A Gentleman in Moscow

1952 America

On a Wednesday evening in late June, the Count and Sofia walked arm in arm into the Boyarsky, where it was their custom to dine on the Count’s night off.

“Good evening, Andrey.”

“Bonsoir, mon ami. Bonsoir, mademoiselle. Your table awaits.”

As Andrey ushered them into the dining room with a gesture of his hand, the Count could see it was another busy night. On the way to table ten, they passed the wives of two commissars seated at table four. Dining alone at table six was an eminent professor of literature—who they say had single-handedly wrestled the works of Dostoevsky to the ground. And at table seven was none other than the beguiling Anna Urbanova in the company of the beguiled.

Having successfully returned to the silver screen in the 1930s, in 1948 Anna had been lured back to the stage by the director of the Maly Theatre. This was a stroke of good fortune for the fifty-year-old actress, for while the silver screen showed a distinct preference for young beauties, the theater seemed to understand the virtues of age. After all, Medea, Lady Macbeth, Irina Arkadina—these were not roles for the blue-eyed and blushing. They were roles for women who had known the bitterness of joy and the sweetness of despair. But Anna’s return to the stage also proved fortunate for the Count because instead of visiting the Metropol a few days a year, she was now in residence for months at a time, which allowed our seasoned astronomer to chart the newest of her constellations with the utmost care. . . .

Once the Count and Sofia had been seated, the two carefully studied their menus (working backward from entrées to appetizers as was their custom), placed their orders with Martyn (who, at the Count’s recommendation, had been promoted to the Boyarsky in 1942), and then finally turned their attention to the business at hand.

Surely, the span of time between the placing of an order and the arrival of appetizers is one of the most perilous in all human interaction. What young lovers have not found themselves at this juncture in a silence so sudden, so seemingly insurmountable that it threatens to cast doubt upon their chemistry as a couple? What husband and wife have not found themselves suddenly unnerved by the fear that they might not ever have something urgent, impassioned, or surprising to say to each other again? So it is with good reason that most of us meet this dangerous interstice with a sense of foreboding.

But the Count and Sofia? They looked forward to it all day long—because it was the moment allotted for Zut.

A game of their own invention, Zut’s rules were simple. Player One proposes a category encompassing a specialized subset of phenomena—such as stringed instruments, or famous islands, or winged creatures other than birds. The two players then go back and forth until one of them fails to come up with a fitting example in a suitable interval of time (say, two and a half minutes). Victory goes to the first player who wins two out of three rounds. And why was the game called Zut? Because according to the Count, Zut alors! was the only appropriate exclamation in the face of defeat.

Thus, having searched throughout their day for challenging categories and carefully considered the viable responses, when Martyn reclaimed the menus father and daughter faced each other at the ready.

Having lost the previous match, the Count had the right to propose the first category and did so with confidence: “Famous foursomes.”

“Well chosen,” said Sofia.

“Thank you.”

They both took a drink of water, then the Count began.

“The four seasons.”

“The four elements.”

“North, South, East, and West.”

“Diamonds, clubs, hearts, and spades.”

“Bass, tenor, alto, and soprano.”

Sofia reflected.

. . .

“Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—the Four Evangelists.”

“Boreas, Zephyrus, Notos, and Euros—the Four Winds.”

. . .

. . .

With an inward smile, the Count began counting the seconds; but he counted prematurely.

“Yellow bile, black bile, blood, and phlegm—the Four Humors,” said Sofia.

“Très bien!”

“Merci.”

Sofia took a sip of water in order to obscure the hint of gloating on her lips. But now it was she who was celebrating prematurely.

“The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

“Ah,” said Sofia with the sigh of one receiving the coup de grâce, just as Martyn arrived with the Château d’Yquem. Having presented the bottle, the waiter pulled the cork, poured a taste, and served the table.

“Round two?” asked Sofia when Martyn had departed.

“With pleasure.”

“Animals that are black and white—such as the zebra.”

“Excellent,” said the Count.

For a moment, he rearranged his silverware. He took a sip of wine and slowly returned his glass to the table.

“Penguin,” he said.

“Puffin.”

“Skunk.”

