Амор Тоулз - A Gentleman in Moscow

When the Count was a boy in St. Petersburg, one rarely bumped into it. It was always prowling at the back of a mill or under the table in a tavern, occasionally leaving its paw marks on the freshly printed pamphlets that were drying on a basement floor. Now, thirty years later, it was the most commonly heard word in the Russian language.

A wonder of semantic efficiency, comrade could be used as a greeting, or a word of parting. As a congratulations, or a caution. As a call to action, or a remonstrance. Or it could simply be the means of securing someone’s attention in the crowded lobby of a grand hotel. And thanks to the word’s versatility, the Russian people had finally been able to dispense with tired formalities, antiquated titles, bothersome idioms—even names! Where else in all of Europe could one shout a single word to hail any of one’s countrymen be they male or female, young or old, friend or foe?

“Comrade!” someone called again—this time with a little more urgency. And then he tugged on the Count’s sleeve.

Startled, the Count turned to find the new fellow from the mail window at his elbow.

“Well, hello there. How can I be of service to you, young man?”

The fellow looked perplexed at the Count’s question, having assumed that it was his position to be of service to someone else.

“There is a letter for you,” he explained.

“For me?”

“Yes, comrade. It came yesterday.”

The young fellow pointed back toward the window to indicate where the letter remained.

“Well, in that case, after you,” said the Count.

Civil servant and customer proceeded to their appropriate stations on either side of that small window which separates the written from the read.

“Here it is,” he said, after a moment of sorting.

“Thank you, my good man.”

Taking the envelope in hand, the Count was half expecting to find it addressed to Comrade , but there (under two postage stamps bearing the likeness of Lenin) was the Count’s full name—written in an indifferently groomed, relatively reclusive, occasionally argumentative script.

When the Count had come down to the lobby from the Boyarsky, he had been on his way to the office of the shy delight, where he hoped to secure a length of white thread for a button that had been compromised on his jacket. But he had not seen Mishka in almost half a year; and at the very moment that he recognized his old friend’s script, a lady with a lapdog rose from his favorite chair between the potted palms. Ever respectful of Fate, the Count postponed his visit to the seamstress, claimed his seat, and opened the letter.

Leningrad

June 14, 1930

Dear Sasha,

At four this morning, unable to sleep, I ventured out into the old city. As the revelers of the white nights had already stumbled home and the tram conductors had yet to don their caps, I strolled along Nevsky Prospekt through a stillness of spring that seemed stolen from another province, if not another time.

Nevsky, like the city itself, bears a new name: October 25th Prospekt—a worthy day staking its claim on a storied street. But at this hour, it was just as you remember it, my friend. And with no destination in mind, I crossed the Moika and Fontanka Canals, I passed the shops, and the rose-hued facades of the grand old homes until, at last, I reached Tikhvin Cemetery, where the bodies of Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky slumber a few feet apart. (Do you remember how late into the night we would debate the genius of the one over the other?)

And suddenly it struck me that walking the length of Nevsky Prospekt was like walking the length of Russian literature. Right there at the beginning—just off the avenue on the Moika embankment—is the house where Pushkin ended his years. A few paces on are the rooms where Gogol began Dead Souls. Then the National Library, where Tolstoy scoured the archives. And here, behind the cemetery walls, lies brother Fyodor, our restless witness of the human soul entombed beneath the cherry trees.

As I was standing lost in thought, the sun rose above the cemetery walls, shining its light down the Prospekt and, nearly overcome, I recalled that great affirmation, that proclamation, that promise:

Always to shine,

to shine everywhere,

to the very depths of the last days . . .

Before turning to the second page of his old friend’s letter, the Count found himself looking up, deeply moved.

It was not the memories of St. Petersburg that affected him so—not some nostalgia for his youth among the rose-hued facades, or for his years with Mishka in the apartment above the cobbler’s. Nor was it Mishka’s sentimental reminders of Russia’s literary greatness. What moved the Count was the thought of his old friend venturing out into this stolen spring barely aware of where he was headed. For from the letter’s first line, the Count had known exactly where Mishka was headed.

It had been four years since Mishka had moved to Kiev with Katerina; it had been one year since she had left him for another man; and six months since he had returned to St. Petersburg to barricade himself once again behind his books. Then one spring night at four in the morning, unable to sleep, he finds himself on Nevsky Prospekt following the very same route that he had walked with Katerina on the day that she had first taken his hand. And there, as the sun begins to rise, he is overcome with thoughts of an affirmation, a proclamation, a promise—a promise to shine everywhere and always to very depths of the last days—which, after all, is all that anyone has ever asked of love.

As these thoughts passed through the Count’s mind, was he concerned that Mishka still pined for Katerina? Was he concerned that his old friend was morbidly retracing the footsteps of a lapsed romance?

Concerned? Mishka would pine for Katerina the rest of his life! Never again would he walk Nevsky Prospekt, however they chose to rename it, without feeling an unbearable sense of loss. And that is just how it should be. That sense of loss is exactly what we must anticipate, prepare for, and cherish to the last of our days; for it is only our heartbreak that finally refutes all that is ephemeral in love.

The Count picked up Mishka’s letter with the intention of reading on, but as he turned the page, three youths leaving the Piazza happened to stop on the other side of one of the potted palms to carry on some weighty conversation.

The trio was made up of a good-looking Komsomol type in his early twenties, and two younger women—one blonde, one brunette. The three were apparently headed for the Ivanovo Province in some official capacity and the young man, who was their captain, now warned his compatriots of the privations they would inevitably face while assuring them of their work’s historical significance.

When he finished, the brunette asked how large the province was, but before he could answer, the blonde obliged: “It is over three hundred square miles with a population of half a million. And while the region is largely agricultural, it has only eight machine tractor stations and six modern mills.”

The handsome captain did not seem the least put out by his younger comrade answering on his behalf. On the contrary, it was plain from the expression on his face that he held her in the highest regard.

As the blonde concluded her geography lesson, a fourth member of the party jogged up from the direction of the Piazza. Shorter and younger than the leader, he was wearing the sailor’s cap that had been favored among landlocked youth ever since Battleship Potemkin . In his hand he had a canvas jacket, which he now held out to the blonde.

“I took the liberty of getting your coat,” he said eagerly, “when I picked up mine.”