A Gentleman in Moscow (9 page)

A few minutes later, the Count was knocking on the office door of Marina, the shy delight, while holding a folded newpaper at the back of his pants.

Not long ago, the Count recalled, there had been three seamstresses at work in this room, each before an American-made sewing machine. Like the three Fates, together they had spun and measured and cut—taking in gowns, raising hems, and letting out pants with all of the fateful implications of their predecessors. In the aftermath of the Revolution, all three
had been discharged; the silenced sewing machines had, presumably, become the property of the People; and the room? It had been idled like Fatima's flower shop. For those had not been years for the taking in of gowns or the raising of hems any more than they had been for the throwing of bouquets or the sporting of boutonnieres.

Then in 1921, confronted with a backlog of fraying sheets, tattered curtains, and torn napkins—which no one had any intention of replacing—the hotel had promoted Marina, and once again a trustworthy seam was being sewn within the walls of the hotel.

“Ah, Marina,” said the Count when she opened the door with needle and thread in hand. “How good to find you stitching away in the stitching room.”

Marina looked at the Count with a touch of suspicion.

“What else would I be doing?”

“Quite so,” said the Count. Then offering his most endearing smile, he turned ninety degrees, briefly lifted the newspaper, and humbly asked for her assistance.

“Didn't I repair a pair of your pants just last week?”

“I was spying with Nina again,” he explained. “From the balcony of the ballroom.”

The seamstress looked at the Count with one eye expressing consternation and the other disbelief.

“If you're going to clamber about with a nine-year-old girl, then why do you insist upon wearing pants like those?”

The Count was a little taken aback by the seamstress's tone.

“When I dressed this morning, it was not my plan to go clambering about. But either way, I'll have you know that these pants were custom-made on Savile Row.”

“Yes. Custom-made for sitting in a sitting room, or drawing in a drawing room.”

“But I have never drawn in a drawing room.”

“Which is just as well, since you probably would have spilled the ink.”

As Marina seemed neither particularly shy nor delightful that day, the Count offered her the bow of one who would now be on his way.

“Oh, enough of that,” she said. “Behind the screen and off with your pants.”

Without another word the Count went behind the dressing screen, stripped to his shorts, and handed Marina his pants. From the ensuing silence, he could tell that she had found her spool, licked her thread, and was carefully directing it through the eye of the needle.

“Well,” she said, “you might as well tell me what you were doing up in the balcony.”

So, as Marina began stitching the Count's pants—the laying of locomotive tracks writ small, if you will—he described the Assembly and all his various impressions. Then, almost wistfully, he noted that even as he was seeing the intractability of social conventions and the human tendency to take itself too seriously, Nina was becoming enthralled by the Assembly's energy and its sense of purpose.

“And what is wrong with that?”

“Nothing, I suppose,” admitted the Count. “It's just that only a few weeks ago, she was inviting me to tea in order to ask about the rules of being a princess. . . .”

Handing the Count's pants back over the screen, Marina shook her head like one who must now deliver a hard truth to an innocent of mind.

“All little girls outgrow their interest in princesses,” she said. “In fact, they outgrow their interest in princesses faster than little boys outgrow their interest in clambering about.”

When the Count left Marina's office with a thanks, a wave, and the seat of his pants intact, he practically fell over one of the bellhops, who happened to be standing outside the door.

“Excuse me, Count Rostov!”

“That's quite all right, Petya. No need to apologize. It was my fault, I'm sure.”

The poor lad, who looked positively wide-eyed, hadn't even noticed that he'd lost his cap. So, picking it up from the floor and placing it back on the bellhop's head, the Count wished him God's speed in his business and turned to go.

“But my business is with
you
.”

“With me?”

“It is Mr. Halecki. He wishes to have a word. In his office.”

No wonder the lad was wide-eyed. Not only had the Count never
been summoned by Mr. Halecki, in the four years that he had been in residence in the Metropol he had not
seen
the manager on more than five occasions.

