A Gentleman in Moscow (35 page)

Here is how it was played:

The two of them would be sitting somewhere in the hotel—say, reading in their study on a Sunday morning. At the stroke of twelve, the Count would set his book down and excuse himself to pay his weekly visit to the barber. After descending one flight in the belfry and traversing the hall to the main stair, he would continue his journey down five flights to the subfloor, where, having passed the flower shop and newsstand, he would enter the barbershop only to discover—Sofia reading quietly on the bench by the wall.

Naturally, this resulted in the calling of the Lord's name in vain and the dropping of whatever happened to be in one's hand (three books and a glass of wine so far this year).

Setting aside the fact that such a game could prove fatal to a man approaching his sixties, one had to marvel at the young lady's expertise. She could seemingly transport herself from one end of the hotel to the other in the blink of an eye. Over the years, she must have mastered all of the hotel's hidden hallways, back passages, and connecting doors, while developing an uncanny sense of timing. But what was particularly impressive was her otherworldly repose upon discovery. For no matter how far or how fast she had traveled, there was not a hint of exertion about her. Not a patter of the heart, not a panting of the breath, not a drop of perspiration on her brow. Nor would she emit a giggle or exhibit the slightest smirk. On the contrary. With an expression that was studious, shy, and well behaved, she would acknowledge the Count with a friendly nod, and looking back at her book, turn the page, demurely.

The notion that a child so composed would conspire to the releasing of geese was simply preposterous. One might as well accuse her of toppling the Tower of Babel or knocking the nose off the Sphinx.

True, she had been in the kitchen eating her supper when the chef du cuisine first received word that a certain Swiss diplomat, who had ordered the roast goose, had questioned the freshness of the poultry. And admittedly, she was devoted to her Uncle Emile. Even so, how was a thirteen-year-old girl to spirit three adult fowl to the fourth floor of an international hotel at seven in the morning without detection? The very idea, concluded the Count as he opened the door to his rooms, confounded one's reason, offended the laws of nature, and flew in the face of common—

“
Iesu Christi!”

Sofia, who the moment before had been in the lobby, was seated at the Grand Duke's desk, leaning diligently over her tome.

“Oh, hello, Papa,” she said without looking up.

. . .

“Apparently, it is no longer considered polite to look up from one's work when a gentleman enters a room.”

Sofia turned in her chair.

“I'm sorry, Papa. I was immersed in my reading.”

“Hmm. And what might that be?”

“It is an essay on cannibalism.”

“An essay on cannibalism!”

“By Michel de Montaigne.”

“Ah. Yes. Well. That's time well spent, I'm sure,” conceded the Count.

But as he headed toward the study, he thought,
Michel de Montaigne
 . . . ? Then he shot a glance at the base of their bureau.

. . .

“Is that
Anna Karenina
?”

Sofia followed his gaze.

“Yes, I believe it is.”

“But what is she doing down there?”

“She was the closest in thickness to Montaigne.”

“The closest in thickness!”

“Is something wrong?”

. . .

“All I can say is that Anna Karenina would never have put
you
under a bureau just because you happened to be as thick as Montaigne.”

“The very idea is preposterous,” the Count was saying. “How is a thirteen-year-old girl to spirit three fully grown geese up two flights of stairs without the slightest detection? Besides, I ask you: Is such behavior even in her character?”

“Certainly not,” said Emile.

“No, not in the least,” agreed Andrey.

The three men shook their heads in shared indignation.

One of the advantages of working together for many years is that the daily rigmarole can be dispensed with quickly, leaving ample time for discussions of weightier concerns—such as rheumatism, the inadequacy of public transit, and the petty behavior of the inexplicably promoted. After two decades, the members of the Triumvirate knew a thing or two about the small-minded men who sat behind stacks of paper, and the so-called gourmands from Geneva who couldn't tell a goose from a grouse.

“It's outrageous,” said the Count.

“Unquestionably.”

“And to summon me half an hour before our daily meeting, at which there is never a shortage of important matters to discuss.”

“Quite so,” agreed Andrey. “Which reminds me, Alexander . . .”

“Yes?”

“Before we open tonight, could you have someone sweep out the dumbwaiter?”

“Certainly. Is it a mess?”

“I'm afraid so. It has somehow become littered with feathers. . . .”

In saying this, Andrey used one of his legendary fingers to scratch his upper lip while Emile pretended to sip at his tea
.
And the Count? He opened his mouth with every intention of making the perfect rejoinder—the sort of remark that having cut one man to the quick would be quoted by others for years to come.

But there was a knock at the door, and young Ilya entered with his wooden spoon.

Over the course of the Great Patriotic War, Emile had lost the seasoned
members of his crew one by one, even the whistling Stanislav. With every able-bodied man eventually in the army, he had been forced to staff his kitchen with adolescents. Thus, Ilya, who had been hired in 1943, had been promoted on the basis of seniority to sous-chef in 1945, at the ripe old age of nineteen. As a reflection of qualified confidence, Emile had bestowed upon him a spoon in place of a knife.

“Well?” said Emile, looking up with impatience.

In response, Ilya hesitated.

Emile looked to the other members of the Triumvirate and rolled his eyes, as much as to say:
You see what I must put up with?
Then he turned back to his apprentice.

