Амор Тоулз - A Gentleman in Moscow

Naturally enough, in the interim the three schoolboys found themselves looking about. If only the walls had been decorated with maps of the world or a periodic table, they could have made fruitful use of the time—by imagining they were Columbus crossing the Atlantic or an alchemist in ancient Alexandria. With only the portraits of Stalin, Lenin, and Marx to consider, the three men had no choice but to fidget.

When the Bishop had edited Emile’s menu and returned it to the chef, with a sniff he turned to Andrey, who dutifully delivered the Book. As usual, the Bishop opened to the beginning and the Triumvirate watched in mute exasperation as he turned through the pages until he finally reached the last night of May.

“Here we are,” he said.

Again, the tip of the banker’s pencil moved from entry to entry, column by column, row by row. The Bishop provided Andrey with seating instructions for the night and set down his pencil.

Sensing the meeting was about to end, the members of the Triumvirate moved to the edge of their chairs. But rather than close the Book, the Bishop suddenly flipped ahead to survey the upcoming weeks. After turning a few pages, he paused.

“How are preparations coming for the combined dinner of the Presidium and the Council of Ministers . . . ?”

Andrey cleared his throat.

“All is in order. At official request, the dinner is to be held not in the Red Room but in suite 417, which Arkady has arranged to be free; Emile has just finalized the menu; and Alexander, who will be overseeing the dinner, has been working closely with comrade Propp, our liaison from the Kremlin, to ensure the evening runs smoothly.”

The Bishop looked up from the Book.

“Given the importance of the event, shouldn’t you be overseeing it personally, Maître d’ Duras?”

“It was my intention to stay in the Boyarsky, as usual. But I could certainly attend to the dinner, if you thought that preferable.”

“Excellent,” said the Bishop. “Then Headwaiter Rostov can stay at the restaurant to ensure that all goes accordingly there.”

As the Bishop closed the Book, the Count went cold.

The dinner for the Presidium and Council of Ministers was tailor made to his intentions. He could not conceive of a better occasion. But even if there were one, with just sixteen days until the Conservatory’s tour, the Count was simply out of time.

The Bishop slid the Book back across his desk and the meeting was concluded.

As usual, the members of the Triumvirate walked from the principal’s office to the stairwell in silence. But at the landing, when Emile began climbing the stairs to the second floor, the Count took Andrey by the sleeve.

“Andrey, my friend,” he said under his breath. “Can you spare a moment . . . ?”

An Announcement

At 6:45 on the eleventh of June, Count Alexander Rostov stood in suite 417 dressed in the white jacket of the Boyarsky, ensuring that the place settings were properly arranged and his men properly attired before opening the doors for the 1954 combined dinner of the Presidium and the Council of Ministers.

Eleven days earlier, as we know, the Count had been excused from this duty rather unceremoniously. But early on the afternoon of the tenth of June, Maître d’ Duras arrived at the Boyarsky’s daily meeting with distressing news. For some time, he said, he had been experiencing a tremor of the hands consistent with the onset of palsy. After a troubled night’s sleep, he had awakened to discover that the condition had grown considerably worse. By way of illustration, he held his right hand over the table where it trembled like a leaf.

Emile looked on with an expression of shock. What sort of Divinity , he seemed to be thinking, would devise a world in which an aging man’s malady afflicts the very attribute that has set him apart from his fellow men and elevated him in the eyes of all?

What sort of Divinity, Emile? The very same who rendered Beethoven deaf and Monet blind. For what the Lord giveth, is precisely what he cometh later to taketh away.

But if Emile’s face expressed an almost sacrilegious indignation at his friend’s condition, the Bishop’s expressed the grimace of the inconvenienced.

Noting the manager’s annoyance, Andrey sought to set his mind at ease.

“You needn’t worry, Manager Leplevsky. I have already contacted comrade Propp at the Kremlin and assured him that while I cannot oversee tomorrow night’s event, Headwaiter Rostov will be assuming my responsibilities. Needless to say,” the maître d’ added, “comrade Propp was greatly relieved by the news.”

“Of course,” said the Bishop.

In reporting that comrade Propp was greatly relieved to have Headwaiter Rostov at the helm of this dinner of state, Andrey was not exaggerating. Born ten years after the Revolution, comrade Propp didn’t know that Headwaiter Rostov was under house arrest at the Metropol; he didn’t even know that Headwaiter Rostov was a Former Person. What he did know—and from personal experience—was that Headwaiter Rostov could be counted upon to attend to every detail on the table and respond immediately to the slightest hint of a customer’s dissatisfaction. And though comrade Propp was still relatively inexperienced in the ways of the Kremlin, he was experienced enough to know that any shortcomings in the evening would be laid at his door as surely as if he had set the table, cooked the meal, and poured the wine himself.

Comrade Propp personally communicated his relief to the Count during a brief meeting on the morning of the event. At a table for two in the Boyarsky, the young liaison reviewed with the Count, quite unnecessarily, all the details of the evening: the timing (the doors were to be opened promptly at 9:00); the layout of the tables (a long U with twenty seats on either side and six at the head); the menu (Chef Zhukovsky’s interpretation of a traditional Russian feast); the wine (a Ukrainian white); and the necessity of dousing the candles at exactly 10:59. Then, perhaps to emphasize the evening’s importance, comrade Propp gave the Count a glimpse of the guest list.

While it’s true that the Count generally hadn’t concerned himself with the inner workings of the Kremlin, that is not to suggest that he was unfamiliar with the names on that piece of paper—for he had served them all. Certainly, he had served them at formal functions in the Red and Yellow Rooms, but he had also served them at the more intimate and less guarded tables of the Boyarsky when they had dined with wives or mistresses, friends or enemies, patrons or protégés. He knew the boorish from the abrupt and the bitter from the boastful. He had seen all of them sober and most of them drunk.

“All will be seen to,” said the Count as the young apparatchik stood to go. “But, comrade Propp . . .”

Comrade Propp paused.

“Yes, Headwaiter Rostov? Have I forgotten something?”

“You haven’t given me the seating arrangement.”

“Ah. Not to worry. Tonight there is to be no seating arrangement.”

“Then rest assured,” the Count replied with a smile, “the evening is bound to be a success.”

Why was the Count so pleased to hear that this dinner of state would have no seating arrangement?

For a thousand years, civilizations the world over have recognized the head of the table as a privileged spot. Upon seeing a formally set table, one knows instinctively that the seat at the head is more desirable than those along the sides—because it inevitably confers upon its occupant an appearance of power, importance, and legitimacy. By extension, one also knows that the farther one sits from the head, the less powerful, important, and legitimate one is likely to be perceived. So, to invite forty-six leaders of a political party to dine around the periphery of an extended U without a seating arrangement was to risk a certain amount of disorder. . . .