For Jozef Halecki was one of those rare executives who had mastered the secret of delegation—that is, having assigned the oversight of the hotel's various functions to capable lieutenants, he made himself scarce. Arriving at the hotel at half past eight, he would head straight to his office with a harried expression, as if he were already late for a meeting. Along the way, he would return greetings with an abbreviated nod, and when he passed his secretary he would inform her (while still in motion) that he was not to be disturbed. Then he would disappear behind his door.

And what happened once he was inside his office?

It was hard to tell, since so few had ever seen it. (Although, those who had caught a glimpse reported that his desk was impressively free of papers, his telephone rarely rang, and along the wall was a burgundy chaise with cushions that were deeply impressed. . . .)

When the manager's lieutenants had no choice but to knock—due to a fire in the kitchen or a dispute about a bill—the manager would open his door with an expression of such fatigue, such disappointment, such moral defeat that the interrupters would inevitably feel a surge of sympathy, assure him that they could see to the matter themselves, then apologetically back out the door. As a result, the Metropol ran as flawlessly as any hotel in Europe.

Needless to say, the Count was both anxious and intrigued by the manager's sudden desire to see him. Without further ado, Petya led him down the hall, through the hotel's back offices, and finally to the manager's door, which predictably was closed. Expecting Petya to formally announce him, the Count paused a few feet short of the office, but the bellhop made a sheepish gesture toward the door and then vanished. With no clear alternative, the Count knocked. There followed a brief rustling, a moment of silence, and a beleaguered call to come in.

When the Count opened the door, he found Mr. Halecki seated at his desk with a pen firmly in hand, but without a piece of paper in sight. And though the Count was not one to draw conclusions, he did note that the manager's hair was matted on one side of his head and his reading glasses were crooked on his nose.

“You wished to see me?”

“Ah. Count Rostov. Please. Come in.”

As the Count approached one of the two empty chairs that faced the desk, he noted that hanging above the burgundy chaise was a lovely series of hand-tinted engravings depicting hunting scenes in the English style.

“Those are excellent specimens,” said the Count as he took his seat.

“What's that? Oh, yes. The prints. Quite excellent. Yes.”

But having said this, the manager removed his glasses and ran a hand over his eyes. Then he shook his head and sighed. And as he did so, the Count felt a welling of that famed sympathy. “How can I be of service to you?” asked the Count, on the edge of his seat.

The manager gave a nod of familiarity, having presumably heard this question a thousand times before, then put both hands on his desk.

“Count Rostov,” he began. “You have been a guest of this hotel for many years. In fact, I gather your first visit here dates back to the days of my predecessor. . . .”

“That's right,” the Count confirmed with a smile. “It was in August 1913.”

“Quite so.”

“Room 215, I believe.”

“Ah. A delightful room.”

The two men were silent.

“It has been brought to my attention,” the manager continued, if somewhat haltingly, “that various members of the staff when speaking to you . . . have continued to make use of certain . . . honorifics.”

“Honorifics?”

“Yes. More precisely, I gather they have been addressing you as
Your Excellency
. . . .”

The Count considered the manager's assertion for a moment.

“Well, yes. I suppose that some of your staff address me in that fashion.”

The manager nodded his head then smiled a little sadly.

“I'm sure you can see the position that this puts me in.”

In point of fact, the Count could not see the position that this put the manager in. But given the Count's unmitigated feelings of sympathy, he decidedly did not want to put him in any position. So, he listened attentively as Mr. Halecki went on:

“If it were up to me, of course, it goes without saying. But what with . . .”

Here, just when the manager might have pinpointed the most specific of causes, he instead gave an indefinite twirl of the hand and let his voice drift off. Then he cleared his throat.

“Naturally, I have little choice but to insist that my staff refrain from using such terms when addressing you. After all, I think we can agree without exaggeration or fear of contradiction that the times have changed.”

In concluding thus, the manager looked to the Count so hopefully, that the Count took immediate pains to reassure him.

“It is the business of the times to change, Mr. Halecki. And it is the business of gentlemen to change with them.”

The manager looked to the Count with an expression of profound gratitude—that someone should understand what he had said so perfectly no further explication was required.

There was a knock at the door and it opened to reveal Arkady, the hotel's desk captain. The manager's shoulders slumped at the sight of him. He gestured toward the Count.

“As you can see, Arkady, I am in the midst of a conversation with one of our guests.”

