Амор Тоулз - A Gentleman in Moscow

It wasn’t until the fifth article that the Count realized he had read it all before. For this was yesterday’s paper. With a grunt, he tossed it back on the table and looked at the clock behind the front desk, which indicated that Mishka was now fifteen minutes late.

But then, the measure of fifteen minutes is entirely different for a man in step than for a man with nothing to do. If for the Count the prior twelve months could be characterized politely as uneventful, the same could not be said for Mishka. The Count’s old friend had left the 1923 RAPP congress with a commission to edit and annotate a multivolume anthology of the Russian short story. That alone would have provided him with a reasonable excuse for being late; but there was a second development in Mishka’s life that earned him even more latitude with his appointments. . . .

As a boy, the Count had a well-deserved reputation for marksmanship. He had been known to hit the schoolhouse bell with a rock while standing behind the bushes on the other side of the yard. He had been known to sink a kopek into an inkwell from across the classroom. And with an arrow and bow, he could pierce an orange at fifty paces. But he had never hit a tighter mark from a greater distance than when he noted his friend’s interest in Katerina from Kiev. In the months after the 1923 congress, her beauty became so indisputable, her heart so tender, her demeanor so kind, that Mishka had no choice but to barricade himself behind a stack of books at the old Imperial Library in St. Petersburg.

“She’s a firefly, Sasha. A pinwheel.” Or so said Mishka with the wistful amazement of one who has been given only a moment to admire a wonder of the world.

But then one autumn afternoon, she appeared in his alcove in need of a confidant. Behind his volumes, they whispered for an hour, and when the library sounded its closing bell, they took their conversation out onto Nevsky Prospekt and wandered all the way to Tikhvin Cemetery where, on a spot overlooking the Neva River, this firefly, this pinwheel, this wonder of the world had suddenly taken his hand.

“Ah, Count Rostov,” exclaimed Arkady in passing. “There you are. I believe I have a message for you. . . .” Returning to the front desk, Arkady quickly rifled through some notes. “Here.”

The message, which had been taken down by the hotel’s receptionist, conveyed Mishka’s apologies and explained that as Katerina was under the weather, he was returning to St. Petersburg earlier than planned. Taking a moment to mask his disappointment, the Count looked up from the note to thank Arkady, but the desk captain had already turned his attention to another guest.

“Good evening, Count Rostov.” Andrey took a quick look in the Book. “A party of two tonight, isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid it’s going to be a party of one, Andrey.”

“Nonetheless, it is our pleasure to have you. Your table should be ready in just a few minutes.”

With the recent recognition of the USSR by Germany, England, and Italy, a wait of a few minutes had become increasingly common at the Boyarsky; but such was the price of being welcomed back into the sisterhood of nations and the brotherhood of trade.

As the Count stepped aside, a man with a pointed beard came marching down the hallway with a protégé in tow. Though the Count had only seen him once or twice before, the Count could tell he was the Commissar of Something-or-Other, for he walked with urgency, talked with urgency, and even came to a stop with urgency.

“Good evening, comrade Soslovsky,” said Andrey with a welcoming smile.

“Yes,” pronounced Soslovsky—as if he’d just been asked whether he wanted to be seated immediately.

With a nod of understanding, Andrey signaled a waiter, handed him two menus, and directed him to lead the gentlemen to table fourteen.

Geometrically speaking, the Boyarsky was a square at the center of which was a towering arrangement of flora (today forsythia branches in bloom), around which were twenty tables of various sizes. If one considered the tables in respect to the cardinal points of a compass, then, at Andrey’s instruction, the waiter was now leading the Commissar and his protégé to the table for two at the northeast corner—right next to where a jowly-faced Belarusian was dining.

“Andrey, my friend . . .”

The maître d’ looked up from his Book.

“Isn’t he the chap who had an exchange of words with that bulldog of a fellow a few days ago?”

An “exchange of words” was something of a polite diminution of the facts. For on the afternoon in question, when this Soslovsky had wondered aloud to his luncheon companions why the Belarusians seemed particularly slow to embrace the ideas of Lenin, the bulldog (who had been sitting at a neighboring table) had cast his napkin on his plate and demanded to know “the meaning of this!” With a disregard as pointed as his beard, Soslovsky suggested there were three reasons, and he began to tick them off:

“First, there is the relative laziness of the population—a trait for which the Belarusians are known the world over. Second, there is their infatuation with the West, which presumably stems from their long history of intermarriage with the Poles. But third, and above all else—”

Alas, the restaurant was never to hear the above-all-else. For the bulldog, who had knocked back his chair at the word intermarriage , now hoisted Soslovsky off his seat. In the scramble that ensued, it took three waiters to separate the various hands from the various lapels, and two busboys to sweep the chicken Maréchal from the floor.

Recalling the scene in a flash, Andrey looked back toward table thirteen, where the bulldog in question was currently seated with a woman of such similar aspect that any seasoned logician would conclude she was his wife. Spinning on his heels, Andrey rounded the forsythia blossoms, headed off Soslovsky and his protégé, and led them back to table three—a lovely spot at south-southeast, which could comfortably accommodate a party of four.

“ Merci beaucoup ,” said Andrey upon his return.

“ De rien ,” replied the Count.

In replying It is nothing to Andrey, the Count was not simply resorting to a Gallic figure of speech. In point of fact, the Count deserved as much thanks for his little intervention as a swallow deserves for its trill. For since the age of fifteen, Alexander Rostov had been a master of seating tables.

Whenever he was home for the holidays, his grandmother would inevitably call him into the library, where she liked to knit by the fireplace in a solitary chair.

“Come in, my boy, and sit with me a moment.”

“Certainly, Grandmother,” replied the Count, balancing himself on the edge of the fire grate. “How can I be of assistance?”

“The prelate is coming for dinner on Friday night—as are the Duchess Obolensky, Count Keragin, and the Minsky-Polotovs. . . .”

Here she would let her voice trail off without further explanation; but no further explanation was needed. The Countess was of a mind that dinner should provide one with respite from life’s trials and tribulations. Thus, she could not countenance discussions of religion, politics, or personal sorrows at her table. Further complicating matters, the prelate was deaf in his left ear, partial to Latin epigrams, and prone to stare at décolletage whenever he drank a glass of wine; while the Duchess Obolensky, who was particularly caustic in summer, frowned upon pithy sayings and could not abide discussions of the arts. And the Keragins? Their great-grandfather had been called a Bonapartist by Prince Minsky-Polotov in 1811, and they had not exchanged a word with a Minsky-Polotov since.

“How many will be in attendance?” asked the Count.