“Panda.”

The Count reflected; then smiled.

“Killer whale.”

“The peppered moth,” countered Sofia.

The Count sat up in indignation.

“But that’s my animal!”

“It is not your animal; but it is your turn. . . .”

The Count frowned.

. . .

“Dalmatian!” he exclaimed.

Now it was Sofia who arranged her silver and sipped her wine.

. . .

. . .

“Time is passing . . . ,” said the Count.

. . .

. . .

“Me,” said Sofia.

“What!”

With a tilt of her head she held out the white stripe from her long black hair.

“But you’re not an animal.”

Sofia smiled sympathetically then said: “You’re up.”

. . .

. . .

Is there a black-and-white fish? the Count asked himself. A black-and-white spider? A black-and-white snake?

. . .

. . .

“Tick, tock, tick, tock,” said Sofia.

“Yes, yes. Wait a moment.”

. . .

. . .

I know there is another black-and-white animal, thought the Count. It is something reasonably common. I’ve seen it myself. It’s on the very tip of my—

“Do I have the pleasure of addressing Alexander Rostov?”

The Count and Sofia both looked up in surprise. Standing before them was the eminent professor from table six.

“Yes,” said the Count, rising from the table. “I am Alexander Rostov. This is my daughter, Sofia.”

“I am Professor Matej Sirovich from Leningrad State University.”

“Of course you are,” said the Count.

The professor gave a quick bow of the head in gratitude.

“Like so many others,” he continued, “I am an admirer of your verse. Perhaps you would do me the honor of joining me for a glass of cognac after your meal?”

“It would be my pleasure.”

“I am in suite 317.”

“I will be there within the hour.”

“Please, don’t rush.”

The professor smiled and gently backed away from the table.

Resuming his seat, the Count casually placed his napkin in his lap. “Matej Sirovich,” he informed Sofia, “is one of our most revered professors of literature; and apparently, he would like to discuss poetry with me over a glass of cognac. What do you think of that?”

“I think your time is up.”

The Count lowered his eyebrows.

“Yes. Well. I had an answer sitting right on the tip of my tongue. I should have expressed it in another moment, if we hadn’t been interrupted. . . .”

Sofia nodded, in the friendly manner of one who has no intention of considering the merits of an appeal.

“All right,” conceded the Count. “One round apiece.”

The Count took a kopek from the ticket pocket of his vest and laid it on his thumbnail so that they could determine by toss who would get to choose the tie-breaking category. But before he could flip the coin, Martyn appeared with their first course: Emile’s interpretation of the Olivier salad for Sofia and goose-liver pâté for the Count.

Since they never played while they ate, the two turned their attention to an enjoyable discussion of the day’s events. It was while the Count was spreading the last of his pâté on a corner of toast that Sofia observed, rather casually, that Anna Urbanova was in the restaurant.

“What’s that?” asked the Count.

“Anna Urbanova, the actress. She’s seated over there at table seven.”

“Is she?”

The Count raised his head to look across the dining room with the curiosity of the idle; then returned to his spreading.

“Why don’t you ever invite her to join us for dinner?”

The Count looked up with an expression of mild shock.

“Invite her to dinner! Shall I invite Charlie Chaplin as well?” The Count gave a laugh and a shake of the head: “It is customary to be acquainted with someone before you invite them to dinner, my dear.” Then he finished off the pâté, just as he had finished off the conversation.

“I think you’re worried that I would be scandalized in some way,” continued Sofia. “But Marina thinks it’s because—”

“Marina!” exclaimed the Count. “Marina has an opinion on why I would or wouldn’t invite this . . . this Anna Urbanova to dine with us?”

“Naturally, Papa.”

The Count leaned back in his chair.

“I see. So what is this opinion that Marina so naturally has?”

“She thinks it’s because you like to keep your buttons in their boxes.”

“My buttons in their boxes!”

“You know: your blue buttons in one box, your black buttons in another, your red buttons in a third. You have your relationships here, your relationships there, and you like to keep them distinct.”

“Is that so. I had no idea that I was known to treat people like buttons.”

“Not all people, Papa. Just your friends.”

“What a relief.”

“May I?”

