A Gentleman in Moscow

Antics, Antitheses, an Accident

At 1:30, in the manager’s office of the Metropol Hotel, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov took the chair across the desk from the man with the narrow head and superior demeanor.

When the Count had received the Bishop’s summons in the Piazza, he had assumed the matter must be urgent because the messenger had waited for him to finish his demitasse and then led him promptly to the executive suite. But once the Count had been ushered through the manager’s door, the Bishop barely glanced up from the papers he was signing. Rather, he waved his pen toward the empty chair in the manner of one who wishes to indicate that he will be with you in a moment.

“Thank you,” said the Count, accepting this perfunctory offer of a chair with a perfunctory bow of the head.

Not one to sit idly about, the Count made use of the empty minutes by surveying the office, which had undergone something of a transformation since Jozef Halecki had occupied it. While the desk of the former manager remained, it was no longer impressively bare. Along with six piles of paper, it now boasted a stapler, a penholder, and two telephones (presumably so the Bishop could put the Central Committee on hold while he dialed up the Politburo). In place of the burgundy chaise where the old Pole had allegedly reclined, there were now three gray filing cabinets with stainless-steel locks standing at attention. And the delightful hunting scenes that had once adorned the mahogany panels had been replaced, of course, with portraits of Messrs. Stalin, Lenin, and Marx.

Having inscribed his signature on twelve sheets of paper to his perfect satisfaction, the Bishop established a seventh pile at the edge of his desk, replaced the pen in its stand, and for the first time looked the Count in the eye.

“I gather you are an early riser, Alexander Ilyich,” he said after a moment of silence.

“Men of purpose usually are.”

The corner of the Bishop’s mouth rose ever so slightly.

“Yes, of course. Men of purpose.”

He reached across his desk to straighten his newest pile of papers.

“And you breakfast in your room at around seven . . . ?”

“That’s right.”

“Then at eight, it is your habit to read the papers in the lobby.”

Confound the fellow, thought the Count. He interrupts the conclusion of a perfectly delightful lunch with a hand-delivered summons. Clearly, there is something on his mind. But must it always be on the bias with him? Has he no facility with the direct question? No appreciation for it? Were they to sit there reviewing the Count’s typical day minute by minute—when the Triumvirate was scheduled to meet in less than an hour?

“Yes,” confirmed the Count a little impatiently. “I read the morning papers in the morning.”

“But in the lobby. You come down to the lobby.”

“Without fail, I walk down the stairs to read in the comfort of the lobby.”

The Bishop sat back in his chair and offered the briefest of smiles.

“Then perhaps you are aware of the incident that occurred this morning in the fourth-floor corridor at a quarter to eight. . . .”

For the record, the Count had risen shortly after seven. Having completed fifteen squats and fifteen stretches, having enjoyed his coffee, biscuit, and a piece of fruit (today a tangerine), having bathed, shaved, and dressed, he kissed Sofia on the forehead and departed from their bedroom with the intention of reading the papers in his favorite lobby chair. Descending one flight, he exited the belfry and traversed the hall to the main stair, as was his habit. But as he turned on the fifth-floor landing, he heard sounds of commotion coming from below.

The immediate impression was of fifteen voices shouting in twenty languages. These were accompanied by the slamming of a door, the shattering of a plate, and a rather insistent squawking that seemed distinctly avian in character. When he reached the fourth floor at approximately 7:45, the Count, in fact, discovered a genuine state of upheaval.

Nearly every door was open and every guest in the hall. Among those assembled were two French journalists, a Swiss diplomat, three Uzbek fur traders, a representative of the Roman Catholic Church, and a repatriated opera tenor with his family of five. Still in their pajamas, most of the members of this convention were waving their arms and expressing themselves emphatically—as three adult geese scurried between their legs, honking and beating their wings.

Several of the women were acting as terrorized as if they had been descended upon by Harpies. The wife of the tenor was cowering behind her husband’s prodigious torso, and Kristina, one of the hotel’s chambermaids, was backed against a wall, clutching an empty tray to her chest while at her feet lay a confusion of cutlery and kasha.

When the tenor’s three sons displayed their fortitude by giving chase to the three different birds in three different directions, the ambassador from the Vatican advised the tenor on the proper behavior of children. The tenor, who spoke only a few words of Italian, informed the prelate (fortissimo) that he was not a man to be toyed with. The Swiss diplomat, who spoke both Russian and Italian fluently, exemplified his nation’s reputation for neutrality by listening to both men with his mouth shut. When the prelate stepped forward to make his point more pontifically, one of the geese, which had been cornered by the tenor’s eldest son, shot through his legs into his apartment—at which point, a young woman, who was decidedly not a representative of the Roman Catholic Church, came racing into the hallway wrapped only in a blue kimono.

By this point, the commotion had apparently awakened the guests on the fifth floor, as several came tromping down the stairs to see what all the fuss was about. At the forefront of this contingent was the American general—a no-nonsense figure who hailed from what is reportedly known as “The Great State of Texas.” Having quickly assessed the situation, the general grabbed one of the geese by the throat. The speed with which he captured the bird gave those assembled a boost of confidence. Several even cheered him on. That is, until he wrapped his second hand around the goose’s neck with the clear intention of snapping it. This elicited a scream from the young woman in the blue kimono, tears from the tenor’s daughter, and a stern reproach from the Swiss diplomat. Stymied at the very instant of decisive action, the general expressed his exasperation with the fecklessness of civilians, walked into the prelate’s apartment, and tossed the goose out the window.

Committed to restoring order, the general returned a moment later and deftly seized a second goose. But when he held up this bird to assure the assembly of his peaceful intent, the tie at his waist unraveled and his robe flew open, revealing a seasoned pair of olive green briefs, prompting the wife of the tenor to faint.

As the Count watched these proceedings from the landing, he became aware of a presence at his side. Turning, he found it was the general’s aide-de-camp, a gregarious fellow who had become something of a fixture in the Shalyapin. Taking in the scene at a glance, the aide-de-camp issued a sigh of satisfaction and then remarked to no one in particular:

“How I love this hotel.”

So, was the Count “aware” of what took place in the fourth-floor corridor at a quarter to eight? One might just as well ask if Noah was aware of the Flood, or Adam the Apple. Of course he was aware. No man on earth was more aware. But what aspect of his awareness could possibly warrant the interruption of a demitasse?

“I am familiar with this morning’s events,” confirmed the Count, “as I happened to be rounding the landing at the very moment they occurred.”

“So you witnessed the mayhem in person . . . ?”

“Yes. I saw the antics unfolding firsthand. Even so, I am not entirely certain as to why I am here.”

“You are in the dark, as it were.”

“In point of fact, I am flummoxed. Mystified.”

“Of course.”

Following a moment of silence, the Bishop offered his most ecclesiastical smile. Then, as if it were perfectly normal to wander about an office in the middle of a conversation, he rose and crossed to the wall, where he gingerly straightened the portrait of Mr. Marx, who, having slipped on his hook, was admittedly undermining the ideological authority of the room.

Turning back, the Bishop continued.

“I can see why in describing these unfortunate events you chose to discard mayhem in favor of antics. For antics do seem to suggest a certain childishness . . .”

The Count considered this for a moment.

“You don’t suspect the tenor’s boys?”

“Hardly. After all, the geese had been locked in a cage in the pantry of the Boyarsky.”

“Are you suggesting that Emile had something to do with it?”

The Bishop ignored the Count’s question and resumed his place behind the desk.

“The Metropol Hotel,” he informed the Count unnecessarily, “is host to some of the world’s most eminent statesmen and prominent artistes. When they pass through our doors, they have the right to expect unparalleled comfort, unsurpassed service, and mornings free of mayhem. Needless to say,” he concluded, reaching for his pen, “I shall get to the bottom of this.”