“My apologies, Mr. Halecki, Count Rostov.”

Arkady bowed to both men, but did not retreat.

“All right then,” said the manager. “What is it?”

Arkady gave a slight gesture of the head to suggest that what he had to relate might best be related in private.

“Very well.”

Pushing himself up with both hands, the manager shuffled past his desk, out into the hall, and closed the door, such that the Count found himself alone.

Your Excellency
, the Count reflected philosophically.
Your Eminence, Your Holiness, Your Highness
. Once upon a time, the use of such terms was a reliable indication that one was in a civilized country. But now, what with . . .

Here, the Count gave an indefinite twirl of the hand.

“Well. It is probably for the best,” he said.

Then rising from his chair, he approached the engravings, which upon closer inspection depicted three phases of a foxhunt: “The Scent,” “Tallyho,” and “The Chase.” In the second print, a young man in stiff black boots and a bright red jacket was blowing on a brass horn that turned a full
360 degrees from its mouthpiece to its bell. Without a doubt, the horn was a carefully crafted object expressive of beauty and tradition, but was it essential to the modern world? For that matter, did we really need a crew of nattily dressed men, purebred horses, and well-trained dogs to corner a fox in a hole? Without exaggeration or fear of contradiction, the Count could answer his own question in the negative.

For the times do, in fact, change. They change relentlessly. Inevitably. Inventively. And as they change, they set into bright relief not only outmoded honorifics and hunting horns, but silver summoners and mother-of-pearl opera glasses and all manner of carefully crafted things that have outlived their usefulness.

Carefully crafted things that have outlived their usefulness, thought the Count. I wonder . . .

Moving quietly across the room, the Count put an ear to the door, where he could hear the voices of the manager, Arkady, and a third party talking outside. Though muted, their tones suggested they were still a few steps from resolution. Quickly, the Count returned to the wall with the etchings and counted two panels beyond the depiction of “The Chase.” Placing his hand in the center of the panel, he gave a firm push. The panel depressed slightly. When a click sounded, the Count pulled back his fingers and the panel popped open, revealing a hidden cabinet. Inside, just as the Grand Duke had described, was an inlaid box with brass fittings. Reaching into the cabinet, the Count gently lifted the lid of the box and there they were, perfectly crafted and peacefully at rest.

“Marvelous,” he said. “Simply marvelous.”

P
ick a card,” the Count was saying to the smallest of the three ballerinas.

When he had entered the Shalyapin for his reinstated nightly aperitif, the Count had discovered them standing in a row, their delicate fingers resting on the bar as if they intended to
plié.
But for a solitary drinker hunched over his consolation, the young ladies were alone in the bar; so it seemed only appropriate that the Count should join them in a bit of conversation.

In an instant, he could tell that they were new to Moscow—three of the doves that Gorsky recruited from the provinces every September to join the
corps de ballet
. Their short torsos and long limbs were of the classical style preferred by the director, but their expressions had yet to acquire the aloofness of his more seasoned ballerinas. And the very fact that they were drinking at the Metropol unaccompanied hinted at a youthful naïveté. For while the proximity of the hotel to the Bolshoi made it a natural choice for young ballerinas who wished to slip away at the end of rehearsal, the same proximity also made it a favored spot of Gorsky's whenever he wished to discuss matters of art with his prima ballerina. And should these doves be discovered by the director sipping muscat, they would soon be doing the
pas de deux
in Petropavlosk.

With that in mind, perhaps the Count should have warned them.

But freedom of the will has been a well-established tenet of moral philosophy since the time of the Greeks. And though the Count's days of romancing were behind him, it goes against the nature of even the well-meaning gentleman to recommend that lovely young ladies leave his company on the basis of hypotheses.

So, instead, the Count remarked on the young ladies' beauty, inquired what brought them to Moscow, congratulated them on their achievements,
insisted upon paying for their wine, chatted with them about their hometowns, and eventually offered to perform a sleight of hand.

A deck of cards with the Metropol's insignia was produced by the ever-attentive Audrius.

“It has been years since I have done this trick,” the Count admitted, “so you must bear with me.”

