A Gentleman in Moscow

Arachne’s Art

History is the business of identifying momentous events from the comfort of a high-back chair. With the benefit of time, the historian looks back and points to a date in the manner of a gray-haired field marshal pointing to a bend in a river on a map: There it was, he says. The turning point. The decisive factor. The fateful day that fundamentally altered all that was to follow.

There on the third of January 1928, the historians tell us, was the launch of the First Five-Year Plan—that initiative which would begin the transformation of Russia from a nineteenth-century agrarian society into a twentieth-century industrial power. There on the seventeenth of November 1929, Nikolai Bukharin, founding father, editor of Pravda, and last true friend of the peasant, was outmaneuvered by Stalin and ousted from the Politburo—clearing the way for a return to autocracy in all but name. And there on the twenty-fifth of February 1927, was the drafting of Article 58 of the Criminal Code—the net that would eventually ensnare us all.

There on the twenty-seventh of May, or there on the sixth of December; at eight or nine in the morning.

There it was, they say. As if—like at the opera—a curtain has closed, a lever has been pulled, one set has been whisked to the rafters and another has dropped to the stage, such that when the curtain opens a moment later the audience will find itself transported from a richly appointed ballroom to the banks of a wooded stream. . . .

But the events that transpired on those various dates did not throw the city of Moscow into upheaval. When the page was torn from the calendar, the bedroom windows did not suddenly shine with the light of a million electric lamps; that Fatherly gaze did not suddenly hang over every desk and appear in every dream; nor did the drivers of a hundred Black Marias turn the keys in their ignitions and fan out into the shadowy streets. For the launch of the First Five-Year Plan, Bukharin’s fall from grace, and the expansion of the Criminal Code to allow the arrest of anyone even countenancing dissension, these were only tidings, omens, underpinnings. And it would be a decade before their effects were fully felt.

No. For most of us, the late 1920s were not characterized by a series of momentous events. Rather, the passage of those years was like the turn of a kaleidoscope.

At the bottom of a kaleidoscope’s cylinder lie shards of colored glass in random arrangement; but thanks to a glint of sunlight, the interplay of mirrors, and the magic of symmetry, when one peers inside what one finds is a pattern so colorful, so perfectly intricate, it seems certain to have been designed with the utmost care. Then by the slightest turn of the wrist, the shards begin to shift and settle into a new configuration—a configuration with its own symmetry of shapes, its own intricacy of colors, its own hints of design.

So it was in the city of Moscow in the late 1920s.

And so it was at the Metropol Hotel.

In fact, if a seasoned Muscovite were to cross Theatre Square on the last day of spring in 1930, he would find the hotel much as he remembered it.

There on the front steps still stands Pavel Ivanovich in his greatcoat looking as stalwart as ever (though his hip now gives him some trouble on foggy afternoons). On the other side of the revolving doors are the same eager lads in the same blue caps ready to whisk one’s suitcases up the stairs (though they now answer to Grisha and Genya rather than Pasha and Petya). Vasily, with his uncanny awareness of whereabouts, still mans the concierge’s desk directly across from Arkady, who remains ready to spin the register and offer you a pen. And in the manager’s office, Mr. Halecki still sits behind his spotless desk (though a new assistant manager with the smile of an ecclesiast is prone to interrupt his reveries over the slightest infraction of the hotel’s rules).

In the Piazza, Russians cut from every cloth (or at least those who have access to foreign currency) gather to linger over coffee and happen upon friends. While in the ballroom, the weighty remarks and late arrivals that once characterized the Assemblies now characterize Dinners of State (though no one with a penchant for yellow spies from the balcony anymore).

And the Boyarsky?

At two o’clock its kitchen is already in full swing. Along the wooden tables the junior chefs are chopping carrots and onions as Stanislav, the sous-chef, delicately debones pigeons with a whistle on his lips. On the great stoves, eight burners have been lit to simmer sauces, soups, and stews. The pastry chef, who seems as dusted with flour as one of his rolls, opens an oven door to withdraw two trays of brioches. And in the center of all this activity, with an eye on every assistant and a finger in every pot, stands Emile Zhukovsky, his chopping knife in hand.

