Амор Тоулз - A Gentleman in Moscow

But the Count took particular pleasure in his friend’s engagement during the final minutes of the film. For with the plane to Lisbon in the air and Major Strasser dead on the ground, when Captain Renault frowned at the bottle of Vichy water, dropped it in a wastebasket, and kicked it across the floor, Osip Glebnikov, the former Red Army colonel and high official of the Party, who was sitting on the edge of his seat, poured, frowned, dropped, and kicked.

Antagonists at Arms (And an Absolution)

Good evening and welcome to the Boyarsky,” began the Count in Russian, as the middle-aged couple with blond hair and blue eyes looked up from their menus.

“Do you speak English?” the husband asked in English, though with a decidedly Scandinavian cadence.

“Good evening and welcome to the Boyarsky,” the Count translated accordingly. “My name is Alexander and I will be your waiter tonight. But before describing our specials, may I offer you an aperitif?”

“I think we are ready to order,” said the husband.

“We have just arrived in the hotel after a long day of travel,” explained the wife with a weary smile.

The Count hesitated.

“And where, if I may ask, have you been traveling from . . . ?”

“Helsinki,” said the husband with a hint of impatience.

“Well then, tervetuloa Moskova ,” said the Count.

“ Kiitos ,” replied the wife with a smile.

“Given your long journey, I will see to it that you are served a delightful meal without delay. But before I take your order, would you be so kind as to give me your room number . . . ?”

From the beginning, the Count had determined that he would need to filch a few things from a Norwegian, a Dane, a Swede, or a Finn. On the face of it, this task should not have posed a significant challenge, as Scandinavian visitors were reasonably common at the Metropol. The problem was that the visitor in question was sure to notify the hotel’s manager as soon as he discovered that his pocket had been picked, which in turn might lead to the notification of authorities, the official interviewing of hotel staff, perhaps even the searching of rooms and the posting of guards at railway stations. So, the pocket picking would have to take place at the very last minute. In the meantime, the Count could only cross his fingers that a Scandinavian man would be residing in the hotel at the critical juncture.

With grim attention, he had watched as a salesman from Stockholm checked out of the hotel on the thirteenth of June. Then on the seventeenth, a journalist from Oslo had been recalled by his paper. In no small terms, the Count berated himself for not acting sooner. When, lo and behold, with only twenty-four hours to spare, a pair of beleaguered Finns came into the Boyarsky and sat right at his table.

But there remained one small complication: The primary item that the Count hoped to secure was the gentleman’s passport. And as most foreigners in Russia carried their passports about on their person, the Count would not be able to pay a visit to the Finns’ suite on the following morning when they were touring about the city; he would need to visit the suite tonight—while they were in it.

As much as we hate to admit the fact, Fate does not take sides. It is fair-minded and generally prefers to maintain some balance between the likelihood of success and failure in all our endeavors. Thus, having put the Count in the challenging position of having to lift a passport at the very last minute, Fate offered the Count a small consolation: for at 9:30, when he asked the Finns if they would like to see the dessert cart, they declined on the grounds that they were exhausted and ready for bed.

Shortly after midnight, when the Boyarsky was closed and the Count had bid goodnight to Andrey and Emile, he climbed the stairs to the third floor, went halfway down the hall, took off his shoes, and then by means of Nina’s key slipped into suite 322 in his stocking feet.

Many years before, under a spell cast by a certain actress, the Count had dwelt for a time among the ranks of the invisible. So, as he tiptoed into the Finns’ bedroom, he called upon Venus to veil him in a mist—just as she had for her son, Aeneas, when he wandered the streets of Carthage—so that his footfalls would be silent, his heartbeat still, and his presence in the room no more notable than a breath of air.

As it was late in June, the Finns had drawn their curtains to block out the glow of the white nights, but a sliver of light remained where the two drapes met. By this narrow illumination, the Count approached the foot of the bed and took in the sleeping forms of the travelers. Thanks be to God, they were about forty years old. Fifteen years younger, they would not have been asleep. Having stumbled back from a late dinner in the Arbat at which they had ordered two bottles of wine, they would now be in each other’s arms. Fifteen years older, they would be tossing and turning, getting up twice a night to visit the loo. But at forty? They had enough appetite to eat well, enough temperance to drink in moderation, and enough wisdom to celebrate the absence of their children by getting a good night’s sleep.

Within a matter of minutes the Count had secured the gentleman’s passport and 150 Finnish marks from the bureau, tiptoed through the sitting room, and slipped back into the hallway, which was empty.

In fact, it was so empty that even his shoes weren’t in it.

“Confound it,” said the Count to himself. “They must have been picked up by the night service for shining.”

After issuing a litany of self-recriminations, the Count took comfort that in all likelihood on the following morning his shoes would simply be returned by the Finns to the main desk, where they would be cast into the hotel’s collection of unidentifiable misplaced possessions. As he climbed the stairs of the belfry he took additional comfort that all else had gone according to plan. By this time tomorrow night . . . , he was thinking as he opened his bedroom door—only to discover the Bishop, sitting at the Grand Duke’s desk.

Naturally enough, the Count’s first instinct at the sight was a feeling of indignation. Not only had this accountant of discrepancies, this stripper of wine labels entered the Count’s quarters without invitation, he had actually rested his elbows on that dimpled surface where once had been written persuasive arguments to statesmen and exquisite counsel to friends. The Count was just opening his mouth to demand an explanation, when he saw that a drawer had been opened, and that a sheet of paper was in the Bishop’s hand.

The letters, the Count realized with a feeling of dread.

Oh, if it had only been the letters. . . .

Carefully written expressions of fondness and fellowship may not have been common between colleagues, but they were hardly suspicious in and of themselves. A man has every right—and some responsibility—to communicate his good feelings to his friends. But it was not one of the recently written letters that the Bishop was holding. It was the first of the Baedeker maps—the one on which the Count had drawn the bright red line connecting the Palais Garnier to the American Embassy by way of the Avenue George V.

Then again, perhaps whether it was a letter or a map mattered not. For when the Bishop had turned at the sound of the door, he had witnessed the transition in the Count’s expression from indignation to horror—a transition that confirmed a state of guilt even before an accusation had been made.

“Headwaiter Rostov,” said the Bishop, as if surprised to see the Count in his own room. “You truly are a man of many interests: Wine . . . Cuisine . . . The streets of Paris . . .”