“Well,” replied the Count, rising from his chair, “if getting to the bottom is what is called for, I am sure there is no man better suited for the job.”

A certain childishness, muttered the Count as he exited the executive suite. Mornings of mayhem . . .

Did the Bishop think him a fool? Did he imagine for one second that the Count couldn’t see what he was angling at? What he was insinuating? That little Sofia was somehow involved?

Not only could the Count tell exactly what the Bishop was driving at, he could have countered with a few insinuations of his own—and in iambic pentameter, no less. But the notion of Sofia’s involvement was so unfounded, so preposterous, so outrageous, it did not deserve a response.

Now, the Count could not deny that Sofia had a certain playful streak, just as any child of thirteen should. But she was no gadabout. No gadfly. No ne’er-do-well. In fact, as the Count was returning from the manager’s office, there she was sitting in the lobby bent over some weighty textbook. It was a tableau familiar to any member of the Metropol staff. For hours on end she sat in that very chair memorizing capitals, conjugating verbs, and solving for x or y. With an equal sense of dedication she studied her sewing with Marina and her sauces with Emile. Why, ask anyone who knew Sofia to describe her and they would tell you that she was studious, shy, and well behaved; or in a word, demure.

As he mounted the stairs to the upper floors, the Count enumerated the relevant facts like a jurist: In eight years, Sofia had not thrown a single tantrum; every day she had brushed her teeth and headed off to school without a fuss; and whether it was time to bundle up, buckle down, or eat her peas, she had done so without complaint. Even that little game of her own invention, which she had grown so fond of playing, was founded on a quality of poise that was beyond her years.

Here is how it was played:

The two of them would be sitting somewhere in the hotel—say, reading in their study on a Sunday morning. At the stroke of twelve, the Count would set his book down and excuse himself to pay his weekly visit to the barber. After descending one flight in the belfry and traversing the hall to the main stair, he would continue his journey down five flights to the subfloor, where, having passed the flower shop and newsstand, he would enter the barbershop only to discover—Sofia reading quietly on the bench by the wall.

Naturally, this resulted in the calling of the Lord’s name in vain and the dropping of whatever happened to be in one’s hand (three books and a glass of wine so far this year).

Setting aside the fact that such a game could prove fatal to a man approaching his sixties, one had to marvel at the young lady’s expertise. She could seemingly transport herself from one end of the hotel to the other in the blink of an eye. Over the years, she must have mastered all of the hotel’s hidden hallways, back passages, and connecting doors, while developing an uncanny sense of timing. But what was particularly impressive was her otherworldly repose upon discovery. For no matter how far or how fast she had traveled, there was not a hint of exertion about her. Not a patter of the heart, not a panting of the breath, not a drop of perspiration on her brow. Nor would she emit a giggle or exhibit the slightest smirk. On the contrary. With an expression that was studious, shy, and well behaved, she would acknowledge the Count with a friendly nod, and looking back at her book, turn the page, demurely.

The notion that a child so composed would conspire to the releasing of geese was simply preposterous. One might as well accuse her of toppling the Tower of Babel or knocking the nose off the Sphinx.

True, she had been in the kitchen eating her supper when the chef du cuisine first received word that a certain Swiss diplomat, who had ordered the roast goose, had questioned the freshness of the poultry. And admittedly, she was devoted to her Uncle Emile. Even so, how was a thirteen-year-old girl to spirit three adult fowl to the fourth floor of an international hotel at seven in the morning without detection? The very idea, concluded the Count as he opened the door to his rooms, confounded one’s reason, offended the laws of nature, and flew in the face of common—

“Iesu Christi!”

Sofia, who the moment before had been in the lobby, was seated at the Grand Duke’s desk, leaning diligently over her tome.

“Oh, hello, Papa,” she said without looking up.

. . .

“Apparently, it is no longer considered polite to look up from one’s work when a gentleman enters a room.”

Sofia turned in her chair.

“I’m sorry, Papa. I was immersed in my reading.”

“Hmm. And what might that be?”

“It is an essay on cannibalism.”

“An essay on cannibalism!”

“By Michel de Montaigne.”

“Ah. Yes. Well. That’s time well spent, I’m sure,” conceded the Count.

But as he headed toward the study, he thought, Michel de Montaigne . . . ? Then he shot a glance at the base of their bureau.

. . .

“Is that Anna Karenina?”

Sofia followed his gaze.

“Yes, I believe it is.”

“But what is she doing down there?”

“She was the closest in thickness to Montaigne.”

“The closest in thickness!”

“Is something wrong?”

. . .

“All I can say is that Anna Karenina would never have put you under a bureau just because you happened to be as thick as Montaigne.”

“The very idea is preposterous,” the Count was saying. “How is a thirteen-year-old girl to spirit three fully grown geese up two flights of stairs without the slightest detection? Besides, I ask you: Is such behavior even in her character?”

“Certainly not,” said Emile.

“No, not in the least,” agreed Andrey.

The three men shook their heads in shared indignation.

One of the advantages of working together for many years is that the daily rigmarole can be dispensed with quickly, leaving ample time for discussions of weightier concerns—such as rheumatism, the inadequacy of public transit, and the petty behavior of the inexplicably promoted. After two decades, the members of the Triumvirate knew a thing or two about the small-minded men who sat behind stacks of paper, and the so-called gourmands from Geneva who couldn’t tell a goose from a grouse.

“It’s outrageous,” said the Count.

“Unquestionably.”

“And to summon me half an hour before our daily meeting, at which there is never a shortage of important matters to discuss.”

“Quite so,” agreed Andrey. “Which reminds me, Alexander . . .”

“Yes?”

“Before we open tonight, could you have someone sweep out the dumbwaiter?”

“Certainly. Is it a mess?”

“I’m afraid so. It has somehow become littered with feathers. . . .”

In saying this, Andrey used one of his legendary fingers to scratch his upper lip while Emile pretended to sip at his tea. And the Count? He opened his mouth with every intention of making the perfect rejoinder—the sort of remark that having cut one man to the quick would be quoted by others for years to come.

But there was a knock at the door, and young Ilya entered with his wooden spoon.

Over the course of the Great Patriotic War, Emile had lost the seasoned members of his crew one by one, even the whistling Stanislav. With every able-bodied man eventually in the army, he had been forced to staff his kitchen with adolescents. Thus, Ilya, who had been hired in 1943, had been promoted on the basis of seniority to sous-chef in 1945, at the ripe old age of nineteen. As a reflection of qualified confidence, Emile had bestowed upon him a spoon in place of a knife.

“Well?” said Emile, looking up with impatience.

In response, Ilya hesitated.

Emile looked to the other members of the Triumvirate and rolled his eyes, as much as to say: You see what I must put up with? Then he turned back to his apprentice.

“As anyone can see, we are men with business to attend to. But apparently, you have something of such importance that you feel the need to interrupt. Well then, out with it—before we expire from anticipation.”

The young man opened his mouth, but then rather than explain himself, he simply pointed his spoon toward the kitchen. Following the direction of the utensil, the members of the Triumvirate looked through the office window and there, near the door to the back stair, stood an unfortunate-looking soul in a ragged winter coat. At the sight of him, Emile grew crimson.

“Who let him in here?”

“I did, sir.”

Emile stood so abruptly he nearly knocked over his chair. Then, just as a commander will tear the epaulettes from the shoulders of an errant officer, Emile grabbed the spoon from Ilya’s hand.

“So, you’re the Commissar of Nincompoops now, is that it? Eh? When I had my back turned, you were promoted to the General Secretary of Bunglers?”

The young man took a step back.

“No, sir. I have not been promoted.”

Emile smacked the table with the spoon, nearly cracking it in two.

