Амор Тоулз - A Gentleman in Moscow

Back on the sixth floor, the Count dug to the bottom of his old trunk in order to retrieve the rucksack that he had used in 1918 on his trek from Paris to Idlehour. As on that journey, this time he would travel only with the bare necessities. That is, three changes of clothing, a toothbrush and toothpaste, Anna Karenina , Mishka’s project, and, finally, the bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape that he intended to drink on the fourteenth of June 1963—ten years to the day after his old friend’s death.

Gathering up his things, the Count paid one last visit to his study. So many years before, he had bid adieu to a whole household. Then a few years later he had bid adieu to a suite. Now, he was to bid adieu to a room that was one hundred feet square. It was, without question, the smallest room that he had occupied in his life; yet somehow, within those four walls the world had come and gone. With that thought, the Count tipped his hat to Helena’s portrait and switched out the light.

At the same time that the Count was descending to the lobby, Sofia was concluding her performance on the stage of the Salle Pleyel in Paris. Rising from the piano, she turned to the audience almost in a state of wonder—for whenever Sofia performed, she so fully immersed herself in her playing, that she tended to forget there was anyone listening. But having been brought back to her senses by the sound of applause, she did not forget to gesture graciously toward the orchestra and her conductor before taking one final bow.

Immediately offstage, Sofia received a formal congratulations from the cultural attaché and a heartfelt embrace from Director Vavilov. It was her finest performance yet, he said. But then the two men turned their attention back to the stage, where the violin prodigy was taking his place before the conductor. The hall grew so quiet that all assembled could hear the tap of the conductor’s baton. Then after that universal moment of suspension, the musicians began to play and Sofia made her way to the dressing room.

The Conservatory’s orchestra performed Dvorak’s concerto in just over thirty minutes. Sofia would allow herself fifteen to reach the exit.

Taking up her knapsack, she went straight to one of the bathrooms reserved for the musicians. Locking the door behind her, she kicked off her shoes and shed the beautiful blue dress that Marina had made. She took off the necklace that Anna had given her and dropped it on the dress. She donned the slacks and oxford shirt that her father had purloined from the Italian gentleman. Then looking into the small mirror above the sink, she took out the scissors that her father had given her and began to cut her hair.

This little implement in the shape of an egret, which had been so prized by her father’s sister, had clearly been designed for snipping, not shearing. The rings cut into the knuckles of Sofia’s thumb and forefinger as she tried and failed to cut through lengths of her hair. Beginning to shed tears of frustration, Sofia closed her eyes and took a breath. There is no time for that , she told herself. Wiping the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand, she began again—cutting smaller amounts of hair, working systematically around her head.

When she was finished, she swept up the hair with her hands and flushed it down the toilet, just as her father had instructed. Then from a side pocket in the knapsack she took the little black bottle that the barber of the Metropol had once used to dye those first gray hairs that appeared in his customers’ beards. The cap of the bottle had a small brush attached to it. Taking in hand the strip of white hair that had virtually defined her appearance since the age of thirteen, Sofia leaned over the sink and carefully brushed it with the dye until it was as black as the rest of her hair.

When she was done, she returned the bottle and the scissors to her pack. She took out the Italian’s cap and set it on the sink. Then she shifted her attention to the pile of clothes on the floor—and that is when she realized they had never considered her shoes. All she had was the elegant pair of high-heeled pumps that Anna had helped pick out for the Conservatory competition the year before. With little choice, she dumped them in the trash.

She scooped up the dress and necklace to dispose of them as well. Yes, Marina had made the dress and Anna had given her the necklace, but she couldn’t take them with her—of that, her father had left no doubt. If for any reason she was stopped and her bag was searched, these glamorous feminine items would give her away. Sofia hesitated for a moment, then she stuffed the dress into the trash with the shoes; but the necklace, she slipped into her pocket.

Securing the straps of the knapsack and swinging it onto her back, Sofia pulled the cap tightly onto her head, opened the bathroom door, and listened. The strings were beginning to swell, signaling the end of the third movement. Leaving the bathroom, she turned away from the dressing rooms and headed toward the back of the building. The music grew louder as she passed directly behind the stage. Then with the first notes of the final movement, she passed through the exit at the rear of the hall and went barefoot into the night.

Walking quickly, but not running, Sofia circled the Salle Pleyel to the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, where the well-lit entrance of the concert hall was located. Crossing the street, she stepped into a doorway and took off the Italian’s cap. From under the brim, she pulled out the little map that her father had cut from the Baedeker and folded into the size of a matchbook. Opening it, she oriented herself and then began following the red line half a block along Faubourg Saint-Honoré, down the Avenue Hoche to the Arc de Triomphe, and then left onto the Champs-Élysées, headed toward the Place de la Concorde.

In drawing this zigzagging line from the doors of the Salle Pleyel to the American Embassy, the Count had not chosen the most direct route. That would have been ten blocks straight along Faubourg Saint-Honoré. But the Count had wanted to get Sofia away from the concert hall as quickly as possible. This slight detour would add only a few minutes to Sofia’s journey, but it would allow her to disappear into the anonymity of the Champs-Élysées; and she should still have enough time to reach the embassy before her absence was discovered.

But when the Count had made this calculation, what he had failed to take into account was the impact upon a twenty-one-year-old girl of seeing the Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre lit up at night for the very first time. True, Sofia had seen them both the day before, along with plenty of other sights; but just as the Count had imagined, she had seen them through the window of a bus. It was a different thing altogether to see them at the onset of summer, having received an ovation, changed one’s appearance, and escaped into the night. . . .

For while in the classical tradition there was no Muse of architecture, I think we can agree that under the right circumstances, the appearance of a building can impress itself upon one’s memory, affect one’s sentiments, and even change one’s life. Just so, risking minutes that she did not have to spare, Sofia came to a stop at the Place de la Concorde and turned slowly in place, as if in a moment of recognition.

On the night before she had left Moscow, when Sofia had expressed her distress at what her father wanted her to do, he had attempted to console her with a notion. He had said that our lives are steered by uncertainties, many of which are disruptive or even daunting; but that if we persevere and remain generous of heart, we may be granted a moment of supreme lucidity—a moment in which all that has happened to us suddenly comes into focus as a necessary course of events, even as we find ourselves on the threshold of a bold new life that we had been meant to lead all along.