A Gentleman in Moscow (45 page)

“It was incredible,” said the actress. “There were five performers before Sofia. Two violinists, a cellist—”

“Where was it? Which venue?”

“In the Grand Hall.”

“I know it well. Designed by Zagorsky at the turn of the century. How crowded was it? Who was there?”

Anna furrowed her brow. Sofia laughed.

“Papa. Let her tell it.”

“All right, all right.”

So the Count did as he was instructed: He let Anna tell it. And she told how there were five performers before Sofia: two violinists, a cellist, a French-horn player, and another pianist. All five had done the Conservatory proud, comporting themselves professionally and playing their instruments with precision. Two pieces by Tchaikovsky, two by Rimsky-Korsakov, and something by Borodin. But then it was Sofia's turn.

“I tell you, Sasha, there was an audible gasp when she appeared. She crossed the stage to the piano without the slightest rustle of her dress. It was as if she were floating.”

“You taught me that, Aunt Anna.”

“No, no, Sofia. The manner in which you entered is
unteachable
.”

“Without a doubt,” agreed the Count.

“Well. When the director announced that Sofia would be playing Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 1, there was some muttering and a shifting of chairs. But the moment she began to play, they were overcome.”

“I knew it. Didn't I say so? Didn't I say that a little Mozart is never out of step?”

“Papa . . .”

“She played with such tenderness,” Anna continued, “such joy, that the audience was won over from the start. There was a smile on every face in every row, I tell you. And the applause when she finished! If only you could have heard it, Sasha. It shook the dust from the chandeliers.”

The Count clapped his own hands and rubbed them together.

“How many musicians performed after Sofia?”

“It didn't matter. The competition was over and everyone knew it. The poor boy who was up next practically had to be dragged onstage. And then, she was the belle of the reception, being toasted from every corner.”

“
Mon Dieu!
” exclaimed the Count, leaping to his feet. “I nearly forgot!”

He shoved aside the Ambassador and produced the bucket with the champagne.

“
Voil
à
!
”

As his hand dipped in the water, the Count could tell the temperature
had climbed to 53˚, but what did
that
matter. With a single twist of the fingers he spun the foil off the bottle, then to the ceiling with the cork! The champagne flowed over his hands and they all laughed. He filled two flutes for the ladies and a wine glass for himself.

“To Sofia,” he said. “Let tonight mark the beginning of a grand adventure—one that is sure to take her far and wide.”

“Papa,” she said with a blush. “It was just a school competition.”

“Just a school competition! It is one of the intrinsic limitations of being young, my dear, that you can never tell when a grand adventure has just begun. But as a man of experience, you may take my word that—”

Suddenly Anna silenced the Count by holding up her hand. She looked to the closet door.

“Did you hear that?”

The three stood motionless. Sure enough, though muffled, they could hear the sound of a voice. Someone must have been at the bedroom door.

“I'll find out who it is,” whispered the Count.

Setting down his glass, he slipped between his jackets, opened the closet door, and stepped into his bedroom only to discover—Andrey and Emile at the foot of the bed in the midst of a hushed debate. Emile was holding a ten-layered cake in the shape of a piano, and Andrey must have just suggested they leave it on the bed with a note, because Emile was replying that one does not “dump a Dobos torte on a bedcover”—when the closet door opened and out popped the Count.

Andrey let out a gasp.

The Count drew in a breath.

Emile dropped the cake.

And the evening might have come to an end right then and there, but for Andrey's instinctive inability to let an object fall to the floor. With the lightest of steps and his fingers outstretched, the onetime juggler caught the torte in midair.

As Andrey breathed a sigh of relief and Emile stared with his mouth open, the Count attempted to act matter-of-factly.

“Why, Andrey, Emile, what a pleasant surprise. . . .”

Taking his cue from the Count, Andrey acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. “Emile made a little something for Sofia in anticipation of her victory,” he said. “Please give her our heartfelt
congratulations.” Then placing the cake gently on the Grand Duke's desk, Andrey turned to the door.

But Emile didn't budge.

“Alexander Ilyich,” he demanded: “What in the name of Ivan were you doing in the closet?”

“In the closet?” asked the Count. “Why, I . . . I was . . .” His voice trailed off diminuendo.

Andrey offered a sympathetic smile and then made a little sweeping motion with his hands, as if to say:
The world is wide, and wondrous are the ways of men
.
 . . .

