open, revealing wood-paneled walls newly covered with blown-up magazine photos of young children: a boy on skis, toddlers picnicking under a cherry tree. Lozgachev stepped in, and suddenly his legs abandoned him. The Boss was lying on the carpet in his vest and pajama bottoms, an acrid stain spreading round him. He grunted and weakly raised his hand.
Somehow the guard moved across the room. “Comrade Stalin, what’s wrong?” he asked. “Should I call a doctor?”
This was a dangerous proposition. Since November, Stalin had arrested hundreds of medics, including his personal physician, on suspicion of plotting to murder him and other top leaders. Many were Jewish; Stalin had convinced himself that Jews, with their links to America, were incurable enemies of the state.“Beat them until they confess!” he ordered his torturers. “Beat, beat and beat again. Put them in chains, grind them into powder!” The propagandists announced the results:“It has been established that all these killer-doctors, monsters in human form . . . were hired agents of foreign intelligence services.” With Pravda declaring that
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