As he began to shuffle the pack, the three ballerinas watched him closely; but like demigods of ancient myth, they watched in three different ways: the first through the eyes of the innocent, the second through the eyes of the romantic, and the third through the eyes of the skeptic. It was the dove with the innocent eyes whom the Count had asked to pick a card.

As the ballerina was making her selection, the Count became aware of someone standing behind his shoulder, but this was to be expected. In the setting of a bar, a sleight of hand will inevitably attract a curious onlooker or two. But when he turned to his left to offer a wink, he found not a curious onlooker, but unflappable Arkady—looking unusually flapped.

“Pardon me, Count Rostov. I am sorry to interrupt. But may I have a moment?”

“Certainly, Arkady.”

Smiling apologetically to the ballerinas, the desk captain led the Count a few paces away, then let the facts of the evening speak for themselves: At half past six, a gentleman had knocked at the suite of Secretary Tarakovsky. When the esteemed Secretary opened the door, this gentleman demanded to know who he was and what he was doing there! Taken aback, comrade Tarakovsky explained that he was the current resident of the suite and
that
was what he was doing there. Unconvinced by this logic, the gentleman insisted he be admitted at once. When comrade Tarakovsky refused, the gentleman brushed him aside, crossed the threshold, and commenced searching the rooms one by one, including, ahem, the
salle de bain
—where Mrs. Tarakovsky was seeing to her nightly
toilette
.

This was the point at which Arkady had arrived on the scene, having been summoned urgently by phone. In an agitated state, comrade Tarakovsky waved his cane and demanded “as a regular guest of the Metropol and senior member of the Party” to see the manager at once.

The gentleman, who was now sitting on the couch with his arms
crossed, replied that this suited him perfectly—as he had been about to summon the manager himself. And as to Party membership, he asserted that
he
had been a member of the Party since before comrade Tarakovsky was born—which seemed a rather incredible claim given that comrade Tarakovsky is eighty-two. . . .

Now, the Count, who had listened with interest to every word that Arkady had related, would be the first to admit that this was an enthralling tale. In fact, it was just the sort of colorful incident that an international hotel should aspire to have as part of its lore and that he, as a guest of the hotel, would be likely to retell at the first opportunity. But what he could not understand was why Arkady had chosen this particular moment to share this particular story with
him
.

“Why, because comrade Tarakovsky is staying in suite 317; and it is you for whom the gentleman in question was looking.”

“Me?”

“I am afraid so.”

“What is his name?”

“He refused to say.”

. . .

“Then where is he now?”

Arkady pointed toward the lobby.

“He is wearing out the carpet behind the potted palms.”

“Wearing out the carpet . . . ?”

The Count stuck his head out of the Shalyapin as Arkady leaned cautiously behind him. And sure enough, there on the other side of the lobby was the gentleman in question, making quick business of the ten feet between the pair of plants.

The Count smiled.

Though a few pounds heavier, Mikhail Fyodorovich Mindich had the same ragged beard and restless pace that he had had when they were twenty-two.

“Do you know him?” asked the desk captain.

“Only like a brother.”

When the Count and Mikhail Fyodorovich first met at the Imperial University in St. Petersburg in the fall of 1907, the two were tigers of a very
different stripe. While the Count had been raised in a twenty-room mansion with a staff of fourteen, Mikhail had been raised in a two-room apartment with his mother. And while the Count was known in all the salons of the capital as one who could be counted on for his wit, intelligence, and charm, Mikhail was known hardly anywhere as one who preferred to read in his room rather than fritter away the evening on frivolous conversations.

As such, the two young men hardly seemed fated for friendship. But Fate would not have the reputation it has if it simply did what it seemed it would do. Sure enough, while Mikhail was prone to throw himself into a scrape at the slightest difference of opinion, regardless of the number or size of his opponents, it just so happened that Count Alexander Rostov was prone to leap to the defense of an outnumbered man regardless of how ill conceived his cause. Thus, on the fourth day of their first year, the two students found themselves helping each other up off the ground, as they wiped the dust from their knees and the blood from their lips.