If the kitchen of the Boyarsky is an orchestra and Emile its conductor, then his chopping knife is the baton. With a blade two inches wide at the base and ten inches long to the tip, it is rarely out of his hand and never far from reach. Though the kitchen is outfitted with paring knives, boning knives, carving knives, and cleavers, Emile can complete any of the various tasks for which those knives were designed with his ten-inch chopper. With it he can skin a rabbit. He can zest a lemon. He can peel and quarter a grape. He can use it to flip a pancake or stir a soup, and with the stabbing end he can measure out a teaspoon of sugar or a dash of salt. But most of all, he uses it for pointing.

“You,” he says to the saucier, waving the point of his chopper. “Are you going to boil that to nothing? What are you going to use it for, eh? To pave roads? To paint icons?

“You,” he says to the conscientious new apprentice at the end of the counter. “What are you doing there? It took less time for that parsley to grow than for you to mince it!”

And on the last day of spring? It is Stanislav who receives the tip of the knife. For in the midst of trimming the fat from racks of lamb, Emile suddenly stops and glares across the table.

“You!” he says, pointing the chopper at Stanislav’s nose. “What is that?”

Stanislav, a lanky Estonian who has dutifully studied his master’s every move, looks up from his pigeons with startled eyes.

“What is what, sir?”

“What is that you’re whistling?”

Admittedly, there has been a melody playing in Stanislav’s head—a little something that he had heard the night before while passing the entrance of the hotel’s bar—but he had not been conscious of whistling it. And now that he faces the chopper, he cannot for the life of him remember what the melody was.

“I am not certain,” he confesses.

“Not certain! Were you whistling or weren’t you?”

“Yes, sir. It was I who must have been whistling. But I assure you it was just a ditty.”

“Just a ditty?”

“A little song.”

“I know what a ditty is! But under what authority are you whistling one? Eh? Has the Central Committee made you Commissar of Ditty Whistling? Is that the Grand Order of Dittyness I see pinned to your chest?”

Without looking down, Emile slams his chopper to the counter, splitting a lamb chop from its rack as if he were severing the melody from Stanislav’s memory once and for all. The chef raises his chopper again and points its tip, but before he can elaborate, that door which separates Emile’s kitchen from the rest of the world swings open. It is Andrey, as prompt as ever, with his Book in hand and a pair of spectacles resting on the top of his head. Like a brigand after a skirmish, Emile slips his chopper under the tie of his apron and then looks expectantly at the door, which a moment later swings again.

With the slightest turn of the wrist the shards of glass tumble into a new arrangement. The blue cap of the bellhop is handed from one boy to the next, a dress as yellow as a canary is stowed in a trunk, a little red guidebook is updated with the new names of streets, and through Emile’s swinging door walks Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov—with the white dinner jacket of the Boyarsky draped across his arm.

One minute later, sitting at the table in the little office overlooking the kitchen were Emile, Andrey, and the Count—that Triumvirate which met each day at 2:15 to decide the fate of the restaurant’s staff, its customers, its chickens and tomatoes.

As was customary, Andrey convened the meeting by resting his reading glasses on the tip of his nose and opening the Book.

“There are no parties in the private rooms tonight,” he began, “but every table in the dining room is reserved for two seatings.”

“Ah,” said Emile with the grim smile of the commander who prefers to be outnumbered. “But you’re not going to rush them, eh?”

“Absolutely not,” assured the Count. “We’ll simply see to it that their menus are delivered promptly and their orders taken directly.”

Emile nodded in acknowledgment.

“Are there any complications?” asked the Count of the maître d’.

“Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Andrey spun the Book so that his headwaiter could see for himself.

The Count ran a finger down the list of reservations. As Andrey had said, there was nothing out of the ordinary. The Commissar of Transport loathed American journalists; the German ambassador loathed the Commissar of Transport; and the deputy head of the OGPU was loathed by all.* The most delicate matter was that two different members of the Politburo were hosting tables during the second seating. As both were relatively new to their positions, it was not essential that either have the best tables in the house. What was essential was that their treatment be identical in every respect. They must be served with equal attention at tables of equal size equidistant from the kitchen door. And ideally, they would be on opposite sides of the centerpiece (tonight an arrangement of irises).

“What do you think?” asked Andrey, with his pen in hand.

