Амор Тоулз - A Gentleman in Moscow

“Your Excellency. How are you?”

“Splendid, Yaroslav. At my utmost.”

“And what is on the docket for today?”

“Just a trim, my friend. Just a trim.”

As the scissors began their delicate snipping, it seemed to the Count that the heavyset customer on the bench had undergone something of a transformation. Although the Count had given his friendly nod just moments before, in the interim the fellow’s face seemed to have taken on a rosier hue. The Count was sure of it, in fact, because the color was spreading to his ears.

The Count tried to make eye contact again, intending to offer another friendly nod, but the fellow had fixed his gaze on Yaroslav’s back.

“I was next,” he said.

Yaroslav, who like most artists tended to lose himself in his craft, continued clipping away with efficiency and grace. So, the fellow was forced to repeat himself, if a little more emphatically.

“ I was next. ”

Drawn from his artistic spell by the sharper intonation, Yaroslav offered a courteous reply:

“I will be with you in just a moment, sir.”

“That is what you said when I arrived.”

This was said with such unmistakable hostility that Yaroslav paused in his clipping and turned to meet his customer’s glare with a startled expression.

Though the Count had been raised never to interrupt a conversation, he felt that the barber should not be put in the position of having to explain the situation on his behalf. So, he interceded:

“Yaroslav meant no offense, my good man. It just so happens that I have a standing appointment at twelve o’clock on Tuesdays.”

The fellow now turned his glare upon the Count.

“A standing appointment,” he repeated.

“Yes.”

Then he rose so abruptly that he knocked his bench back into the wall. At full height, he was no more than five foot six. His fists, which jutted from the cuffs of his jacket, were as red as his ears. When he advanced a step, Yaroslav backed against the edge of his counter. The fellow took another step toward the barber and wrested one of the scissors from his hand. Then, with the deftness of a much slighter man, he turned, took the Count by the collar, and severed the right wing of his moustaches with a single snip. Tightening his hold, he pulled the Count forward until they were nearly nose to nose.

“You’ll have your appointment soon enough,” he said.

Then shoving the Count back in the chair, he tossed the scissors on the floor and strolled from the shop.

“Your Excellency,” exclaimed Yaroslav, aghast. “I have never seen the man in my life. I don’t even know if he resides in the hotel. But he is not welcome here again, I assure you of that.”

The Count, who was standing now, was inclined to echo Yaroslav’s indignation and commend a punishment that fit the crime. But then, what did the Count know about his assailant?

When he had first seen him sitting on the bench in his rumpled jacket, the Count had summed him up in an instant as some hardworking sort who, having stumbled upon the barbershop, had decided to treat himself to a cut. But for all the Count knew, this fellow could have been one of the new residents of the second floor. Having come of age in an ironworks, he could have joined a union in 1912, led a strike in 1916, captained a Red battalion in 1918, and now found himself in command of an entire industry.

“He was perfectly right,” the Count said to Yaroslav. “He had been waiting in good faith. You only wished to honor my appointment. It was for me to cede the chair and suggest that you attend to him first.”

“But what are we to do?”

The Count turned to the mirror and surveyed himself. He surveyed himself, perhaps, for the first time in years.

Long had he believed that a gentleman should turn to a mirror with a sense of distrust. For rather than being tools of self-discovery, mirrors tended to be tools of self-deceit. How many times had he watched as a young beauty turned thirty degrees before her mirror to ensure that she saw herself to the best advantage? (As if henceforth all the world would see her solely from that angle!) How often had he seen a grande dame don a hat that was horribly out of fashion, but that seemed au courant to her because her mirror had been framed in the style of the same bygone era? The Count took pride in wearing a well-tailored jacket; but he took greater pride in knowing that a gentleman’s presence was best announced by his bearing, his remarks, and his manners. Not by the cut of his coat.

Yes, thought the Count, the world does spin.

In fact, it spins on its axis even as it revolves around the sun. And the galaxy turns as well, a wheel within a greater wheel, producing a chime of an entirely different nature than that of a tiny hammer in a clock. And when that celestial chime sounds, perhaps a mirror will suddenly serve its truer purpose—revealing to a man not who he imagines himself to be, but who he has become.

The Count resumed his place in the chair.

“A clean shave,” he said to the barber. “A clean shave, my friend.”

An Acquaintanceship

There were two restaurants in the Hotel Metropol: the Boyarsky, that fabled retreat on the second floor that we have already visited, and the grand dining room off the lobby known officially as the Metropol, but referred to affectionately by the Count as the Piazza.

Admittedly, the Piazza could not challenge the elegance of the Boyarsky’s décor, the sophistication of its service, or the subtlety of its cuisine. But the Piazza did not aspire to elegance, service, or subtlety. With eighty tables scattered around a marble fountain and a menu offering everything from cabbage piroghi to cutlets of veal, the Piazza was meant to be an extension of the city—of its gardens, markets, and thoroughfares. It was a place where Russians cut from every cloth could come to linger over coffee, happen upon friends, stumble into arguments, or drift into dalliances—and where the lone diner seated under the great glass ceiling could indulge himself in admiration, indignation, suspicion, and laughter without getting up from his chair.

And the waiters? Like those of a Parisian café, the Piazza’s waiters could best be complimented as “efficient.” Accustomed to navigating crowds, they could easily seat your party of eight at a table for four. Having noted your preferences over the sound of the orchestra, within minutes they would return with the various drinks balanced on a tray and dispense them round the table in rapid succession without misplacing a glass. If, with your menu in hand, you hesitated for even a second to place your order, they would lean over your shoulder and poke at a specialty of the house. And when the last morsel of dessert had been savored, they would whisk away your plate, present your check, and make your change in under a minute. In other words, the waiters of the Piazza knew their trade to the crumb, the spoon, and the kopek.

At least, that was how things were before the war. . . .

Today, the dining room was nearly empty and the Count was being served by someone who appeared not only new to the Piazza, but new to the art of waiting. Tall and thin, with a narrow head and superior demeanor, he looked rather like a bishop that had been plucked from a chessboard. When the Count took his seat with a newspaper in hand—the international symbol of dining alone—the chap didn’t bother to clear the second setting; when the Count closed his menu and placed it beside his plate—the international symbol of readiness to order—the chap needed to be beckoned with a wave of the hand; and when the Count ordered the okroshka and filet of sole, the chap asked if he might like a glass of Sauterne. A perfect suggestion, no doubt, if only the Count had ordered foie gras!