It was Martyn, gesturing at the empty plates.

“Thank you,” snapped the Count.

Sensing that he had interrupted a heated exchange, Martyn quickly cleared the first course, returned with two servings of veal Pojarski, topped up the wine glasses, and disappeared without a word. The Count and Sofia both breathed in the woody fragrance of the mushrooms then began to eat in silence.

“Emile has outdone himself,” the Count said after a few bites.

“He has,” Sofia agreed.

The Count took a generous swallow of the Château d’Yquem, which was a 1921 and perfectly suited to the veal.

“Anna thinks it’s because you’re set in your ways.”

The Count commenced to cough into his napkin, as he had determined long ago that this was the most effective means of removing wine from his windpipe.

“Are you all right?” asked Sofia.

The Count put his napkin in his lap and waved a hand in the general direction of table seven.

“And how, may I ask, do you know what this Anna Urbanova thinks?”

“Because she told me so.”

“So the two of you are acquainted.”

“But, of course we are. We have known each other for years.”

“Well, that’s just perfect,” said the Count in a huff. “Why don’t you invite her to dinner. In fact, if I am such a button in a box, perhaps you, Marina, and Miss Urbanova should all have dinner on your own.”

“Why, that’s exactly what Andrey suggested!”

“How is everything tonight?”

“Speak of the devil!” shouted the Count as he dumped his napkin on his plate.

Taken aback, Andrey looked from the Count to Sofia with concern.

“Is something wrong?”

“The food at the Boyarsky is superior,” replied the Count, “and the service is excellent. But the gossip? It is truly unsurpassed.”

The Count stood.

“I think you have some piano practice to see to, young lady,” he said to Sofia. “Now if you’ll both excuse me, I am expected upstairs.”

As the Count marched down the hallway, he could not help but observe to himself that there was a time, not long before, when a gentleman could expect a measure of privacy in his personal affairs. With reasonable confidence, he could place his correspondence in a desk drawer and leave his diary on a bedside table.

Although, on the other hand, since the beginning of time men in pursuit of wisdom had routinely retreated to mountaintops, caves, and cabins in the woods. So, perhaps that is where one must eventually head, if one has any hopes of achieving enlightenment without the interference of meddlers. Case in point: As the Count headed for the stairwell, who did he happen to bump into waiting for an elevator? None other than that renowned expert on human behavior, Anna Urbanova.

“Good evening, Your Excellency . . .” she said to the Count with a suggestive smile. But then her eyebrows rose in inquiry when she noted the expression on his face. “Is everything all right?”

“I can’t believe that you have been having clandestine conversations with Sofia,” the Count said in a hushed voice, though no one else was about.

“They weren’t clandestine,” Anna whispered back. “They just happened to be while you were at work.”

“And you think that is somehow appropriate? To foster a friendship with my daughter in my absence?”

“Well, you do like your buttons in their boxes, Sasha. . . .”

“So I gather!”

The Count turned to go, but then came back.

“And if, perchance, I do like my buttons in their boxes, is there anything wrong with that?”

“Certainly not.”

“Would the world be a better place if we kept all the buttons in a big glass jar? In such a world, whenever you tried to reach in for a button of a particular color, the tips of your fingers would inevitably push it down below the other buttons until you couldn’t see it. Eventually, in a state of exasperation, you would end up pouring all of the buttons on the floor—and then spend an hour and a half having to pick them back up.”

“Are we talking about actual buttons now?” asked Anna with genuine interest. “Or is this still an allegory?”

“What is not an allegory,” said the Count, “is my appointment with an eminent professor. Which, by the way, will necessitate the cancellation of any further appointments for the evening!”

Ten minutes later, the Count was knocking on that door which he had answered a thousand times, but upon which he had never knocked.

“Ah, here you are,” said the professor. “Please come in.”

The Count had not been in his old suite in over twenty-five years—not since that night in 1926 when he had stood at the parapet.