As the Count made his suggestions of who should sit where, there came a delicate knock on the door. Stanislav entered, carrying a serving bowl and platter.

“Good day, gentlemen,” the sous-chef said to Andrey and the Count with a friendly smile. “In addition to our normal fare, tonight we have cucumber soup and—”

“Yes, yes,” said Emile with a scowl. “We know, we know.”

Stanislav apologetically placed the bowl and platter on the table, even as Emile waved him from the room. Once he was gone, the chef gestured at the offering. “In addition to our normal fare, tonight we have cucumber soup and rack of lamb with a red wine reduction.”

On the table were three teacups. Emile ladled the soup into two of the cups and waited for his colleagues to sample it.

“Excellent,” said Andrey.

Emile nodded and then turned to the Count with his eyebrows raised.

A puree of peeled cucumber, thought the Count. Yogurt, of course. A bit of salt. Not as much dill as one might expect. In fact, something else entirely . . . Something that speaks just as eloquently of summer’s approach, but with a little more flair . . .

“Mint?” he asked.

The chef responded with the smile of the bested.

“Bravo, monsieur.”

“. . . To anticipate the lamb,” the Count added with appreciation.

Emile bowed his head once and then, slipping the chopper from his waist, he carved four chops from the rack and stacked two on each of his colleagues’ plates.

The lamb, which had been encrusted with rosemary and breadcrumbs, was savory and tender. Both maître d’ and headwaiter sighed in appreciation.

Thanks to a member of the Central Committee, who had tried unsuccessfully to order a bottle of Bordeaux for the new French ambassador in 1927, wines with labels could once again be found in the Metropol’s cellar (after all, despite its considerable size, the neck of a dragon has been known to whip about like that of an asp). So, turning to the Count, Andrey asked what he thought they should recommend with the lamb.

“For those who can afford it, the Château Latour ’99.”

The chef and maître d’ nodded.

“And for those who cannot?”

The Count considered.

“Perhaps a Côtes du Rhône.”

“Excellent,” said Andrey.

Picking up his chopper, Emile pointed at the rest of the rack and cautioned the Count: “Tell your boys that my lamb is served rare. If someone wants it medium, they can go to a canteen.”

The Count expressed his comprehension and willingness to comply. Then Andrey closed the Book and Emile wiped his chopper. But as they began pushing back their chairs, the Count remained where he was.

“Gentlemen,” he said. “Just one more thing before we adjourn. . . .”

Given the expression on the Count’s face, the chef and the maître d’ pulled their chairs back to the table.

The Count looked through the window into the kitchen to confirm that the staff were consumed with their work. Then from his jacket pocket he took the envelope that had been slipped under his door. When he tipped it over Emile’s unused teacup, out poured filaments of a red and golden hue.

The three men were silent for a moment.

Emile sat back.

“Bravo,” he said again.

“May I?” asked Andrey.

“Certainly.”

Andrey picked up the teacup and tipped it back and forth. Then he replaced it so gently on its saucer that the porcelain didn’t make a sound.

“Is it enough?”

Having watched the filaments spill from the envelope, the chef didn’t need a second look.

“Without a doubt.”

“Do we still have the fennel?”

“There are a few bulbs at the back of the larder. We’ll have to discard the outer leaves, but otherwise they’re fine.”

“Did you hear back about the oranges?” asked the Count.

With a somber look, the chef shook his head.

“How many would we need?” asked Andrey.

“Two. Maybe three.”

“I think I know where some can be found. . . .”

“Can they be found today?” asked the chef.

Andrey pulled the pocket watch from his vest and consulted it in the palm of his hand.

“With any luck.”

Where would Andrey be able to acquire three oranges on such short notice? Another restaurant? One of the special stores for hard currencies? A patron in the upper echelons of the Party? Well, for that matter, where did the Count acquire an ounce and a half of saffron? Such questions had stopped being asked years ago. Suffice it to say, the saffron was in hand and the oranges within reach.

The three conspirators exchanged satisfied glances and then pushed back their chairs. Andrey put his glasses back on his head as Emile turned to the Count.

“You’ll get the menus in their hands directly and their orders taken promptly, eh? No malingering?”

“No malingering.”

“Well then,” concluded the chef. “We meet at half past twelve.”

