A Gentleman in Moscow (18 page)

Nina made the introductions.

“Count Rostov, Boris. Boris, Count Rostov.”

“Good afternoon, Boris.”

“Good afternoon, sir.”

The Count turned back to Nina.

“What is the nature of this endeavor?”

“We intend to test the hypotheses of two renowned mathematicians in a single experiment. Specifically, we will be testing Newton's calculation of the speed of gravity and Galileo's principle that objects with different mass fall at an equivalent rate.”

From the balustrade, wide-eyed Boris nodded earnestly and attentively.

By way of illustration, Nina pointed her pencil to the first column of her grid, in which six objects were listed in ascending order of size.

“Where did you get the pineapple?”

“From the fruit bowl in the lobby,” Boris called down with enthusiasm.

Nina set down her pencil.

“
Let's start with the kopek, Boris. Remember to hold it
precisely
at the top of the balustrade, and drop it
exactly
when I tell you to do so.”

For a moment, the Count wondered if the height of the balcony was sufficient to measure the influence of mass on the descent of varying objects. After all, hadn't Galileo climbed the Tower of Pisa when he executed his experiment? And surely, the balcony wasn't high enough to calculate the acceleration of gravity. But it is hardly the role of the casual observer to call into question the methodology of the seasoned scientist. So, the Count kept his wonderings where they belonged.

Boris took up the kopek and, showing due consideration for the seriousness of his task, he carefully arranged himself so that he could hold the designated object
precisely
at the top of the balustrade.

After making a notation on her pad, Nina picked up her watch.

“On the count of three, Boris. One. Two. Three!”

Boris released the coin and after a moment of silence, it pinged against the floor.

Nina looked at her watch.

“One point two five seconds,” she called to Boris.

“Check,” he replied.

Carefully noting the datum in its corresponding square, on a separate sheet of paper Nina divided the figure by a factor, carried its remainder, subtracted the difference, and so on and so forth, until she rounded the solution to the second decimal. Then she shook her head in apparent disappointment.

“Thirty-two feet per second per second.”

Boris responded with an expression of scientific concern.

“The egg,” Nina said.

The egg (which presumably had been liberated from the Piazza's kitchen) was held precisely, released exactly, and timed to the centisecond.
The experiment continued with a teacup, a billiard ball, a dictionary, and the pineapple, all of which completed their journey to the dance floor in the same amount of time. Thus, in the ballroom of the Metropol Hotel on the twenty-first of June 1926, was the heretic, Galileo of Galilei, vindicated by a ping, a splat, a smash, a thunk, a thump, and a thud.

Of the six objects, the teacup was the Count's personal favorite. It not only made a satisfying smash upon impact, but in the immediate aftermath one could hear the shards of porcelain skidding across the floor like acorns across the ice.

Having completed her tally, Nina observed a little sadly:

“Professor Lisitsky said that these hypotheses have been tested over time. . . .”

“Yes,” said the Count. “I imagine they have. . . .”

Then to lighten her spirits, he suggested that as it was almost eight o'clock, perhaps she and her young friend might join him for supper at the Boyarsky. Alas, she and Boris had another experiment to perform—one that involved a bucket of water, a bicycle, and the perimeter of Red Square.

On this of all nights, was the Count disappointed that Nina and her young friend couldn't join him for supper? Of course he was. And yet, the Count had always been of the opinion that God, who could easily have split the hours of darkness and light right down the middle, had chosen instead to make the days of summer longer for scientific expeditions of just this very sort. In addition, the Count had a pleasant inkling that Boris might prove to be the first in a long line of earnest and attentive young men who would be dropping eggs from balustrades and riding bikes with buckets.

“Then I leave you to it,” said the Count with a smile.

“All right. But had you come for something in particular?”

“No,” the Count replied after a pause, “nothing in particular.” But as he turned toward the door, something did occur to him. “Nina . . .”

She looked up from her work.

“Even though these hypotheses have been tested over time, I think you were perfectly right to test them again.”

Nina studied the Count for a moment.

“Yes,” she said with a nod. “You have always known me the best.”

At ten o'clock the Count was seated in the Boyarsky with an empty plate and a nearly empty bottle of White on the table. With the day drawing rapidly to a close, he took some pride in knowing that everything was in order.

That morning, having received a visit from Konstantin Konstantinovich, the Count had brought his accounts up to date at Muir & Mirrielees (now known as the Central Universal Department Store), Filippov's (the First Moscow Bakery), and, of course, the Metropol. At the Grand Duke's desk, he had written a letter to Mishka, which he had then entrusted to Petya with instructions it be mailed on the following day. In the afternoon, he had paid his weekly visit to the barber and tidied up his rooms. He had donned his burgundy smoking jacket (which, to be perfectly frank, was disconcertingly snug), and in its pocket he placed a single gold coin for the undertaker with instructions that he be dressed in the freshly pressed black suit (which had been laid out on his bed), and that his body be buried in the family plot at Idlehour.

But if the Count took pride in knowing that everything was in order, he took comfort in knowing that the world would carry on without him—and, in fact, already had. The night before, he had happened to be standing at the concierge's desk when Vasily produced a map of Moscow for one of the hotel's guests. As Vasily drew a zigzagging line from the center of the city to the Garden Ring, more than half of the streets he named were unfamiliar to the Count. Earlier that day, Vasily had informed him that the famed blue-and-gold lobby of the Bolshoi had been painted over in white, while in the Arbat Andreyev's moody statue of Gogol had been plucked from its pedestal and replaced with a more uplifting one of Gorky. Just like that, the city of Moscow could boast new street names, new lobbies, and new statues—and neither the tourists, the theatergoers, nor the pigeons seemed particularly put out.