Still styled in the manner of a nineteenth-century French salon, the rooms remained elegant, if a little worse for wear. Only one of the two gilded mirrors now hung on the wall; the dark red curtains had faded; the matching couch and chairs needed to be reupholstered; and while his family’s clock still stood guard near the door, its hands were stopped at 4:22—having become an aspect of the room’s décor, rather than an essential instrument for the keeping of engagements. But if one no longer heard the gentle sound of time advancing in the suite, in its place were the strains of a waltz emanating from an electric radio on the dining room mantel.

Following the professor into the sitting room, the Count habitually glanced at the northwest corner with its privileged view of the Bolshoi—and there, framed by the window, was the silhouette of a man gazing out into the night. Tall, thin, with an aristocratic bearing, it could have been a shadow of the Count from another time. But then the shadow turned and crossed the room with its hand outstretched.

“Alexander!”

. . .

“Richard?”

It was none other. Dressed in a tailored suit, Richard Vanderwhile smiled and took hold of the Count’s hand.

“It’s good to see you! How long has it been? Almost two years?”

From the dining room, the strains of the waltz grew a little louder. The Count looked over just in time to see Professor Sirovich closing the doors to his bedroom and turning the brass latch. Richard gestured to one of the chairs by the coffee table, on which was an assortment of zakuski.

“Have a seat. I gather you’ve eaten, but you won’t mind if I dig in, will you? I’m absolutely starving.” Sitting on the couch, Richard put a slice of smoked salmon on a piece of bread and chewed it with relish even as he spread caviar on a blini. “I saw Sofia from across the lobby this afternoon and I couldn’t believe my eyes. What a beauty she’s become! You must have all the boys in Moscow knocking at your door.”

“Richard,” said the Count with a wave at the room, “what are we doing here?”

Richard nodded, brushing the crumbs from his hands.

“I apologize for the theatrics. Professor Sirovich is an old friend, and generous enough to loan me his sitting room on occasion. I’m only in town for a few days, and I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to speak with you in private, as I’m not exactly sure when I’ll be back.”

“Has something happened?” the Count asked with concern.

Richard put up both hands.

“Not at all. In fact, they tell me it’s a promotion. I’ll be working out of the embassy in Paris for the next few years overseeing a little initiative of ours, which is likely to keep me tied to a desk. Actually, Alexander, that’s why I wanted to see you. . . .”

Richard sat a little forward on the couch, putting his elbows on his knees.

“Since the war, relations between our countries may not have been especially chummy, but they have been predictable. We launch the Marshall Plan, you launch the Molotov Plan. We form NATO; you form the Cominform. We develop an atom bomb, you develop an atom bomb. It’s been like a game of tennis—which is not only a good form of exercise, but awfully entertaining to watch. Vodka?”

Richard poured them both a glass.

“Za vas,” he said.

“Za vas,” replied the Count.

The men emptied their glasses and Richard refilled them.

“The problem is that your top player has played the game so well, for so long, he’s the only player we know. Were he to quit tomorrow, we’d have no idea which fellow would pick up his racket, and whether he’d play from the baseline or the net.”

Richard paused.

“You do play tennis?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Ah. Right. The point is, comrade Stalin appears to be on his last legs, and when he gives up his ghost, things are going to become very unpredictable. And not just in matters of international diplomacy. I mean right here in Moscow. Depending on who ends up in charge, the doors of the city could either be flung open to the world, or slammed shut and bolted from the inside.”

“We must hope for the former,” the Count declared.

“Absolutely,” agreed Richard. “We certainly have no business praying for the latter. But whatever happens, it is preferable to anticipate. Which brings us to the point of my visit. You see, the group I’ll be heading in Paris is in the intelligence field. A sort of research unit, as it were. And we are looking for some friends here and there who might be in a position now and then to shed some light on this or that. . . .”

“Richard,” said the Count in some surprise, “you’re not asking me to spy on my country.”

“What? Spy on your country? Absolutely not, Alexander. I like to think of it more as a form of cosmopolitan gossip. You know: who was invited to the dance and who showed up uninvited; who was holding hands in the corner; and who got hot under the collar. The typical topics of a Sunday morning breakfast anywhere in the world. And in exchange for these sorts of trifles, we could prove generous to a fault. . . .”

The Count smiled.

“Richard, I am no more inclined to gossip than I am to spy. So, let’s not speak of this again and we shall remain the best of friends.”