“Of course you haven’t! How often have I told you not to let beggars in the kitchen? Don’t you see that if you give him a crust of bread today, there will be five of his friends here tomorrow, and fifty the day after that?”

“Yes, sir, but . . . but . . .”

“But but but what?”

“He didn’t ask for food.”

“Eh?”

The young man pointed to the Count.

“He asked for Alexander Ilyich.”

Andrey and Emile both looked to their colleague in surprise. The Count in turn looked through the window at the beggar. Then without saying a word, he rose from his chair, exited the office, and embraced this boon companion whom he had not seen in eight long years.

Though Andrey and Emile had never met the stranger, as soon as they heard his name they knew exactly who he was: the one who had lived with the Count above the cobbler’s shop; the one who had paced a thousand miles in increments of fifteen feet; the lover of Mayakovsky and Mandelstam who, like so many others, had been tried and sentenced in the name of Article 58.

“Why don’t you make yourselves comfortable,” suggested Andrey with a gesture of his hand. “You can use Emile’s office.”

“Yes,” agreed Emile. “By all means. My office.”

With his impeccable instincts, Andrey led Mishka to the chair with its back to the kitchen while Emile placed bread and salt on the table—that ancient Russian symbol of hospitality. A moment later he returned with a plate of potatoes and cutlets of veal. Then the chef and maître d’ excused themselves, closing the door so that the two old friends could speak undisturbed.

Mishka looked at the table.

“Bread and salt,” he said with a smile.

As the Count looked across at Mishka, he was moved by two contrary currents of emotion. On the one hand, there was that special joy of seeing a friend from youth unexpectedly—a welcome event no matter when or where. But at the same time, the Count was confronted by the irrefutable facts of Mishka’s appearance. Thirty pounds lighter, dressed in a threadbare coat, and dragging one leg behind him, it was no wonder that Emile had mistaken him for a beggar. Naturally, the Count had watched in recent years as age began to take its toll on the Triumvirate. He had noticed the occasional tremor in Andrey’s left hand and the creeping deafness in Emile’s right ear. He had noticed the graying of the former’s hair and the thinning of the latter’s. But with Mishka, here were not simply the ravages of time. Here were the marks of one man upon another, of an era upon its offspring.

Perhaps most striking was Mishka’s smile. In their youth, Mishka had been almost earnest to a fault and never spoke with irony. Yet when he said “bread and salt” he wore the smile of the sarcast.

“It is so good to see you, Mishka,” the Count said after a moment. “I can’t tell you how relieved I was when you sent word of your release. When did you return to Moscow?”

“I haven’t,” his friend replied with his new smile.

Upon the dutiful completion of his eight years, Mishka explained, he had been rewarded with a Minus Six. To visit Moscow, he had borrowed a passport from a sympathetic soul with a passing likeness.

“Is that wise?” the Count asked with concern.

Mishka shrugged.

“I arrived this morning from Yavas by train. I’ll be returning to Yavas later tonight.”

“Yavas . . . Where is that?”

“Somewhere between where the wheat is grown and the bread is eaten.”

“Are you teaching . . . ?” the Count asked tentatively.

“No,” Mishka said with a shake of the head. “We are not encouraged to teach. But then, we are not encouraged to read or write. We are hardly encouraged to eat.”

So it was that Mishka began to describe his life in Yavas; and as he did so, he used the first person plural so often that the Count assumed he must have moved there with a fellow inmate from the camps. But slowly, it became clear that in saying “we” Mishka had no one person in mind. For Mishka, “we” encompassed all his fellow prisoners—and not simply those he had known in Arkhangelsk. It encompassed the million or more who had toiled on the Solovetsky Islands or in Sevvostlag or on the White Sea Canal, whether they had toiled there in the twenties, or the thirties, or toiled there still.*

Mishka was silent.

“It is funny what comes to one at night,” he said after a moment. “After dropping our shovels and trudging to the barracks, we would swallow our gruel and pull our blankets to our chins eager for sleep. But inevitably some unexpected thought would come, some uninvited memory that wanted to be sized up, measured, and weighed. And many was the night I found myself thinking of that German you encountered in the bar—the one who claimed that vodka was Russia’s only contribution to the West and who challenged anyone to name three more.”

“I remember it well. I borrowed your observation that Tolstoy and Chekhov were the bookends of narrative, invoked Tchaikovsky, and then ordered the brute a serving of caviar.”

“That’s it.”

Mishka shook his head and then looked at the Count with his smile.

“One night some years ago, I thought of another, Sasha.”

“A fifth contribution?”

“Yes, a fifth contribution: The burning of Moscow.”

The Count was taken aback.

“You mean in 1812?”

Mishka nodded.

“Can you imagine the expression on Napoleon’s face when he was roused at two in the morning and stepped from his brand-new bedroom in the Kremlin only to find that the city he’d claimed just hours before had been set on fire by its citizens?” Mishka gave a quiet laugh. “Yes, the burning of Moscow was especially Russian, my friend. Of that there can be no doubt. Because it was not a discrete event; it was the form of an event. One example plucked from a history of thousands. For as a people, we Russians have proven unusually adept at destroying that which we have created.”

Perhaps because of his limp, Mishka no longer got up to pace the room; but the Count could see that he was pacing it with his eyes.

“Every country has its grand canvas, Sasha—the so-called masterpiece that hangs in a hallowed hall and sums up the national identity for generations to come. For the French it is Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People; for the Dutch, Rembrandt’s Night Watch; for the Americans, Washington Crossing the Delaware; and for we Russians? It is a pair of twins: Nikolai Ge’s Peter the Great Interrogating Alexei and Ilya Repin’s Ivan the Terrible and His Son. For decades, these two paintings have been revered by our public, praised by our critics, and sketched by our diligent students of the arts. And yet, what do they depict? In one, our most enlightened Tsar studies his oldest son with suspicion, on the verge of condemning him to death; while in the other, unflinching Ivan cradles the body of his eldest, having already exacted the supreme measure with a swing of the scepter to the head.

“Our churches, known the world over for their idiosyncratic beauty, for their brightly colored spires and improbable cupolas, we raze one by one. We topple the statues of old heroes and strip their names from the streets, as if they had been figments of our imagination. Our poets we either silence, or wait patiently for them to silence themselves.”

Mishka picked up his fork, stuck it in the untouched veal, and raised it in the air.

“Do you know that back in ’30, when they announced the mandatory collectivization of farming, half our peasants slaughtered their own livestock rather than give them up to the cooperatives? Fourteen million head of cattle left to the buzzards and flies.”

He gently returned the cut of meat to its plate, as if in a show of respect.

“How can we understand this, Sasha? What is it about a nation that would foster a willingness in its people to destroy their own artworks, ravage their own cities, and kill their own progeny without compunction? To foreigners it must seem shocking. It must seem as if we Russians have such a brutish indifference that nothing, not even the fruit of our loins, is viewed as sacrosanct. And how that notion pained me. How it unsettled me. Exhausted as I was, the very thought of it could keep me tossing until dawn.

“Then one night, he came to me in a dream, Sasha: Mayakovsky himself. He quoted some lines of verse—beautiful, haunting lines that I had never heard before—about the bark of a birch tree glinting in the winter sun. Then he loaded his revolver with an exclamation point and put the barrel to his chest. When I awoke, I suddenly understood that this propensity for self-destruction was not an abomination, not something to be ashamed of or abhorred; it was our greatest strength. We turn the gun on ourselves not because we are more indifferent and less cultured than the British, or the French, or the Italians. On the contrary. We are prepared to destroy that which we have created because we believe more than any of them in the power of the picture, the poem, the prayer, or the person.”

Mishka shook his head.

“Mark my words, my friend: We have not burned Moscow to the ground for the last time.”