When the Count left the Boyarsky with his white jacket draped across his arm, there was a smile on his lips and a jauntiness to his step. In fact, there was a brightness in his whole demeanor.

“Greetings, Grisha,” he said as he passed the bellhop (who was on his way up the stairs with a vase of tiger lilies two feet tall).

“Guten tag,” he said to the lovely young Fraulein in the lavender blouse (who was waiting by the elevator door).

The Count’s good humor was due in part, no doubt, to the reading on the thermometer. Over the previous three weeks, the temperature had climbed four and a half degrees, setting in motion that course of natural and human events which culminates in hints of mint in cucumber soups, lavender blouses at elevator doors, and midday deliveries of tiger lilies two feet tall. Also lightening his step were the promises of an afternoon assignation and a midnight rendezvous. But the factor that most directly contributed to the Count’s good humor was the double bravo from Emile. This was something that had occurred only once or twice in four years.

Passing through the lobby, the Count returned the friendly wave from the new fellow at the mail window and hailed Vasily, who was hanging up his phone (having undoubtedly secured another two tickets for some sold-out performance).

“Good afternoon, my friend. Hard at work I see.”

In acknowledgment, the concierge gestured to the lobby, which bustled almost as much as it had in its prewar prime. As if on cue, the telephone on his desk began to ring, the bellhop’s bell triple-chimed, and someone called out, “Comrade! Comrade!”

Ah, comrade, thought the Count. Now, there was a word for the ages. . . .

When the Count was a boy in St. Petersburg, one rarely bumped into it. It was always prowling at the back of a mill or under the table in a tavern, occasionally leaving its paw marks on the freshly printed pamphlets that were drying on a basement floor. Now, thirty years later, it was the most commonly heard word in the Russian language.

A wonder of semantic efficiency, comrade could be used as a greeting, or a word of parting. As a congratulations, or a caution. As a call to action, or a remonstrance. Or it could simply be the means of securing someone’s attention in the crowded lobby of a grand hotel. And thanks to the word’s versatility, the Russian people had finally been able to dispense with tired formalities, antiquated titles, bothersome idioms—even names! Where else in all of Europe could one shout a single word to hail any of one’s countrymen be they male or female, young or old, friend or foe?

“Comrade!” someone called again—this time with a little more urgency. And then he tugged on the Count’s sleeve.

Startled, the Count turned to find the new fellow from the mail window at his elbow.

“Well, hello there. How can I be of service to you, young man?”

The fellow looked perplexed at the Count’s question, having assumed that it was his position to be of service to someone else.

“There is a letter for you,” he explained.

“For me?”

“Yes, comrade. It came yesterday.”

The young fellow pointed back toward the window to indicate where the letter remained.

“Well, in that case, after you,” said the Count.

Civil servant and customer proceeded to their appropriate stations on either side of that small window which separates the written from the read.

“Here it is,” he said, after a moment of sorting.

“Thank you, my good man.”

Taking the envelope in hand, the Count was half expecting to find it addressed to Comrade, but there (under two postage stamps bearing the likeness of Lenin) was the Count’s full name—written in an indifferently groomed, relatively reclusive, occasionally argumentative script.

When the Count had come down to the lobby from the Boyarsky, he had been on his way to the office of the shy delight, where he hoped to secure a length of white thread for a button that had been compromised on his jacket. But he had not seen Mishka in almost half a year; and at the very moment that he recognized his old friend’s script, a lady with a lapdog rose from his favorite chair between the potted palms. Ever respectful of Fate, the Count postponed his visit to the seamstress, claimed his seat, and opened the letter.

Leningrad

June 14, 1930

Dear Sasha,

At four this morning, unable to sleep, I ventured out into the old city. As the revelers of the white nights had already stumbled home and the tram conductors had yet to don their caps, I strolled along Nevsky Prospekt through a stillness of spring that seemed stolen from another province, if not another time.

Nevsky, like the city itself, bears a new name: October 25th Prospekt—a worthy day staking its claim on a storied street. But at this hour, it was just as you remember it, my friend. And with no destination in mind, I crossed the Moika and Fontanka Canals, I passed the shops, and the rose-hued facades of the grand old homes until, at last, I reached Tikhvin Cemetery, where the bodies of Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky slumber a few feet apart. (Do you remember how late into the night we would debate the genius of the one over the other?)