“To the best of friends then,” said Richard, clinking the Count’s glass with his own.

And for the next hour, the two men set aside the game of tennis and spoke instead of their lives. The Count spoke of Sofia, who was making wonderful strides at the Conservatory, and who remained so thoughtful and quiet. Richard spoke of his boys, who were making wonderful strides in the nursery, and who remained neither thoughtful nor quiet. They spoke of Paris and Tolstoy and Carnegie Hall. Then at nine o’clock, these two kindred spirits rose from their seats.

“It’s probably best if you see yourself out,” said Richard. “Oh, and should it ever come up, you and Professor Sirovich had a lengthy debate on the future of the sonnet. You were in favor, he was against.”

After they’d shaken hands, the Count watched Richard disappear into the bedroom, then he turned toward the door to let himself out. But as he passed the grandfather clock, he hesitated. How loyally it had stood in his grandmother’s drawing room and sounded the time for tea, for supper, for bed. On Christmas Eve, it had signaled the moment when the Count and his sister could slide apart the seamless doors.

Opening the narrow glass door in the clock’s cabinet, the Count reached inside and found the little key still on its hook. Inserting it into the keyhole, the Count wound the clock to its limit, set the time, and gave the pendulum a nudge, thinking: Let the old man keep time for a few hours more.

Almost nine months later, on the third of March 1953, the man known variously as Dear Father, Vozhd, Koba, Soso, or simply Stalin would die in his Kuntsevo residence in the aftermath of a stroke.

The following day, workmen and trucks laden down with flowers arrived at the Palace of Unions on Theatre Square, and within a matter of hours the building’s facade was adorned with a portrait of Stalin three stories high.

On the sixth, Harrison Salisbury, the new Moscow bureau chief of The New York Times, stood in the Count’s old rooms (now occupied by the Mexican chargé d’affaires), to watch as members of the Presidium arrived in a cavalcade of ZIM limousines and as Soso’s coffin, taken from a bright blue ambulance, was borne ceremoniously inside. And on the seventh, when the Palace of Unions was opened to the public, Salisbury watched in some amazement as the line of citizens waiting to pay their respects stretched five miles across the city.

Why, many Western observers wondered, would over a million citizens stand in line to see the corpse of a tyrant? The flippant said it must have been to ensure that he was actually dead; but such a remark did not do justice to the men and women who waited and wept. In point of fact, legions mourned the loss of the man who had led them to victory in the Great Patriotic War against the forces of Hitler; legions more mourned the loss of the man who had so single-mindedly driven Russia to become a world power; while others simply wept in recognition that a new era of uncertainty had begun.

For, of course, Richard’s prediction proved perfectly right. When Soso breathed his last, there was no plan of succession, no obvious designee. Within the Presidium there were eight different men who could reasonably claim the right to lead: Minister of Security Beria, Minister of the Armed Forces Bulganin, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers Malenkov, Minister of Foreign Trade Mikoyan, Foreign Minister Molotov, Secretariat members Kaganovich and Voroshilov, and even former mayor of Moscow Nikita Khrushchev—that blunt, brutish, and bald apparatchik who not long before had perfected the five-story concrete apartment building.

Much to the relief of the West, it seemed in the aftermath of the funeral that the man most likely to prevail was the progressive internationalist and outspoken critic of nuclear arms, Malenkov—because, like Stalin, he was appointed as both Premier of the Party and General Secretary of the Central Committee. But a consensus quickly formed within the Party’s upper ranks that no one man should ever be allowed to simultaneously hold both of these positions again. So ten days later, Party Premier Malenkov was forced to pass his chairmanship of the Secretariat to the conservative Khrushchev, setting the stage for a duumvirate of antagonists—a delicate balance of authority between two men of contrary views and ambiguous alliances, which would keep the world guessing for a few years to come.

“How can anyone live his life in expectation of the Latter?”

Despite having announced that he would have no more time for appointments that evening, when the Count asked this question, he was in Anna Urbanova’s bed. . . .

