Амор Тоулз - A Gentleman in Moscow

“I don’t get many visitors,” the handyman said, “so I don’t have a second stool.”

“That’s quite all right,” said the Count, picking up a two-foot plank, setting it on end, and balancing himself on its edge.

“Can I pour you a cup?”

“Thank you.”

As the coffee was being poured, the Count wondered whether this was the beginning or end of the old man’s day. Either way, he figured a cup of coffee would hit the spot. For what is more versatile? As at home in tin as it is in Limoges, coffee can energize the industrious at dawn, calm the reflective at noon, or raise the spirits of the beleagured in the middle of the night.

“It’s perfect,” said the Count.

The old man leaned forward.

“The secret is in the grinding.” He pointed to a little wooden apparatus with an iron crank. “Not a minute before you brew.”

The Count raised his eyebrows with the appreciation of the uninitiated.

Yes, in the open air on a summer night the old man’s coffee was perfect. In fact, the only thing that spoiled the moment was a humming in the air—the sort that might be emitted from a faulty fuse or a radio receiver.

“Is that the tower?” the Count asked.

“Is what the tower?”

“The humming.”

The old man looked up in the air for a moment then cackled.

“That’ll be the boys at work.”

“The boys?”

The old man pointed with a thumb to the crates that compromised his view of the Bolshoi. In the predawn light, the Count could just make out a whirl of activity above them.

“Are those . . . bees?”

“Indeed they are.”

“What are they doing here?”

“Making honey.”

“Honey!”

The old man cackled again.

“Making honey is what bees does. Here.”

Leaning forward, the old man held out a roof tile on which there were two slices of black bread slathered with honey. The Count accepted one and took a bite.

The first thing that struck him was actually the black bread. For when was the last time he had even eaten it? If asked outright, he would have been embarrassed to admit. Tasting of dark rye and darker molasses, it was a perfect complement to a cup of coffee. And the honey? What an extraordinary contrast it provided. If the bread was somehow earthen, brown, and brooding, the honey was sunlit, golden, and gay. But there was another dimension to it. . . . An elusive, yet familiar element . . . A grace note hidden beneath, or behind, or within the sensation of sweetness.

“What is that flavor . . . ?” the Count asked almost to himself.

“The lilacs,” the old man replied. Without turning, he pointed with his thumb back in the direction of the Alexander Gardens.

Of course, thought the Count. That was it precisely. How could he have missed it? Why, there was a time when he knew the lilacs of the Alexander Gardens better than any man in Moscow. When the trees were in season, he could spend whole afternoons in happy repose under their white and purple blossoms.

“How extraordinary,” the Count said with an appreciative shake of the head.

“It is and isn’t,” said the old man. “When the lilacs are in bloom, the bees’ll buzz to the Alexander Gardens and the honey’ll taste like the lilacs. But in a week or so, they’ll be buzzing to the Garden Ring, and then you’ll be tasting the cherry trees.”

“The Garden Ring! How far will they go?”

“Some say a bee’ll cross the ocean for a flower,” answered the old man with a smile. “Though I’ve never known one to do so.”

The Count shook his head, took another bite, and accepted a second cup of coffee. “As a boy, I spent a good deal of time in Nizhny Novgorod,” he recalled for the second time that day.

“Where the apple blossoms fall like snow,” the old man said with a smile. “I was raised there myself. My father was the caretaker on the Chernik estate.”

“I know it well!” exclaimed the Count. “What a beautiful part of the world . . .”

So as the summer sun began to rise, the fire began to die, and the bees began to circle overhead, the two men spoke of days from their childhoods when the wagon wheels rattled in the road, and the dragonflies skimmed the grass, and the apple trees blossomed for as far as the eye could see.

Addendum

At the very moment that the Count heard the door to suite 208 clicking shut, Anna Urbanova was, in fact, falling asleep; but she did not sleep soundly.

When the actress first dismissed the Count (having rolled onto her side with a languid sigh), she watched with cool pleasure as he gathered his clothes and drew the curtains. She even took some satisfaction when he paused to pick up her blouse and hang it in the closet.

But at some point during the night, this image of the Count picking up her blouse began to trouble her sleep. On the train back to St. Petersburg, she found herself muttering about it. And by the time she returned home, it positively infuriated her. In the week that followed, if she had the slightest break in her demanding schedule, the image rushed forth, and her famous alabaster cheeks grew red with rage.

“Who does he think he is, this Count Rostov? Pulling out chairs and whistling at dogs? Putting on airs and looking down noses, is more like it. But by what right? Who gave him permission to pick up a blouse and hang it on its hanger? If I drop my blouse on the floor, what of it? It’s my clothing and I can treat it as I please!”

Or so she would find herself reasoning to no one in particular.

One night, returning from a party, the very thought of the Count’s precious little gesture was so infuriating that when she undressed she not only threw her red silk gown on the floor, she instructed her staff that it was not to be touched. Each night that followed, she dumped another outfit on the floor. Dresses and blouses of velvet and silk from London and Paris, the more expensive the better. Dumped here on the bathroom floor and there by the dustbin. In a word, wherever it suited her.

After two weeks, her boudoir began to look like an Arabian tent with fabrics of every color underfoot.

Olga, the sixty-year-old Georgian who had met the Count at the door of suite 208 and who had faithfully served as the actress’s dresser since 1920, initially eyed her mistress’s behavior with seasoned indifference. But one night, when Anna had dropped a blue backless dress on top of a white silk gown, Olga observed matter-of-factly:

“My dear, you are acting like a child. If you do not pick up your clothes, I shall have no choice but to give you a spanking.”

Anna Urbanova turned as red as a jar of jam.

“Pick up my clothes?” she shouted. “You want me to pick up my clothes? Then I shall pick them up!”

Gathering up twenty outfits in her arms, she marched to the open window and cast them into the street below. With the greatest satisfaction, the actress watched as they fluttered and coasted to the ground. When she wheeled about to confront her dresser in triumph, Olga coolly observed how entertained the neighbors would be by this evidence of the famous actress’s petulance, then she turned and left the room.

Switching off the lights and climbing into bed, Anna sputtered like a candle.

“What do I care what the neighbors will say about my petulance. What do I care what St. Petersburg will say, or all of Russia!”

But at two in the morning, having tossed and turned, Anna Urbanova tiptoed down the grand staircase, slipped out into the street, and gathered up her garments one by one.

1924 Anonymity

Dreams of invisibility are as old as folklore. By means of some talisman or potion, or with the help of the gods themselves, the corporeal presence of the hero is rendered insubstantial, and for the duration of the spell he may wander among his fellow men unseen.