As in the past, Mishka talked with a fevered intensity, almost as if he were making his points to himself. But once he had spoken his piece, he looked across the table and saw the distressed expression on the Count’s face. Then he suddenly laughed in a heartfelt manner, without bitterness or irony, and reached across the table to squeeze his old friend’s forearm.

“I see that I have unsettled you, Sasha, with my talk of revolvers. But don’t worry. I am not through yet. I still have something to attend to. In fact, that is why I slipped into the city: to visit the library for a little project that I am working on. . . .”

With a sense of relief, the Count recognized the old spark in Mishka’s eye—the one that inevitably flashed before he threw himself headlong into a scrape.

“Is it a work of poetry?” asked the Count.

“Poetry? Yes, in a manner of speaking, I suppose it is. . . . But it is also something more fundamental. Something that can be built upon. I’m not ready to share it just yet; but when I am, you shall be the first.”

By the time they came out of the office and the Count led Mishka to the back stair, the kitchen was in full swing. On the counter were onions being minced, beets being sliced, hens being plucked. From the stove where six pots simmered, Emile signaled to the Count that he should wait a moment. After wiping his hands on his apron, he came to the door with some food wrapped in brown paper.

“A little something for your journey, Mikhail Fyodorovich.”

Mishka looked taken aback by the offering, and for a moment the Count thought his friend was going to refuse it on principle. But Mishka thanked the chef and took the parcel in hand.

Andrey was there too now, to express his pleasure at finally meeting Mishka and to wish him well.

Having returned the sentiments, Mishka opened the door to the stairwell, but then paused. Having taken a moment to look over the kitchen with all of its activity and abundance, to look from gentle Andrey to heartfelt Emile, he turned to the Count.

“Who would have imagined,” he said, “when you were sentenced to life in the Metropol all those years ago, that you had just become the luckiest man in all of Russia.”

At 7:30 that evening, when the Count entered the Yellow Room, Osip tamped out his cigarette and leapt from his chair.

“Ah! Here you are, Alexander. I thought a quick trip to San Franchesko was in order. We haven’t been back in a year. Get the lights, will you?”

As Osip hurried to the back of the room, the Count absently took his seat at the table for two and put his napkin in his lap.

. . .

“Alexander . . .”

The Count looked back.

“Yes?”

“The lights.”

“Oh. My apologies.”

The Count rose, switched off the lights, and lingered by the wall.

. . .

“Are you going to take your seat again?” asked Osip.

“Ah, yes. Of course.”

The Count returned to the table and sat in Osip’s chair.

. . .

“Is everything all right, my friend? You do not seem yourself. . . .”

“No, no,” assured the Count with a smile. “Everything is excellent. Please proceed.”

Osip waited for a moment to be sure, then he threw the switch and hurried back to the table as the grand old shadows began to flicker on the dining room wall.

Two months after what Osip liked to refer to as “The de Tocqueville Affair,” he had appeared in the Yellow Room with a projector and an uncensored print of A Day at the Races. From that night onward, the two men left the tomes of history on the bookshelves where they belonged and advanced their studies of America through the medium of film.

Osip Ivanovich had actually mastered the English language right down to the past perfect progressive as early as 1939. But American movies still deserved their careful consideration, he argued, not simply as windows into Western culture, but as unprecedented mechanisms of class repression. For with cinema, the Yanks had apparently discovered how to placate the entire working class at the cost of a nickel a week.

“Just look at their Depression,” he said. “From beginning to end it lasted ten years. An entire decade in which the Proletariat was left to fend for itself, scrounging in alleys and begging at chapel doors. If ever there had been a time for the American worker to cast off the yoke, surely that was it. But did they join their brothers-in-arms? Did they shoulder their axes and splinter the doors of the mansions? Not even for an afternoon. Instead, they shuffled to the nearest movie house, where the latest fantasy was dangled before them like a pocket watch at the end of a chain. Yes, Alexander, it behooves us to study this phenomenon with the utmost diligence and care.”

So study it they did.

And the Count could confirm that Osip approached the task with the utmost diligence and care, for when a movie was playing he could hardly sit still. During the westerns, when a fight broke out in a saloon, he would clench his fists, fend off a blow, give a left to the gut, and an uppercut to the jaw. When Fyodor Astaire danced with Gingyr Rogers, his fingers would open wide and flutter about his waist while his feet shuffled back and forth on the carpet. And when Bela Lugosi emerged from the shadows, Osip leapt from his seat and nearly fell to the floor. Then, as the credits rolled, he would shake his head with an expression of moral disappointment.

“Shameful,” he would say.

“Scandalous.”

“Insidious!”

Like the seasoned scientist, Osip would coolly dissect whatever they had just observed. The musicals were “pastries designed to placate the impoverished with daydreams of unattainable bliss.” The horror movies were “sleights of hand in which the fears of the workingman have been displaced by those of pretty girls.” The vaudevillian comedies were “preposterous narcotics.” And the westerns? They were the most devious propaganda of all: fables in which evil is represented by collectives who rustle and rob; while virtue is a lone individual who risks his life to defend the sanctity of someone else’s private property. In sum? “Hollywood is the single most dangerous force in the history of class struggle.”

Or so Osip argued, until he discovered the genre of American movies that would come to be known as film noir. With rapt attention he watched the likes of This Gun for Hire, Shadow of a Doubt, and Double Indemnity.

“What is this?” he would ask of no one in particular. “Who is making these movies? Under what auspices?”

From one to the next, they seemed to depict an America in which corruption and cruelty lounged on the couch; in which justice was a beggar and kindness a fool; in which loyalties were fashioned from paper, and self-interest was fashioned from steel. In other words, they provided an unflinching portrayal of Capitalism as it actually was.

“How did this happen, Alexander? Why do they allow these movies to be made? Do they not realize they are hammering a wedge beneath their own foundation stones?”

But no single star of the genre captivated Osip more than Humphrey Bogart. With the exception of Casablanca (which Osip viewed as a woman’s movie), they had watched all of Bogart’s films at least twice. Whether in The Petrified Forest, To Have and Have Not, or, especially, The Maltese Falcon, Osip appreciated the actor’s hardened looks, his sardonic remarks, his general lack of sentiment. “You notice how in the first act he always seems so removed and indifferent; but once his indignation is roused, Alexander, there is no one more willing to do what is necessary—to act clear-eyed, quick, and without compunction. Here truly is a Man of Intent.”

In the Yellow Room, Osip took two mouthfuls of Emile’s braised veal with caviar sauce, a gulp of Georgian wine, and looked up just in time to see the image of the Golden Gate Bridge.

In the minutes that followed, once again the services of Sam Spade were enlisted by the alluring, if somewhat mysterious, Miss Wonderly. Once again, Spade’s partner was gunned down in an alley just hours before Floyd Thursby met a similar fate. And once again Joel Cairo, the Fat Man, and Brigid O’Shaughnessy, having surreptitiously joined forces, drugged Spade’s whiskey and headed for the wharf, their elusive quest finally within reach. But even as Spade was nursing his head, a stranger in a black coat and hat stumbled into his office, dropped a bundle to the floor, and collapsed dead on the couch!

“Do you think Russians are particularly brutish, Osip?” asked the Count.

“What’s that?” Osip whispered, as if there were others in the audience whom he didn’t want to disturb.

“Do you think we are essentially more brutish than the French, or the English, or these Americans?”

“Alexander,” Osip hissed (as Spade was washing the stranger’s blood from his hands). “What on earth are you talking about?”

“I mean, do you think we are more apt than others to destroy that which we have created?”

Osip, who had not yet torn his eyes from the screen, now turned to stare at the Count in disbelief. Then he abruptly rose, stomped to the projector, and froze the film at the very moment that Spade, having placed the roughly wrapped bundle on his desk, was taking his penknife from his pocket.

