Амор Тоулз - A Gentleman in Moscow

The Count began moving the bottles about like chess pieces—to see what was hiding behind what. And there, tucked in the corner behind two vials of French cologne, covered in dust, was that little black bottle that Yaroslav Yaroslavl had referred to with a wink as the Fountain of Youth.

The Count put the bottle in his pocket, reloaded the cabinet, and closed its doors. Scurrying back into his chair, he smoothed his smock and leaned back his head; but even as he closed his eyes, he was struck by the image of Boris slitting open the envelope with his razor. Leaping again from the chair, the Count snatched one of the spares from the counter, slipped it into his pocket, and resumed his place—just as the barber came through the door grumbling about fools’ errands and wasted time.

Upstairs in his room, the Count put the little black bottle at the back of his drawer then sat at his desk with the Paris Baedeker . Consulting the table of contents, he turned to the fiftieth page, where the section on the 8th arrondissement began. Sure enough, before the descriptions of the Arc de Triomphe and the Grand Palais, of the Madeleine and Maxim’s, was a thin paper foldout with a detailed map of the neighborhood. Taking Boris’s razor from his pocket, the Count used the edge to cut the map cleanly from its guide; then with a red pen he carefully drew a zigzagging line from the Avenue George V to Rue Pierre Charron and down the Champs-Élysées.

When he was done with the map, the Count went to his study and retrieved his father’s copy of Montaigne’s Essays from the bookcase where it had resided in comfort ever since Sofia had liberated it from under the bureau. Taking the book back to the Grand Duke’s desk, the Count began turning through the pages, stopping here and there to read the passages his father had underlined. As he was lingering over a particular section in “Of the Education of Children,” the twice-tolling clock began to signal the hour of noon.

One hundred and seventy-three chimings to go, thought the Count.

Then issuing a sigh, he shook his head, crossed himself twice, and with Boris’s razor began removing the text from two hundred pages of the masterpiece.

Arrivederci

One evening in early May, as the Count sat in the high-back chair between the potted palms, over the top of his newspaper he spied the young Italian couple exiting the elevator. She was a long, dark beauty in a long, dark dress, and he a shorter man in slacks and jacket. The Count wasn’t certain what had brought the couple to Moscow, but they reliably left the hotel every evening at seven o’clock, presumably to avail themselves of the city’s nightlife. Case in point, when they stepped off the elevator at 6:55 they walked straight to the concierge’s desk, where Vasily was ready with two tickets for Boris Godunov and a reservation for a late supper. Then the couple swung by the front desk in order to drop off their key, which Arkady stowed in the twenty-eighth slot of the fourth row.

Laying his newspaper on the table, the Count rose, yawned, and stretched. He strolled toward the revolving door as one who wishes to gauge the weather. Outside on the steps, Rodion exchanged greetings with the young couple, signaled a taxi, and held the back door open for them. When they drove off, the Count spun on his heels and crossed the lobby to the stairs. Taking the steps one at a time (as had been his habit since 1952), he ascended to the fourth floor, traversed the hallway, and stopped before the twenty-eighth door. Easing two fingers into the ticket pocket of his vest, he extracted Nina’s key. Then with a look left and a look right, he let himself inside.

The Count had not been in room 428 since the early 1930s—when Anna was attempting to revive her career—but he wasted no time in assessing how the décor of the little sitting room had changed. Rather, he went straight into the bedroom and opened the left closet door. It was filled with dresses exactly like the one the dark beauty had been wearing tonight: knee length, short sleeved, monochromatic. (It was a look that suited her well, after all.) Closing her side of the closet, the Count opened the companion door. Inside were slacks and jackets on hangers, and the flat cap of a newsboy on a hook. Selecting a pair of tan pants, he closed the door. In the second drawer of the bureau, he found a white oxford. Removing a folded pillowcase from his pocket, he stuffed the clothes inside. He returned to the sitting room, opened the door a crack, confirmed the hallway was empty, and slipped out.

Only with the click of the latch did it occur to the Count that he should have taken the cap. But even as he poked his fingers back into his vest pocket, he heard the unmistakable sound of squeaking wheels. Taking three strides down the hallway, the Count disappeared into the belfry—just as Oleg from room service turned the corner, pushing his cart before him.

At eleven o’clock that night, the Count was in the Shalyapin reviewing his checklist over a snifter of brandy. The Catherines, the Baedeker , the Fountain of Youth, the slacks and shirt, a heavy-duty needle and thread from Marina were all in hand. There were still a few things to accomplish, but only one significant loose end: the matter of notice. From the beginning, the Count had known that this would prove the most difficult element of the plan to achieve. After all, one could not simply send a telegram. But it wasn’t absolutely essential. If left no alternative, the Count was prepared to proceed without it.

The Count emptied his glass with the intention of heading upstairs, but before he rose from his stool Audrius was there with the bottle.

“A splash on the house?”

Ever since turning sixty, the Count had generally refrained from alcohol after eleven, having found that late-night drinks, like unsettled children, were likely to wake you at three or four in the morning. But it would have been rude for the Count to refuse the bartender’s offer, especially after he had gone to the trouble of uncorking the bottle. So, accepting the splash with an appropriate expression of gratitude, the Count made himself comfortable and turned his attention to the small group of Americans laughing at the other end of the bar.

Once again, the source of good humor was the hapless salesman from Montclair, New Jersey. Having initially struggled to get anyone of influence on the phone, in April the American began securing face-to-face meetings with senior bureaucrats in every conceivable branch of government. He had met personally with officials at the People’s Commissariats of Food, Finance, Labor, Education, and even Foreign Affairs. Knowing that a vending machine had as much chance of selling in the Kremlin as a portrait of George Washington, the journalists had watched this turn of events in amazement. That is, until they learned that to better illustrate the function of his machines, Webster had asked his father to send him fifty cases of American cigarettes and chocolate bars. Thus, the salesman who had not been able to secure an appointment was suddenly welcomed into a hundred offices with open arms—and ushered out empty-handed.

“I really thought I had one on the line today,” he was saying.

As the American launched into the particulars of his near success, the Count was inevitably reminded of Richard, who was almost as wide-eyed as Webster, equally gregarious, and just as ready to tell a humorous tale at his own expense.

The Count set his glass down on the bar.

I wonder, he thought. Could it be possible?

But before the Count could answer his own question, the pudgy American waved a friendly hand at someone in the lobby—and who should return the wave but a certain eminent professor. . . .