Амор Тоулз - A Gentleman in Moscow

When the abbot rushed from the monastery to confront the captain—demanding in the name of the Lord that they cease this desecration at once—the captain leaned against a post and lit a cigarette.

“One should render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” he said, “and unto God what is God’s.” With that, he instructed his men to drag the abbot up the belfry steps and hurl him from the steeple into the arms of his Maker.

Presumably, the bells of the Church of the Ascension had been reclaimed by the Bolsheviks for the manufacture of artillery, thus returning them to the realm from whence they came. Though for all the Count knew, the cannons that had been salvaged from Napoleon’s retreat to make the Ascension’s bells had been forged by the French from the bells at La Rochelle; which in turn had been forged from British blunderbusses seized in the Thirty Years’ War. From bells to cannons and back again, from now until the end of time. Such is the fate of iron ore.

“Count Rostov . . . ?”

The Count looked up from his reverie to find Tanya standing in the doorway.

“Sable I should think,” said the Count, dropping the sleeve. “Yes, most definitely sable.”

December in the Piazza . . .

From the day the Metropol opened its doors, the good people of Moscow had looked to the Piazza to set the tone of the season. For by five o’clock on the first of December, the room had already been festooned in anticipation of the New Year. Evergreen garlands with bright red berries hung from the fountain. Strings of lights fell from the balconies. And revelers? From all across Moscow they came, such that by eight o’clock, when the orchestra struck up its first festive song, every table was spoken for. By nine, the waiters were dragging chairs in from the corridors so that latecomers could hang their arms over the shoulders of friends. And at the center of every table—whether it was hosted by the high or the humble—was a serving of caviar, for it is the genius of this particular delicacy that it may be enjoyed by the ounce or the pound.

As such, it was with a touch of disappointment that the Count entered the Piazza on this winter solstice to find the room ungarlanded, the balustrades unstrung, an accordion player on the bandstand, and two-thirds of the tables empty.

But then, as every child knows, the drumbeat of the season must sound from within. And there, at her usual table by the fountain, was Nina with a dark green ribbon tied around the waist of her bright yellow dress.

“Merry Christmas,” said the Count with a bow when he reached the table.

Nina stood and curtsied. “The joys of the season to you, sir.”

When they were seated with their napkins in their laps, Nina explained that as she would be meeting her father for dinner a little later, she had taken the liberty of ordering herself an hors d’oeuvre.

“Quite sensible,” said the Count.

At that moment, the Bishop appeared, carrying a small tower of ice creams.

“The hors d’oeuvre?”

“ Oui ,” Nina replied.

Having placed the dish before Nina with a priestly smile, the Bishop turned and asked if the Count would like a menu (as if he didn’t know it by heart!).

“No thank you, my good man. Just a glass of champagne and a spoon.”

Systematic in all matters of importance, Nina ate her ice cream one flavor at a time, moving from the lightest to the darkest in shade. Thus, having already dispatched her French vanilla, she was now moving on to a scoop of lemon, which perfectly matched her dress.

“So,” said the Count, “are you looking forward to your visit home?”

“Yes, it will be nice to see everyone,” said Nina. “But when we return to Moscow in January, I shall be starting school.”

“You don’t seem very excited by the prospect.”

“I fear it will be dreadfully dull,” she admitted, “and positively overrun with children.”

The Count nodded gravely to acknowledge the indisputable likelihood of children in the schoolhouse; then, as he dipped his own spoon into the scoop of strawberry, he noted that he had enjoyed school very much.

“Everybody tells me that.”

“I loved reading the Odyssey and the Aeneid ; and I made some of the finest friends of my life. . . .”

“Yes, yes,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Everybody tells me that too.”

“Well, sometimes everybody tells you something because it is true.”

“Sometimes,” Nina clarified, “everybody tells you something because they are everybody. But why should one listen to everybody? Did everybody write the Odyssey? Did everybody write the Aeneid ?” She shook her head then concluded definitively: “The only difference between everybody and nobody is all the shoes.”

Perhaps the Count should have left it at that. But he hated the idea of his young friend beginning her Moscow school days with such a desolatory view. As she progressed through the dark purple scoop (presumably blackberry), he considered how best to articulate the virtues of a formal education.

“While there are certainly some irksome aspects to school,” he conceded after a moment, “I think you will find to your eventual delight that the experience has broadened your horizons.”

Nina looked up.

“What do you mean by that?”

“What do I mean by what?”

“By broadened your horizons .”

The Count’s assertion had seemed so axiomatic that he had not prepared an elaboration. So before responding, he signaled the Bishop for another glass of champagne. For centuries champagne has been used to launch marriages and ships. Most assume this is because the drink is so intrinsically celebratory; but, in fact, it is used at the onset of these dangerous enterprises because it so capably boosts one’s resolve. When the glass was placed on the table, the Count took a swig large enough to tickle his sinuses.

“By broadening your horizons,” he ventured, “what I meant is that education will give you a sense of the world’s scope, of its wonders, of its many and varied ways of life.”

“Wouldn’t travel achieve that more effectively?”

“Travel?”

“We are talking about horizons, aren’t we? That horizontal line at the limit of sight? Rather than sitting in orderly rows in a schoolhouse, wouldn’t one be better served by working her way toward an actual horizon, so that she could see what lay beyond it? That’s what Marco Polo did when he traveled to China. And what Columbus did when he traveled to America. And what Peter the Great did when he traveled through Europe incognito !”

Nina paused to take a great mouthful of the chocolate, and when the Count appeared about to reply she waved her spoon to indicate that she was not yet finished. He waited attentively for her to swallow.

“Last night my father took me to Scheherazade .”

“Ah,” the Count replied (grateful for the change of subject). “Rimsky-Korsakov at his best.”

“Perhaps. I wouldn’t know. The point is: According to the program, the composition was intended to ‘enchant’ the listeners with ‘the world of the Arabian Nights.’”

“That realm of Aladdin and the lamp,” said the Count with a smile.

“Exactly. And, in fact, everyone in the theater seemed utterly enchanted.”

“Well, there you are.”

“And yet, not one of them has any intention of going to Arabia—even though that is where the lamp is.”

By some extraordinary conspiracy of fate, at the very instant Nina made this pronouncement, the accordion player concluded an old favorite and the sparsely populated room broke into applause. Sitting back, Nina gestured to her fellow customers with both hands as if their ovation were the final proof of her position.