While the splendors that elude us in youth are likely to receive our casual contempt in adolescence and our measured consideration in adulthood, they forever hold us in their thrall. Thus, in the days that followed their meeting, the Count listened with as much amazement to Mikhail's impassioned expression of ideals, as Mikhail did to the Count's descriptions of the city's salons. And within the year, they were sharing rented rooms above a cobbler's shop off Sredny Prospekt.

As the Count would later observe, it was fortuitous that they ended up above a cobbler—for no one in all of Russia could wear out a shoe like Mikhail Mindich. He could easily pace twenty miles in a twenty-foot room. He could pace thirty miles in an opera box and fifty in a confessional. For simply put, pacing was Mishka's natural state.

Say the Count secured them invitations to Platonov's for drinks, the Petrovskys' for supper, and Princess Petrossian's for a dance—Mishka would invariably decline on the grounds that in the back of a bookshop he had just discovered a volume by someone named Flammenhescher that demanded to be read from beginning to end without delay. But once alone, having torn through the first fifty pages of Herr Flammenhescher's little monograph, Mikhail would leap to his feet and start pacing from corner to corner in order to voice his fervid agreement or furious dissent with the author's thesis, his style, or his use of punctuation. Such that by
the time the Count returned at two in the morning, though Mishka had not advanced beyond the fiftieth page, he had worn out more shoe leather than a pilgrim on the road to St. Paul's.

So, the storming of hotel suites and the wearing out of carpets was not particularly out of character for his old friend. But as Mishka had recently received a new appointment at their alma mater in St. Petersburg, the Count was surprised to have him appear so suddenly, and in such a state.

After embracing, the two men climbed the five flights to the attic. Having been told what to expect, Mishka took in his friend's new circumstances without an expression of surprise. But he paused before the three-legged bureau and tilted his head to give its base a second look.

“The
Essays
of Montaigne?”

“Yes,” affirmed the Count.

“I gather they didn't agree with you.”

“On the contrary. I found them to be the perfect height. But tell me, my friend, what brings you to Moscow?”

“Nominally, Sasha, I am here to help plan the inaugural congress of RAPP, which is to be held in June. But of greater consequence . . .”

Here Mishka reached into a shoulder satchel and produced a bottle of wine with an image of two crossed keys embossed in the glass above the label.

“I hope I am not too late.”

The Count took the bottle in hand. He ran his thumb over the surface of the insignia. Then he shook his head with the smile of the deeply moved.

“No, Mishka. As always, you are right on time.” Then he led his old friend through his jackets.

As the Count excused himself to rinse a pair of glasses from the Ambassador, Mishka surveyed his friend's study with a sympathetic gaze. For the tables, the chairs, the
objets d'art
, he recognized them all. And well he knew that they had been culled from the halls of Idlehour as reminders of Elysian days.

It must have been in 1908 that Alexander began inviting him to Idlehour for the month of July. Having traveled from St. Petersburg by a series of consecutively smaller trains, they would finally arrive at that little halt in the high grass on the branch line, where they would be met by a Rostov coach-and-four. With their bags on top, the driver in the carriage, and Alexander at the reins, they would charge across the countryside waving at every peasant girl until they turned onto the road lined with apple trees that led to the family seat.

As they shed their coats in the entry hall, their bags would be whisked to the grand bedrooms of the east wing, where velvet cords could be pulled to summon a cold glass of beer, or hot water for a bath. But first, they would proceed to the drawing room where—at this very table with its red pagoda—the Countess would be hosting some blue-blooded neighbor for tea.

Invariably dressed in black, the Countess was one of those dowagers whose natural independence of mind, authority of age, and impatience with the petty made her the ally of all irreverent youth. She would not only abide, but enjoyed when her grandson would interrupt polite conversation to question the standing of the church or the ruling class. And when her guest grew red and responded in a huff, the Countess would give Mishka a conspiratorial wink, as if they stood arm in arm in the battle against boorish decorum and the outmoded attitudes of the times.

Having paid their respects to the Countess, Mishka and Alexander would head out the terrace doors in search of Helena. Sometimes they would find her under the pergola overlooking the gardens and sometimes under the elm tree at the bend in the river; but wherever they found her, at the sound of their approach she would look up from her book and offer a welcoming smile—not unlike the one captured in this portrait on the wall.