And suddenly it struck me that walking the length of Nevsky Prospekt was like walking the length of Russian literature. Right there at the beginning—just off the avenue on the Moika embankment—is the house where Pushkin ended his years. A few paces on are the rooms where Gogol began Dead Souls. Then the National Library, where Tolstoy scoured the archives. And here, behind the cemetery walls, lies brother Fyodor, our restless witness of the human soul entombed beneath the cherry trees.

As I was standing lost in thought, the sun rose above the cemetery walls, shining its light down the Prospekt and, nearly overcome, I recalled that great affirmation, that proclamation, that promise:

Always to shine,

to shine everywhere,

to the very depths of the last days . . .

Before turning to the second page of his old friend’s letter, the Count found himself looking up, deeply moved.

It was not the memories of St. Petersburg that affected him so—not some nostalgia for his youth among the rose-hued facades, or for his years with Mishka in the apartment above the cobbler’s. Nor was it Mishka’s sentimental reminders of Russia’s literary greatness. What moved the Count was the thought of his old friend venturing out into this stolen spring barely aware of where he was headed. For from the letter’s first line, the Count had known exactly where Mishka was headed.

It had been four years since Mishka had moved to Kiev with Katerina; it had been one year since she had left him for another man; and six months since he had returned to St. Petersburg to barricade himself once again behind his books. Then one spring night at four in the morning, unable to sleep, he finds himself on Nevsky Prospekt following the very same route that he had walked with Katerina on the day that she had first taken his hand. And there, as the sun begins to rise, he is overcome with thoughts of an affirmation, a proclamation, a promise—a promise to shine everywhere and always to very depths of the last days—which, after all, is all that anyone has ever asked of love.

As these thoughts passed through the Count’s mind, was he concerned that Mishka still pined for Katerina? Was he concerned that his old friend was morbidly retracing the footsteps of a lapsed romance?

Concerned? Mishka would pine for Katerina the rest of his life! Never again would he walk Nevsky Prospekt, however they chose to rename it, without feeling an unbearable sense of loss. And that is just how it should be. That sense of loss is exactly what we must anticipate, prepare for, and cherish to the last of our days; for it is only our heartbreak that finally refutes all that is ephemeral in love.

The Count picked up Mishka’s letter with the intention of reading on, but as he turned the page, three youths leaving the Piazza happened to stop on the other side of one of the potted palms to carry on some weighty conversation.

The trio was made up of a good-looking Komsomol type in his early twenties, and two younger women—one blonde, one brunette. The three were apparently headed for the Ivanovo Province in some official capacity and the young man, who was their captain, now warned his compatriots of the privations they would inevitably face while assuring them of their work’s historical significance.

When he finished, the brunette asked how large the province was, but before he could answer, the blonde obliged: “It is over three hundred square miles with a population of half a million. And while the region is largely agricultural, it has only eight machine tractor stations and six modern mills.”

The handsome captain did not seem the least put out by his younger comrade answering on his behalf. On the contrary, it was plain from the expression on his face that he held her in the highest regard.

As the blonde concluded her geography lesson, a fourth member of the party jogged up from the direction of the Piazza. Shorter and younger than the leader, he was wearing the sailor’s cap that had been favored among landlocked youth ever since Battleship Potemkin. In his hand he had a canvas jacket, which he now held out to the blonde.

“I took the liberty of getting your coat,” he said eagerly, “when I picked up mine.”

The blonde accepted the coat with a nod, and without a word of thanks.

Without a word of thanks . . . ?

The Count rose to his feet.

“Nina?”

All four youths turned toward the potted palm.

Leaving his white jacket and Mishka’s letter in his chair, the Count stepped from behind the fronds.

“Nina Kulikova!” he exclaimed. “What a delightful surprise.”

And that is exactly what it was for the Count: a delightful surprise. For he had not seen Nina in over two years; and many had been the time that he had passed the card room or the ballroom and found himself wondering where she was and what she was doing.

But in an instant, the Count could see that for Nina his sudden appearance was less opportune. Perhaps she’d rather not have to explain to her comrades about her acquaintance with a Former Person. Perhaps she hadn’t mentioned that she had lived as a child in such a fine hotel. Or perhaps she simply wanted to carry on this purposeful conversation with her purposeful friends.