“Is it possible that you don’t see what is happening?” he demanded while pointing at the screen. “Having traveled from the Orient to the docks of San Franchesko, Captain Jacoby has been shot five times. He has jumped from a burning ship, stumbled through the city, and used his final breaths to bring comrade Spadsky this mysterious package wrapped in paper and bound in string. And you choose this moment to engage in metaphysics!”

The Count, who had turned around, was holding up a hand to cut the glare from the projection.

“But, Osip,” he said, “we have watched him open the bundle on at least three occasions.”

“What difference does that make? You have read Anna Karenina at least ten times, but I’d wager you still cry when she throws herself under the train.”

“That’s something else altogether.”

“Is it?”

There was silence. Then with an expression of exasperation, Osip turned off the projector. He flicked on the lights and returned to the table.

“All right, my friend. I can see that you are vexed by something. Let’s see if we can make sense of it, so we can get on with our studies.”

Thus, the Count described for Osip the conversation he’d had with Mishka. Or rather, he relayed Mishka’s views on the burning of Moscow, and the toppling of statues, and the silencing of poets, and the slaughter of fourteen million head of cattle.

Osip, having already aired his frustrations, now listened to the Count attentively, occasionally nodding his head at Mishka’s various points.

“All right,” he said, once the Count had finished. “So, what is it exactly that is bothering you, Alexander? Does your friend’s assertion shock you? Does it offend your sensibilities? I understand that you are worried about his state of mind; but isn’t it possible that he is right in his opinions while being wrong in his sentiments?”

“What do you mean?”

“It is like the Maltese Falcon.”

“Osip. Please.”

“No, I am quite serious. What is the black bird if not a symbol of Western heritage itself? A sculpture fashioned by knights of the Crusades from gold and jewels as tribute to a king, it is an emblem of the church and the monarchies—those rapacious institutions that have served as the foundation for all of Europe’s art and ideas. Well, who is to say that their love of that heritage isn’t as misguided as the Fat Man’s for his falcon? Perhaps that is exactly what must be swept aside before their people can hope to progress.”

His tone grew softer.

“The Bolsheviks are not Visigoths, Alexander. We are not the barbarian hordes descending upon Rome and destroying all that is fine out of ignorance and envy. It is the opposite. In 1916, Russia was a barbarian state. It was the most illiterate nation in Europe, with the majority of its population living in modified serfdom: tilling the fields with wooden plows, beating their wives by candlelight, collapsing on their benches drunk with vodka, and then waking at dawn to humble themselves before their icons. That is, living exactly as their forefathers had lived five hundred years before. Is it not possible that our reverence for all the statues and cathedrals and ancient institutions was precisely what was holding us back?”

Osip paused, taking a moment to refill their glasses with wine.

“But where do we stand now? How far have we come? By marrying American tempo with Soviet aims, we are on the verge of universal literacy. Russia’s long-suffering women, our second serfdom, have been elevated to the status of equals. We have built whole new cities and our industrial production outpaces that of most of Europe.”

“But at what cost?”

Osip slapped the table.

“At the greatest cost! But do you think the achievements of the Americans—envied the world over—came without a cost? Just ask their African brothers. And do you think the engineers who designed their illustrious skyscrapers or built their highways hesitated for one moment to level the lovely little neighborhoods that stood in their way? I guarantee you, Alexander, they laid the dynamite and pushed the plungers themselves. As I’ve said to you before, we and the Americans will lead the rest of this century because we are the only nations who have learned to brush the past aside instead of bowing before it. But where they have done so in service of their beloved individualism, we are attempting to do so in service of the common good.”

When he parted company with Osip at ten, rather than climbing the stairs to the sixth floor, the Count headed to the Shalyapin in the hopes of finding it empty. But as he entered the bar, he discovered a raucous group composed of journalists, members of the diplomatic corps, and two of the young hostesses in their little black dresses—and at the center of the commotion, for the third night in a row, was the American general’s aide-de-camp. Hunched over with his arms outstretched, shifting back and forth on the balls of his feet, he was relaying his tale like a wrestler on the mat.

“. . . Sidestepping the Monsignor, old Porterhouse slowly advanced upon the second goose, waiting for his prey to look him in the eye. That’s the secret, you see: the looking in the eye. That’s the moment Porterhouse lets his adversaries imagine for a second that they are his equals. Having taken two steps to the left, Porterhouse suddenly took three to the right. Thrown off balance, the goose met the old boy’s gaze—and that’s when Porterhouse leapt!”

The aide-de-camp leapt.

The two hostesses shrieked.

Then giggled.

When the aide-de-camp stood back to his full height, he was holding a pineapple. With one hand around its throat and the other under its tail, the captain displayed the fruit for all to see, just as the general had displayed the second goose.

“And it was at this fateful juncture that the good general’s sash unsashed and his robe disrobed, revealing a regulation pair of U.S. Army–issue briefs—at the sight of which, Madame Veloshki fainted.”

As the audience applauded, the aide-de-camp gave a bow. Then he set the pineapple gently on the bar and lifted his drink.

“Madame Veloshki’s response seems perfectly understandable,” said one of the journalists. “But what did you do when you saw the old man’s briefs?”

“What did I do?” exclaimed the aide-de-camp. “Why, I saluted them, of course.”

As the others laughed, he emptied his drink.

“Now, gentlemen, I suggest we head out into the night. I can tell you from personal experience that over at the National can be heard the sorriest samba in the Northern Hemisphere. The drummer, who is blind in one eye, can’t hit his cymbals. And the bandleader hasn’t the slightest sense of a Latin tempo. The closest he has come to South America is when he fell down a flight of mahogany stairs. But he has excellent intentions and a toupee that has descended from heaven.”

With that, the motley assembly stumbled into the night, leaving the Count to approach the bar in relative peace and quiet.

“Good evening, Audrius.”

“Good evening, Count Rostov. What is your pleasure?”

“A glass of Armagnac, perhaps.”

A moment later, as the Count gave the brandy in his snifter a swirl, he found himself smiling at the aide-de-camp’s portrayal—which in turn led him to reflect on the personality of Americans in general. In his persuasive fashion, Osip had argued that during the Depression, Hollywood had undermined the inevitable forces of revolution by means of its elaborate chicanery. But the Count wondered if Osip didn’t have his analysis upside down. Certainly, it seemed true that glittering musicals and slapstick comedies had flourished during the 1930s in America. But so too had jazz and skyscrapers. Were these also narcotics designed to put a restless nation to sleep? Or were they signs of a native spirit so irrepressible that even a Depression couldn’t squelch it?

As the Count gave another swirl of his brandy, a customer sat three stools to his left. To the Count’s surprise, it was the aide-de-camp.

Ever attentive, Audrius leaned with his forearm on the bar. “Welcome back, Captain.”

“Thank you, Audrius.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Same as before, I suppose.”

As Audrius turned away to prepare the drink, the captain drummed his hands on the bar and looked idly about. When he met the Count’s gaze, he gave a nod and a friendly smile.

“You’re not headed for the National?” the Count couldn’t help but ask.

“It seems my friends were in such a hurry to accompany me that they left me behind,” the American replied.

The Count gave a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

“No. Please don’t be. I’m quite fond of being left behind. It always gives me a whole new perspective on wherever it was I thought I was leaving. Besides, I’m off first thing in the morning to head home for a spell, so it’s probably for the best.”

He extended his hand to the Count.

“Richard Vanderwhile.”

“Alexander Rostov.”

The captain gave another friendly nod and then, having looked away, suddenly looked back.

“Weren’t you my waiter last night at the Boyarsky?”

“Yes, I was.”

The captain let out a sigh of relief.

“Thank God. Otherwise, I would have had to cancel my drink.”

As if on cue, Audrius placed it on the bar. The captain took a sip and gave another sigh, this one of satisfaction. Then he studied the Count for a moment.