The staffing trend that had begun with the appointment of the Bishop had continued unabated—such that any young man with more influence than experience could now don the white jacket, clear from the left, and pour wine into water glasses.

Marina, who once had welcomed the Count's company as she stitched in the stitching room, now had a junior seamstress to watch over as well as a toddler at home (God bless).

Nina, who had taken her first steps into the modern world and found it just as worthy of her unblinking intelligence as the study of princesses, was moving with her father to a large apartment in one of the new buildings designated for the use of Party officials.

And as it was the third week of June, the Fourth Annual Congress of RAPP was underway, but Mishka was not in attendance, having taken a leave from his post at the university in order to finish his short story anthology (now in five volumes) and to follow his Katerina back to Kiev, where she was teaching in an elementary school.

On occasion, the Count still shared a cup of coffee on the roof with the handyman, Abram, where they would talk of summer nights in Nizhny Novgorod. But the old man was now so nearsighted and uncertain on his feet that one morning earlier that month, as if in anticipation of his retirement, the bees had disappeared from their hives.

So, yes, life was rolling along, just as it always had.

Looking back, the Count recalled how on the first night of his house arrest, in the spirit of his godfather's old maxim, he had committed himself to mastering his circumstances. Well, in retrospect, there was another story his godfather told that was just as worthy of emulation. It entailed the Grand Duke's close friend, Admiral Stepan Makarov, who commanded the Imperial Russian Navy during the Russo-Japanese War. On the thirteenth of April 1904, with Port Arthur under attack, Makarov led his battleships into the fray and drove the Japanese fleet back into the Yellow Sea. But upon returning to port on calm seas, the flagship struck a Japanese mine and began to take on water. So, with the battle won and the shores of his homeland in sight, Makarov ascended to the helm in full military dress and went down with his ship.

The Count's bottle of White (which he was fairly certain was a Chardonnay from Burgundy and best served at 55˚) sat sweating on the table. Reaching across his plate, he picked up the bottle and served himself. Then having made a toast of gratitude to the Boyarsky, the Count emptied his glass and headed to the Shalyapin for one last snifter of brandy.

When the Count arrived at the Shalyapin, his plan had been to enjoy the brandy, pay Audrius his respects, then retire to his study to await the chime of twelve. But as he neared the bottom of his glass, he couldn't help but overhear a conversation taking place farther down the bar between a high-spirited young Brit and a German traveler for whom travel had obviously lost all its charms.

What had first drawn the Count's attention was the Brit's enthusiasm for Russia. In particular, the young man was taken with the whimsical architecture of the churches and the rambunctious tenor of the language. But with a dour expression, the German replied that the only contribution the Russians had made to the West was the invention of vodka. Then, presumably to drive home his point, he emptied his glass.

“Come now,” said the Brit. “You can't be serious.”

The German gave his younger neighbor the look of one who had no experience being anything but serious. “I will buy a glass of vodka,” he said, “for any man in this bar who can name three more.”

Now, vodka was not the Count's preferred spirit. In point of fact, despite his love for his country, he rarely drank it. What's more, he had already polished off a bottle of White and a snifter of brandy, and he still had his own rather pressing business to attend to. But when a man's country is dismissed so offhandedly, he cannot hide behind his preferences or his appointments—
especially
when he has drunk a bottle of White and a snifter of brandy. So, having sketched a quick instruction for Audrius on the back of a napkin and tucked it under a one-ruble note, the Count cleared his throat.

“Excuse me, gentlemen. I couldn't help but overhear your exchange. I have no doubt,
mein Herr
, that your remark regarding Russia's contributions to the West was a form of inverted hyperbole—an exaggerated diminution of the facts for poetic effect. Nonetheless, I will take you at your word and happily accept your challenge.”

“I'll be damned,” said the Brit.

“But I do have one condition,” added the Count.

“And what is that?” asked the German.

“That for each of the contributions I name, we three shall drink a glass of vodka
together
.”

The German, who was scowling, waved a hand in the air as if he were about to dismiss the Count, much as he had dismissed the country. But ever-attentive Audrius had already set three empty glasses on the bar and was filling them to the brim.

“Thank you, Audrius.”

“My pleasure, Your Excellency.”

“Number one,” said the Count, adding a pause for dramatic effect: “Chekhov and Tolstoy.”

The German let out a grunt.

“Yes, yes. I know what you're going to say: that every nation has its poets in the pantheon. But with Chekhov and Tolstoy, we Russians have set the bronze bookends on the mantelpiece of narrative. Henceforth, writers of fictions from wheresoever they hail, will place themselves on the continuum that begins with the one and ends with the other. For who, I ask you, has exhibited better mastery of the shorter form than Chekhov in his flawless little stories? Precise and uncluttered, they invite us into some corner of a household at some discrete hour in which the entire human condition is suddenly within reach, if heartbreakingly so. While at the other extreme: Can you conceive of a work greater in scope than
War and Peace
? One that moves so deftly from the parlor to the battlefield and back again? That so fully investigates how the individual is shaped by history, and history by the individual? In the generations to come, I tell you there will be no new authors to supplant these two as the alpha and omega of narrative.”