“I’ll be just a minute,” she told them, then crossed over to the Count.

Naturally, after such a long separation the Count’s instinct was to embrace little Nina like a bear; but she seemed to dissuade his impulse with her posture.

“It is good to see you, Nina.”

“And you, Alexander Ilyich.”

The old friends took each other in for a moment; then Nina made a gesture toward the white jacket hanging over the arm of the chair.

“I see you are still presiding over tables at the Boyarsky.”

“Yes,” he said with a smile, though unsure from her businesslike tone whether he should take the remark as a compliment or criticism. . . . He was tempted in turn to ask (with a glint in his eye) if she had had an “hors d’oeuvre” at the Piazza, but thought better of it.

“I gather you are on the verge of an adventure,” he said instead.

“I suppose there will be adventurous aspects,” she replied. “But mostly there will be a good deal of work.”

The four of them, she explained, were leaving the next morning with ten other cadres of local Komsomol youth for the Kady District—an ancient agricultural center in the heart of the Ivanovo Province—to aid the udarniks, or “shock workers,” in the collectivization of the region. At the end of 1928, only 10 percent of the farms in Ivanovo had been operating as collectives. By the end of 1931, nearly all of them would be.

“For generations the kulaks have farmed the land for themselves, organizing the local peasant labor to their own ends. But the time has come for the common land to serve the common good. It is a historical necessity,” she added matter-of-factly, “an inevitability. After all, does a teacher only teach his own children? Does a physician only care for his parents?”

As Nina began this little speech, the Count was taken aback for a moment by her tone and terminology—by her exacting assessment of kulaks and the “inevitable” need for collectivization. But when she tucked her hair behind her ears, he realized that her fervor shouldn’t have come as a surprise. She was simply bringing to the Komsomol the same unwavering enthusiasm and precise attention to detail that she had brought to the mathematics of Professor Lisitsky. Nina Kulikova always was and would be a serious soul in search of serious ideas to be serious about.

Nina had told her comrades that she would only be a minute, but as she elaborated on the work that lay ahead, she seemed to forget that they were still standing on the other side of the potted palm.

With an inward smile, the Count noted over her shoulder that the handsome captain, having volunteered to wait for Nina, was sending the others on ahead—a reasonable gambit under any ideology.

“I should go,” she said, after drawing her remarks to a close.

“Yes. Absolutely,” replied the Count. “You must have a great deal to see to.”

In sober acknowledgment, she shook his hand; and when she turned, she barely seemed to notice that two of her comrades had already left—as if having a handsome fellow wait for her was something to which she had already become accustomed.

As the two young idealists left the hotel, the Count watched through the revolving doors. He watched as the young man spoke to Pavel, and Pavel signaled a taxi. But when the taxi appeared and the young man opened the door, Nina gestured across Theatre Square, indicating that she was headed in another direction. The handsome captain made a similar gesture, presumably offering to accompany her, but Nina shook his hand just as soberly as she had shaken the Count’s and then walked across the square in the general direction of historical necessity.

“Isn’t that more of a cream than a pearl?”

Together, the Count and Marina were staring at a spool that she had just taken from a drawer filled with threads in every possible shade of white.

“I am so sorry, Your Excellency,” Marina replied. “Now that you bring it to my attention, it does seem more creamy than pearly.”

The Count looked up from the spool into Marina’s stationary eye, which was filled with concern; but her wandering eye seemed filled with mirth. Then she laughed like a schoolgirl.

“Oh, give me that,” he said.

“Here,” she said in a conciliatory tone. “Let me.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Oh, come now.”

“I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself, thank you.”

But to the Count’s credit, he was not simply making a peevish point. He was, in fact, perfectly capable of doing it himself.

It stands to reason that if you wish to be a good waiter you must be master of your own appearance. You must be clean, well groomed, and graceful. But you must also be neatly dressed. You certainly can’t wander around the dining room with fraying collars or cuffs. And God forbid you should presume to serve with a dangling button—for next thing you knew, it would be floating in a customer’s vichyssoise. So, three weeks after joining the staff of the Boyarsky, the Count had asked Marina to teach him Arachne’s art. To be conservative, the Count had set aside an hour for the lesson. It ended up taking eight hours over the course of four weeks.