“As anyone can see, we are men with business to attend to. But apparently, you have something of such importance that you feel the need to interrupt. Well then, out with it—before we expire from anticipation.”

The young man opened his mouth, but then rather than explain himself, he simply pointed his spoon toward the kitchen. Following the direction of the utensil, the members of the Triumvirate looked through the office window and there, near the door to the back stair, stood an unfortunate-looking soul in a ragged winter coat. At the sight of him, Emile grew crimson.

“Who let him in here?”

“I did, sir.”

Emile stood so abruptly he nearly knocked over his chair. Then, just as a commander will tear the epaulettes from the shoulders of an errant officer, Emile grabbed the spoon from Ilya's hand.

“So, you're the Commissar of Nincompoops now, is that it? Eh? When I had my back turned, you were promoted to the General Secretary of Bunglers?”

The young man took a step back.

“No, sir. I have not been promoted.”

Emile smacked the table with the spoon, nearly cracking it in two.

“Of course you haven't! How often have I told you not to let beggars in the kitchen? Don't you see that if you give him a crust of bread today, there will be five of his friends here tomorrow, and fifty the day after that?”

“Yes, sir, but . . . but . . .”

“But but but what?”

“He didn't ask for food.”

“Eh?”

The young man pointed to the Count.

“He asked for Alexander Ilyich.”

Andrey and Emile both looked to their colleague in surprise. The Count in turn looked through the window at the beggar. Then without saying a word, he rose from his chair, exited the office, and embraced this boon companion whom he had not seen in eight long years.

Though Andrey and Emile had never met the stranger, as soon as they heard his name they knew exactly who he was: the one who had lived with the Count above the cobbler's shop; the one who had paced a thousand miles in increments of fifteen feet; the lover of Mayakovsky and Mandelstam who, like so many others, had been tried and sentenced in the name of Article 58.

“Why don't you make yourselves comfortable,” suggested Andrey with a gesture of his hand. “You can use Emile's office.”

“Yes,” agreed Emile. “By all means. My office.”

With his impeccable instincts, Andrey led Mishka to the chair with its back to the kitchen while Emile placed bread and salt on the table—that ancient Russian symbol of hospitality. A moment later he returned with a plate of potatoes and cutlets of veal. Then the chef and maître d' excused themselves, closing the door so that the two old friends could speak undisturbed.

Mishka looked at the table.

“Bread and salt,” he said with a smile.

As the Count looked across at Mishka, he was moved by two contrary currents of emotion. On the one hand, there was that special joy of seeing a friend from youth unexpectedly—a welcome event no matter when or where. But at the same time, the Count was confronted by the irrefutable facts of Mishka's appearance. Thirty pounds lighter, dressed in a threadbare coat, and dragging one leg behind him, it was no wonder that Emile had mistaken him for a beggar. Naturally, the Count had watched in recent years as age began to take its toll on the Triumvirate. He had noticed the occasional tremor in Andrey's left hand and the creeping deafness in Emile's right ear. He had noticed the graying of the
former's hair and the thinning of the latter's. But with Mishka, here were not simply the ravages of time. Here were the marks of one man upon another, of an era upon its offspring.

Perhaps most striking was Mishka's smile. In their youth, Mishka had been almost earnest to a fault and never spoke with irony. Yet when he said “bread and salt” he wore the smile of the sarcast.

“It is so good to see you, Mishka,” the Count said after a moment. “I can't tell you how relieved I was when you sent word of your release. When did you return to Moscow?”

“I haven't,” his friend replied with his new smile.

Upon the dutiful completion of his eight years, Mishka explained, he had been rewarded with a Minus Six. To visit Moscow, he had borrowed a passport from a sympathetic soul with a passing likeness.

“Is that wise?” the Count asked with concern.

Mishka shrugged.

“I arrived this morning from Yavas by train. I'll be returning to Yavas later tonight.”

“Yavas . . . Where is that?”

“Somewhere between where the wheat is grown and the bread is eaten.”

“Are you teaching . . . ?” the Count asked tentatively.

“No,” Mishka said with a shake of the head. “We are not encouraged to teach. But then, we are not encouraged to read or write. We are hardly encouraged to eat.”

So it was that Mishka began to describe his life in Yavas; and as he did so, he used the first person plural so often that the Count assumed he must have moved there with a fellow inmate from the camps. But slowly, it became clear that in saying “we” Mishka had no one person in mind. For Mishka, “we” encompassed
all
his fellow prisoners—and not simply those he had known in Arkhangelsk. It encompassed the million or more who had toiled on the Solovetsky Islands or in Sevvostlag or on the White Sea Canal, whether they had toiled there in the twenties, or the thirties, or toiled there still.
*

Mishka was silent.

“It is funny what comes to one at night,” he said after a moment. “After dropping our shovels and trudging to the barracks, we would swallow our gruel and pull our blankets to our chins eager for sleep. But inevitably some unexpected thought would come, some uninvited memory that wanted to be sized up, measured, and weighed. And many was the night I found myself thinking of that German you encountered in the bar—the one who claimed that vodka was Russia's only contribution to the West and who challenged anyone to name three more.”