“Are you Russian?”

“To the core.”

“Well then, let me say at the outset that I am positively enamored with your country. I love your funny alphabet and those little pastries stuffed with meat. But your nation’s notion of a cocktail is rather unnerving. . . .”

“How so?”

The captain pointed discreetly down the bar to where a bushy-eyebrowed apparatchik was chatting with a young brunette. Both of them were holding drinks in a striking shade of magenta.

“I gather from Audrius that that concoction contains ten different ingredients. In addition to vodka, rum, brandy, and grenadine, it boasts an extraction of rose, a dash of bitters, and a melted lollipop. But a cocktail is not meant to be a mélange. It is not a potpourri or an Easter parade. At its best, a cocktail should be crisp, elegant, sincere—and limited to two ingredients.”

“Just two?”

“Yes. But they must be two ingredients that complement each other; that laugh at each other’s jokes and make allowances for each other’s faults; and that never shout over each other in conversation. Like gin and tonic,” he said, pointing to his drink. “Or bourbon and water . . . Or whiskey and soda . . .” Shaking his head, he raised his glass and drank from it. “Excuse me for expounding.”

“That’s quite all right.”

The captain nodded in gratitude, but then after a moment inquired, “Do you mind if I make an observation? I mean of the personal sort.”

“Not at all,” said the Count.

The captain slid his drink down the bar and moved a stool closer.

“You seem like something is weighing on your mind. I mean, you set that brandy in motion about half an hour ago. If you’re not careful, the vortex you’ve created will drill a hole right through the floor and we’ll all end up in the basement.”

The Count set the snifter down with a laugh.

“I suppose you’re right. Something must be weighing on my mind.”

“Well then,” said Richard, gesturing to the empty bar, “you have come to the right place. Since days of old, well-mannered men have assembled in watering holes such as this one in order to unburden themselves in the company of sympathetic souls.”

“Or strangers?”

The captain raised a finger in the air.

“There are no more sympathetic souls than strangers. So, what say we skip the preambling. Is it women? Money? Writer’s block?”

The Count laughed again; and then like other well-mannered men since days of old, he unburdened himself to this sympathetic soul. He described Mishka and his notion that Russians were somehow unusually adept at destroying that which they have created. Then he described Osip and his notion that Mishka was perfectly right, but that the destruction of monuments and masterpieces was essential to the progress of a nation.

“Oh, so that’s it,” said the captain, as if this would have been his fourth guess.

“Yes. But what conclusions would you draw from it all?” asked the Count.

“What conclusions?”

Richard took a drink.

“I think that both of your friends are very sharp. I mean it takes a good bit of dexterity to pull a thread out of the fabric all in one piece. But I can’t help feeling that they’re missing something. . . .”

He drummed his fingers on the bar as he tried to formulate his thoughts.

“I understand that there’s a little history of dismantling here in Russia; and that the razing of a beautiful old building is bound to engender a little sorrow for what’s gone and some excitement for what’s to come. But when all is said and done, I can’t help suspecting that grand things persist.

“Take that fellow Socrates. Two thousand years ago, he wandered around the marketplace sharing his thoughts with whomever he bumped into; and he wouldn’t even take the time to write them down. Then, in something of a fix, he punched his own ticket; pulled his own plug; collapsed his own umbrella. Adios. Adieu. Finis.

“Time marched on, as it will. The Romans took over. Then the barbarians. And then we threw the whole Middle Ages at him. Hundreds of years of plagues and poisonings and the burning of books. And somehow, after all of that, the grand things this fellow happened to say in the marketplace are still with us.

“I guess the point I’m trying to make is that as a species we’re just no good at writing obituaries. We don’t know how a man or his achievements will be perceived three generations from now, any more than we know what his great-great-grandchildren will be having for breakfast on a Tuesday in March. Because when Fate hands something down to posterity, it does so behind its back.”

They were both silent for a moment. Then the captain emptied his glass and pointed a finger at the Count’s brandy.

“Tell me, though, is that thing pulling its weight?”

When the Count left the Shalyapin an hour later (having joined Captain Vanderwhile for two rounds of Audrius’s magenta-colored concoction), he was surprised to see Sofia still reading in the lobby. Catching her eye, he gave a little wave and she gave a little wave back before returning to her book, demurely. . . .

It took all of the Count’s presence of mind to cross the lobby at a stroll. With the undeniable appearance of a man at ease, he carefully mounted the stairs and slowly began to ascend. But the moment he turned the corner, he broke into a sprint.

As he vaulted upward, he could barely contain his sense of glee. The hidden genius of Sofia’s game had always been that she chose when it was played. Naturally, she would wait for those moments when he was distracted or off his guard, such that the game was generally over before he even knew it had begun. But tonight, things were going to be different—because by the casualness of Sofia’s wave, the Count could tell the game was afoot.

I’ve got her now, he thought as he passed the second floor with a sinister little laugh. But as he turned the landing on the third floor, he was forced to acknowledge a second advantage that Sofia had in this game: her youth. For without question, his pace had begun to slow considerably. If his shortness of breath was any indication, he would be crawling by the time he reached the sixth floor—assuming he reached it alive. To be on the safe side, when he got to the fifth floor he slowed his pace to a purposeful walk.

Opening the door to the belfry, he paused to listen. Looking down the stairs, he couldn’t see a thing. Could she have already flown past? Impossible. She hadn’t the time. Still, on the off chance that she had transported herself by means of witchcraft, the Count climbed the final flight on the tips of his toes and when he opened their door, he did so with an affect of indifference—only to find that, in fact, the room was empty.

Rubbing his hands together, he wondered: Where should I place myself? He considered climbing into bed and acting like he was asleep, but he wanted to see the expression on her face. So he sat in the desk chair, tilted it back on two legs, and grabbed the closest book at hand, which happened to be Monsieur Montaigne. Opening the tome at random, he landed on the essay “Of the Education of Children.”

“Just so,” he said with a wily smile. Then he adopted an expression of perfect erudition as he pretended to read.

But after five minutes, she hadn’t appeared.

“Ah, well. I must have been mistaken,” he was conceding with some disappointment, when the door flung open. But it wasn’t Sofia.

It was one of the chambermaids. In a state of distress.

“Ilana. What is it?”

“It’s Sofia! She has fallen!”

The Count leapt from his chair.

“Fallen! Where?”

“In the service stair.”

The Count brushed past the chambermaid and bolted down the belfry. After two flights of empty stairs, a voice in some corner of his mind began to reason that Ilana must have been mistaken; but as he rounded the third-floor landing, there Sofia was—splayed across the steps, her eyes closed, her hair matted with blood.

“Oh, my God.”

The Count fell to his knees.

“Sofia . . .”

She didn’t respond.

Gently raising her head, the Count could see the gash above her brow. Her skull did not appear compromised, but she was bleeding and unconscious.

Ilana was behind him now, in tears.

“I will go for a doctor,” she said.

But it was after eleven. Who could say how long that would take?

The Count slid his arms under Sofia’s neck and knees, lifted her off the steps, and carried her down the remaining flights. At the ground floor, he pushed the door open with his shoulder and cut through the lobby. Only in the most remote sense was he aware of a middle-aged couple waiting for the elevator; of Vasily at his desk; of voices in the bar. And suddenly, he found himself on the steps of the Metropol in the warm summer air—for the first time in over twenty years.

Rodion, the night doorman, looked at the Count in shock.

“A taxi,” the Count said. “I need a taxi.”

Over the doorman’s shoulder, he could see four of them parked fifty feet from the entrance, waiting for the last of the Shalyapin’s customers. Two drivers at the front of the line were smoking and chatting. Before Rodion could raise his whistle to his lips, the Count was running toward them.