Who knew that there was such a plethora of stitches? The backstitch, cross-stitch, slip stitch, topstitch, whipstitch. Aristotle, Larousse, and Diderot—those great encyclopedists who spent their lives segmenting, cataloging, and defining all manner of phenomena—would never have imagined that there were so many, and each one suited to a different purpose!

With his creamy thread in hand, the Count settled himself into a chair; and when Marina held out her pincushion, he surveyed the needles as a child surveys chocolates in a box.

“This one,” he said.

Licking the thread and closing an eye (just as Marina had taught him), the Count threaded the needle faster than saints enter the gates of heaven. Forming a double loop, tying off a knot, and snipping the thread from the spool, the Count sat upright and set about his work as Marina set about hers (the repair of a pillowcase).

As with any sewing circle since the beginning of time, the two in this one were accustomed to sharing observations from their day as they stitched. Most of these observations were met with a Hmm, or an Is that so? without a break in the rhythm of the work; but occasionally, some item that warranted greater attention would bring the stitching to a stop. Just so, having exchanged remarks on the weather, and Pavel’s handsome new topcoat, Marina’s needle suddenly froze in midstitch when the Count mentioned that he had run into Nina.

“Nina Kulikova?” she asked in surprise.

“None other.”

“Where?”

“In the lobby. She had been having lunch with three of her comrades.”

“Did you speak?”

“At some length.”

“What did she have to say for herself?”

“It seems they are off to Ivanovo to rationalize kulaks and collectivize tractors, and what have you.”

“Never mind that, Alexander. How was she?”

Here the Count stopped his stitching.

“She was every bit herself,” he said after a moment. “Still full of curiosity and passion and self-assurance.”

“Wonderful,” Marina said with a smile.

The Count watched as she resumed her stitching.

“And yet . . .”

Marina stopped again and met his gaze.

“And yet?”

. . .

“It’s nothing.”

“Alexander. There is clearly something on your mind.”

. . .

“It’s just that to hear Nina talk of her upcoming journey, she is so passionate, so self-assured, and perhaps so single-minded, that she seems almost humorless. Like some dauntless explorer, she seems ready to place her flag in a polar ice cap and claim it in the name of Inevitability. But I can’t help suspecting that all the while, her happiness may be waiting in another latitude altogether.”

“Come now, Alexander. Little Nina must be nearly eighteen. Surely, when you were that age you and your friends spoke with passion and self-assurance.”

“Of course we did,” said the Count. “We sat in cafés and argued about ideas until they mopped the floors and doused the lights.”

“Well, there you are.”

“It’s true that we argued about ideas, Marina; but we never had any intention of doing anything about them.”

Marina rolled one of her eyes.

“Heaven forbid you should do something about an idea.”

“No, I am serious. Nina is so determined, I fear that the force of her convictions will interfere with the joys of her youth.”

Marina put her sewing in her lap.

“You have always been fond of little Nina.”

“Of course I have.”

“And in part, that is because she is such an independent spirit.”

“Precisely.”

“Then you must trust in her. And even if she is single-minded to a fault, you must trust that life will find her in time. For eventually, it finds us all.”

The Count nodded for a moment, reflecting on Marina’s position. Then returning to his task, he looped through the button’s holes, wound the shank, tied off the knot, and snapped the thread with his teeth. Poking Marina’s needle back into its cushion, he noted it was already 4:05, a fact that confirmed once again how quickly time flies when one is immersed in a pleasant task accompanied by pleasant conversation.

Wait a moment . . . , thought the Count.

Already 4:05?

“Great Scott!”

Thanking Marina, the Count grabbed his jacket, dashed to the lobby, and vaulted up the stairs two by two. When he arrived at suite 311, he found the door ajar. Looking left and looking right, he slipped inside and closed the door.

On the side table before an ornate mirror were the two-foot tiger lilies that had passed him earlier in the day. After taking a quick look around, the Count crossed the empty sitting room and entered the bedchamber, where a willowy figure stood in silhouette before one of the great windows. At the sound of his approach, she turned and let her dress slip to the floor with a delicate whoosh. . . .