“I know there is something quixotic in dreaming of the Former,” he continued, “but when all is said and done, if the Former is even a remote possibility, then how can one submit to the likelihood of the Latter? To do so would be contrary to the human spirit. So fundamental is our desire to catch a glimpse of another way of life, or to share a glimpse of our way of life with another, that even when the forces of the Latter have bolted the city’s doors, the forces of the Former will find a means to slip through the cracks.”

The Count reached over, borrowed Anna’s cigarette, and took a puff. Having thought for a moment, he waved the cigarette at the ceiling.

“In recent years, I have waited on Americans who have traveled all the way to Moscow to attend one performance at the Bolshoi. Meanwhile, our haphazard little trio in the Shalyapin will take a stab at any little bit of American music they’ve heard on the radio. These are unquestionably the forces of the Former on display.”

The Count took another puff.

“When Emile is in his kitchen, does he cook the Latter? Of course not. He simmers, sears, and serves the Former. A veal from Vienna, a pigeon from Paris, or a seafood stew from the south of France. Or consider the case of Viktor Stepanovich—”

“You’re not going to start in on the moths of Manchester again?”

“No,” said the Count peevishly. “I am making a different point entirely. When Viktor and Sofia sit down at the piano, do they play Mussorgsky, Mussorgsky, and Mussorgsky? No. They play Bach and Beethoven, Rossini and Puccini, while at Carnegie Hall the audience responds to Horowitz’s performance of Tchaikovsky with thunderous applause.”

The Count turned on his side to study the actress.

“You’re keeping unusually quiet,” he said, returning her cigarette. “Perhaps you don’t agree?”

Anna took a drag and slowly exhaled.

“It’s not that I disagree with you, Sasha. But I’m not so sure that one can simply dance away one’s life to the tune of the Former, as you call it. Certain realities must be faced wherever you live, and in Russia that may mean a bit of bending to the Latter. Take your beloved bouillabaisse, or that ovation in Carnegie Hall. It is no coincidence that the cities from which your examples spring are port cities: Marseille and New York. I daresay, you could find similar examples in Shanghai and Rotterdam. But Moscow is not a port, my love. At the center of all that is Russia—of its culture, its psychology, and perhaps, its destiny—stands the Kremlin, a walled fortress a thousand years old and four hundred miles from sea. Physically speaking, its walls are no longer high enough to fend off attack; and yet, they still cast a shadow across the entire country.”

The Count rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling.

“Sasha, I know you don’t want to accept the notion that Russia may be inherently inward looking, but do you think in America they are even having this conversation? Wondering if the gates of New York are about to be opened or closed? Wondering if the Former is more likely than the Latter? By all appearances, America was founded on the Former. They don’t even know what the Latter is.”

“You sound as if you dreamed of living in America.”

“Everyone dreams of living in America.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous? Half of the inhabitants of Europe would move there tomorrow just for the conveniences.”

“Conveniences! What conveniences?”

Turning on her side, Anna tamped out her cigarette, opened the drawer in the bedside table, and produced a large American magazine, which, the Count noted, was rather presumptuously entitled LIFE. Flipping through the pages, Anna began pointing to various brightly colored photographs. Each one seemed to show the same woman in a different dress smiling before some newfangled contraption.

“Dishwashing machines. Clothes-washing machines. Vacuum cleaners. Toasters. Televisions. And look here, an automatic garage door.”

“What is an automatic garage door?”

“It is a garage door that opens and closes itself on your behalf. What do you think of that?”

“I think if I were a garage door, I should rather miss the old days.”

Anna lit another cigarette and handed it to the Count. He took a drag and watched the smoke spiral toward the ceiling where the Muses looked down from the clouds.

“I’ll tell you what is convenient,” he said after a moment. “To sleep until noon and have someone bring you your breakfast on a tray. To cancel an appointment at the very last minute. To keep a carriage waiting at the door of one party, so that on a moment’s notice it can whisk you away to another. To sidestep marriage in your youth and put off having children altogether. These are the greatest of conveniences, Anushka—and at one time, I had them all. But in the end, it has been the inconveniences that have mattered to me most.”

Anna Urbanova took the cigarette from the Count’s fingers, dropped it in a water glass, and kissed him on the nose.