When the drivers noted the Count’s approach, the expression on one’s face was a knowing smirk and on the other’s a look of condemnation—having both concluded that the gentleman had a drunken girl in his arms. But they stood to attention when they saw the blood on her face.

“My daughter,” said the Count.

“Here,” said one of the drivers, throwing his cigarette on the ground and running to open the back door of the cab.

“To St. Anselm’s,” said the Count.

“St. Anselm’s . . . ?”

“As fast as you can.”

Putting the car in gear, the driver pulled onto Theatre Square and headed north as the Count, pressing a folded handkerchief against Sofia’s wound with one hand and combing her hair with the other, murmured assurances that went unheard—while the streets of the city raced past unregarded.

In a matter of minutes, the cab came to a stop.

“We’re here,” said the driver. He got out and opened the back door.

The Count carefully slipped out with Sofia in his arms then suddenly stopped. “I have no money,” he said.

“What money! For God’s sake, go.”

The Count crossed the curb and rushed toward the hospital, but even as he passed through its doors, he knew that he had made a terrible mistake. In the entry hall, there were grown men sleeping on benches, like refugees in a railway station. Hallway lights flickered as if powered by a faulty generator, and in the air was the smell of ammonia and cigarette smoke. When the Count had been a young man, St. Anselm’s had been among the finest hospitals in the city. But that was thirty years ago. By now, the Bolsheviks had presumably built new hospitals—modern, bright, and clean—and this old facility had been left behind as some sort of clinic for veterans, the homeless, and the otherwise forsaken.

Sidestepping a man who appeared to be asleep on his feet, the Count approached a desk where a young nurse was reading.

“It is my daughter,” he said. “She has been injured.”

Looking up, the nurse dropped her magazine. She disappeared through a door. After what seemed like an eternity, she returned with a young man in the white jacket of an internist. The Count held Sofia out while pulling back the blood-soaked handkerchief to show the wound. The internist ran his hand across his mouth.

“This girl should be seen by a surgeon,” he said.

“Is there one here?”

“What? No, of course not.” He looked at a clock on the wall. “At six, perhaps.”

“At six? Surely, she needs attention now. You must do something.”

The internist rubbed his hand across his mouth again and then turned to the nurse.

“Find Dr. Kraznakov. Have him report to Surgery Four.”

As the nurse disappeared again, the internist wheeled over a gurney.

“Lay her here and come with me.”

With the Count at his side, the internist pushed Sofia down a hall and into an elevator. Once on the third floor, they passed through a pair of swinging doors into a long hallway in which there were two other gurneys, each with a sleeping patient.

“In there.”

The Count pushed open the door and the internist wheeled Sofia into Surgery Four. It was a cold room, tiled from floor to ceiling. In one corner, the tiles had begun falling from the plaster. There was a surgical table, craning lights, and a standing tray. After some minutes, the door opened and an ill-shaven physician entered with the young nurse. He looked as if he had just been wakened.

“What is it?” he said in a weary voice.

“A young girl with a head injury, Dr. Kraznakov.”

“All right, all right,” he said. Then waving a hand at the Count, he added: “No visitors in the surgery.”

The internist took the Count by the elbow.

“Wait a second,” the Count said. “Is this man capable?”

Looking at the Count, Kraznakov grew red in the face. “What did he say?”

The Count continued to address the young internist.

“You said she needed to be seen by a surgeon. Is this man a surgeon?”

“Get him out of here, I tell you!” shouted Kraznakov.

But the door to the surgery swung open again and a tall man in his late forties entered in the company of a primly dressed associate.

“Who is in charge here?” he asked.

“I am in charge,” said Kraznakov. “Who are you? What is this?”

Brushing Kraznakov aside, the newcomer approached the table and leaned over Sofia. He gingerly parted her hair to examine the wound. He raised one of her eyelids with a thumb and then took her pulse by holding her wrist and glancing at his watch. Only then did he turn to Kraznakov.

“I’m Lazovsky, chief of surgery at First Municipal. I will be seeing to this patient.”

“What’s that? Now listen here!”

Lazovsky turned to the Count.

“Are you Rostov?”

“Yes,” said the Count, astounded.

“Tell me when and how this happened. Be as precise as you can.”

“She fell while running up a staircase. I think she hit her head on the edge of the landing. It was at the Metropol Hotel. It couldn’t have been more than thirty minutes ago.”

“Had she been drinking?”

“What? No. She’s a child.”

“How old?”

“Thirteen.”

“Her name?”

“Sofia.”

“All right. Very good.”

Ignoring Kraznakov’s ongoing protests, Lazovsky turned his attention to the primly dressed associate and began giving her instructions: that she find scrubs for the team and a suitable place to wash; that she gather the necessary surgical tools; that she sterilize everything.

The door swung open and a young man appeared, wearing the cavalier expression of one who has just come from a ball.

“Good evening, comrade Lazovsky,” he said with a smile. “What a charming place you have here.”

“All right, Antonovich. That’ll be enough of that. It’s a fracture at the front of the left parietal bone with a likely risk of subdural hematoma. Suit up. And see if you can do something about this lighting.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But first, get them out of here.”

As Antonovich began corralling the two resident physicians out of the surgery with his carefree smile, Lazovsky pointed at the young nurse who had been manning the desk downstairs.

“Not you. Get yourself ready to assist.”

Then he turned to the Count.

“Your daughter has taken quite a crack, Rostov, but she hasn’t fallen headfirst from a plane. The skull was designed to withstand a certain amount of rough treatment. In these sorts of cases, the greatest risk is from swelling rather than direct damage. But that’s nothing we haven’t dealt with before. We’re going to attend to your daughter immediately. In the meantime, you will need to sit outside. I will come and report to you as soon as I can.”

The Count was led to a bench right outside the surgery. It took him a few moments to realize that in the preceding minutes the hallway had been cleared: the two gurneys with their sleeping patients were gone. The door at the end of the hallway suddenly swung open to admit Antonovich, who was now in scrubs and whistling. As the door swung closed, the Count could see that a man in a black suit had held the door open for him. When Antonovich went back into Surgery Four, the Count was alone in the empty hallway.

How did he spend the ensuing minutes? How would any man spend them.

He prayed for the first time since childhood. He allowed himself to imagine the worst, then assured himself that everything would be all right, reviewing the surgeon’s few remarks over and over.

“The skull was designed for rough treatment,” he repeated to himself.

Yet against his will, he was visited by contrary examples. He recalled a genial woodsman from the village of Petrovskoye, for instance, who had been hit in the head in the prime of his life by a falling limb. When he regained consciousness, he was as strong as ever, but sullen; on occasion he failed to recognize his friends; and without the slightest provocation he could explode in anger toward his own sisters—as if he’d been put to bed one man and had risen from bed another.

The Count began to chastise himself: How could he have let Sofia play such a reckless game? How could he while away an hour in a bar fretting over history paintings and statues—while Fate was preparing to hold his daughter’s life in the balance?

For all the varied concerns attendant to the raising of a child—over schoolwork, dress, and manners—in the end, a parent’s responsibility could not be more simple: To bring a child safely into adulthood so that she could have a chance to experience a life of purpose and, God willing, contentment.

Untold minutes passed.

The door to the surgery opened and Dr. Lazovsky appeared. He had his mask pulled below his chin. His hands were bare but there was blood on his smock.

The Count leapt up.

“Please, Rostov,” said the surgeon. “Have a seat.”

The Count sat back on the bench.

Lazovsky didn’t join him; rather he put his fists on his hips and looked down at the Count with an unmistakable expression of competence.

“As I told you, in these situations the greatest risk is swelling. We have alleviated that risk. Nonetheless, she has suffered a concussion, which is basically a bruising of the brain. She is going to have headaches and will need a good deal of rest. But in a week, she will be up and about.”

The surgeon turned to go.

The Count extended a hand.

“Dr. Lazovsky . . . ,” he said, in the manner of one who wishes to ask a question, yet suddenly can’t find the means of doing so.

But the surgeon, who had stood in this spot before, understood well enough.

“She’s going to be every bit herself, Rostov.”

As the Count began to offer his thanks, the man in the black suit opened the door at the end of the hall once again, only this time it was for Osip Glebnikov.

“Excuse me,” said the surgeon to the Count.

Meeting halfway down the hall, Osip and Lazovsky conferred for a minute in lowered voices while the Count watched in astonishment. When the surgeon disappeared into the surgery, Osip joined the Count on the bench.

“Well, my friend,” he said with his hands on his knees. “Your little Sofia has given us quite a scare.”

“Osip . . . What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to make sure that you were both all right.”

“But how did you come to find us?”

Osip smiled.

“As I’ve told you, Alexander, it is my business to keep track of certain men of interest. But that doesn’t matter at the moment. What does matter is that Sofia’s going to be fine. Lazovsky is the best surgeon in the city. Tomorrow morning, he will be taking her to First Municipal, where she can recover in comfort. But I’m afraid that you can’t stay here any longer.”

The Count began to protest, but Osip raised a calming hand.

“Listen to me, Sasha. If I know what has happened tonight, others will soon know too. And it would not be in your best interest, or Sofia’s for that matter, if they were to find you sitting here. So this is what you must do: There is a staircase at that end of this hall. You need to go down to the ground floor and through the black metal door, which leads to the alley behind the hospital. In the alley, there will be two men waiting who will take you back to the hotel.”

“I can’t leave Sofia,” said the Count.

“You have to, I’m afraid. But your concern is perfectly understandable. So I have arranged for someone to stay with Sofia in your stead until she is ready to go home.”

At this remark, the door was opened to admit a middle-aged woman looking bewildered and frightened. It was Marina. Behind the seamstress was a matron in uniform.

“Ah,” said Osip, standing. “Here she is.”

Because Osip stood, Marina looked to him first. Having never seen him before, she met his gaze with anxiety. But then she saw the Count sitting on the bench and ran forward.

“Alexander! What has happened? What are you doing here? They wouldn’t tell me a thing.”

“It’s Sofia, Marina. She had a bad fall on the service stairs of the hotel, but a surgeon is with her now. She is going to be all right.”

“Thank God.”

The Count turned to Osip as if he were about to introduce him, but Osip preempted.

“Comrade Samarova,” he said with a smile. “We haven’t met, but I too am a friend of Alexander’s. I’m afraid that he needs to return to the Metropol. But it would be such a comfort to him if you could remain with Sofia until her recovery. Isn’t that so, my friend?”

Osip laid a hand on the Count’s shoulder without taking his gaze off Marina.

“I know it is a great deal to ask, Marina,” said the Count. “But . . .”

“Not another word, Alexander. Of course I will stay.”

“Excellent,” said Osip.

He turned to the uniformed woman.

“You’ll see that comrade Samarova receives everything that she requires?”

“Yes, sir.”

Osip offered Marina one more reassuring smile and then took the Count by the elbow.

“This way, my friend.”

Osip led the Count down the hall and into the back staircase. They descended a flight together without speaking and then Osip stopped on the landing.

“This is where we part. Remember: down another flight and out the black metal door. Naturally, it would be best if you never mentioned to anyone that either of us were here.”

“Osip, I don’t know how to repay you.”

“Alexander,” he said with a smile, “you have been at my service for over fifteen years. It is a pleasure for once to be at yours.” Then he was gone.

The Count descended the last flight and went through the black metal door. It was nearly dawn and, despite finding himself in an alley, the Count could sense the gentleness of spring in the air. Across the alley, there was a white van with the words Red Star Baking Collective painted in large letters on its side. An ill-shaven young man was leaning against the passenger door smoking. When he saw the Count, he tossed his cigarette and thumped the door behind him. Without asking the Count who he was, he went behind the van and opened the rear door.

“Thank you,” said the Count as he climbed inside, receiving no reply.

It was only when the door closed and the Count found himself bent over at the waist in the back of the van that he became aware of an extraordinary sensation: the smell of freshly baked bread. When he had seen the insignia of the baking collective, he had assumed it was a ruse. But on the shelves that ran along one side of the van were over two hundred loaves in orderly arrangement. Gently, almost in disbelief, the Count reached out to lay a hand on one and found it to be soft and warm. It couldn’t have been more than an hour from the oven.

Outside, the passenger door slammed shut and the van’s engine started. The Count quickly sat on the metal bench that faced the shelves and they were underway.

In the silence, the Count listened to the gears of the van shifting. Having sped up and slowed down as it came into and out of various turns, the van’s engine now accelerated to the speed of an open road.

Shuffling to the rear of the van with his back hunched, the Count looked out the little square window in the door. As he watched the buildings and canopies and shop signs flying past, for a moment he couldn’t tell where he was. Then suddenly he saw the old English Club and realized that they must be on Tverskaya—the ancient road that radiated from the Kremlin in the direction of St. Petersburg, and that he had strolled a thousand times before.

In the late 1930s, Tverskaya Street had been widened to accommodate the official parades that ended in Red Square. While at the time, some of the finer buildings had been lifted and set back, most had been razed and replaced with towers, in accordance with a new ordinance that buildings on first-rate streets stand at least ten stories tall. As a result, the Count would have had to strain to pick out other familiar landmarks as the van moved along. But he had stopped looking for what was familiar, and instead was watching the blur of facades and street lamps receding rapidly from his view, as if they were being pulled into the distance.

Back in the attic of the Metropol, the Count found his door still open and Montaigne on the floor. Picking up his father’s book, the Count sat down on Sofia’s bed. Then for the first time that night, he let himself weep, his chest heaving lightly with the release. But if tears fell freely down his face, they were not tears of grief. They were the tears of the luckiest man in all of Russia.

After a few minutes, the Count breathed deeply and felt a sense of peace. Realizing that his father’s book was still in his hand, he rose from Sofia’s bed to set it down—and that’s when he saw the black leather case that had been left on the Grand Duke’s desk. It was about a foot square and six inches high with a handle in leather and clasps of chrome. Taped on top was a note addressed to him in an unfamiliar script. Pulling the note free, the Count unfolded it and read:

Alexander,

What a pleasure meeting you tonight. As I mentioned, I am headed home for a spell. In the meantime, I thought you could make good use of this. You might pay special attention to the contents in the uppermost sleeve, as I think you will find it very apropos of our chat.

With warm regards till next we meet,

Richard Vanderwhile

Throwing the clasps, the Count opened the lid of the case. It was a portable phonograph. Inside there was a small stack of records in brown paper sleeves. Per Richard’s suggestion, the Count singled out the uppermost disc. On the label at the center, it was identified as a recording of Vladimir Horowitz playing Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto at Carnegie Hall in New York.

The Count had seen Horowitz perform in Moscow in 1921, less than four years before the pianist traveled to Berlin for an official concert—with a wad of foreign currency tucked in his shoes. . . .

At the back of the case, the Count found a small compartment in which the electrical cord was folded away. Unraveling it, he plugged the player into the wall socket. He removed the record from its sleeve, placed it on the turntable, threw the switch, cued the needle, and sat back on Sofia’s bed.

At first, he heard muted voices, a few coughs, and the last rustling of an audience settling in; then silence; then heartfelt applause as the performer presumably took the stage.

The Count held his breath.

After the trumpets sounded their first martial notes, the strings swelled, and then his countryman began to play, evoking for the American audience the movement of a wolf through the birches, the wind across the steppe, the flicker of a candle in a ballroom, and the flash of a cannon at Borodino.