But Emile furrowed his brow at Andrey, as if to say:
Nonsense.

The Count looked from one member of the Triumvirate to the other.

“Where are my manners?” he said at last. “Sofia will be delighted to see you both. Please. Come this way.” Then he gestured with a welcoming hand to the closet.

Emile looked at the Count as if he'd lost his mind. But Andrey, who could never hesitate before a well-mannered invitation, picked up the cake and took a step toward the closet door.

Emile let out a grunt of exasperation. “If we're going in,” he said to Andrey, “then you'd better watch out for the frosting on the sleeves.” So the maître d' passed Emile the cake and carefully parted the Count's jackets with his delicate hands.

Emerging on the other side, Andrey's surprise at seeing the Count's study for the first time was immediately displaced by the sight of Sofia. “
Notre champion!
” he said, taking her by the arms and kissing her on both cheeks. For Emile, however, the surprise at seeing the Count's study was displaced by the even greater surprise of finding the film star Anna Urbanova standing inside it. For unbeknownst to the Triumvirate, the chef had seen every single one of her movies, and generally from the second row.

Noting Emile's starstruck expression, Andrey took a quick step forward and put his hands under the cake. But Emile did not lose his grip this time. Rather, he suddenly thrust the cake toward Anna, as if he had baked it for her.

“Thank you so much,” she said. “But isn't that for Sofia?”

Emile blushed from his shoulders to the top of his balding head and turned to Sofia.

“I made your favorite,” he said. “A Dobos torte with chocolate cream.”

“Thank you, Uncle Emile.”

“It is in the shape of a piano,” he added.

As Emile produced his chopper from his apron string and proceeded to slice the cake, the Count took two more glasses from the Ambassador and filled them with champagne. The story of Sofia's victory was told again and the perfection of her performance was compared by Anna to the perfection of Emile's cake. As the chef began explaining to the actress the intricate process by which one makes such a torte, Andrey was recalling for Sofia's benefit the night many years ago when he and several others had toasted the Count's arrival on the sixth floor.

“Do you remember, Alexander?”

“
As if it were yesterday,” replied the Count with a smile. “You did the honors with the brandy that night, my friend; and Marina was here along with Vasily. . . .”

As if by an act of magic, at the very instant the Count said Vasily's name, the concierge stepped through the closet door. In military fashion, he clicked his heels and greeted those assembled in rapid succession without showing the slightest indication of surprise as to their whereabouts:

“Miss Urbanova. Sofia. Andrey. Emile.” Then turning to the Count, he said: “Alexander Ilyich, may I have a word . . . ?”

From the manner in which Vasily asked the question, it was clear that he wished to take the Count aside. But as the Count's study was but a hundred foot square, they could only step about three feet away from the others in order to secure their privacy—an action that was immediately rendered inconsequential when the other four members of the party moved a similar distance in a similar direction.

“I wish to inform you,” said Vasily (in a manner sort of
entre nous
), “that the hotel's manager is on his way.”

It was the Count's turn to express surprise.

“On his way where?”

“On his way here. Or rather . . . there,” said Vasily, pointing back toward the Count's bedroom.

“But for what possible reason?”

Vasily explained that as he was reviewing the next night's reservations, he happened to notice the Bishop lingering in the lobby. When a
few minutes later a rather
petit
gentleman wearing a brimmed hat approached the front desk and asked for the Count by name, the Bishop introduced himself, indicated that he had been expecting the visitor, and offered to show him personally to the Count's room.

“When was this?”

“They were just entering the elevator when I took to the stairs; but they were accompanied by Mr. Harriman from suite 215 and the Tarkovs from room 426. Accounting for the stops at the second and fourth floors, I suspect they should be here any second.”

“Good God!”

The members of the party looked to one another.

“No one make a sound,” said the Count. Entering the closet, he closed the study door behind him, then he opened the door to his bedroom a little more cautiously than he had the last time. Relieved to find the room empty, he shut the closet door, took up Sofia's copy of
Fathers and Sons
, sat in his desk chair, and tilted back on two legs just in time to hear the knock on the door.

“Who is it?” called out the Count.

“It is Manager Leplevsky,” called back the Bishop.

The Count let the front legs of his chair drop with a thump and opened the door to reveal the Bishop and a stranger in the hall.

“I hope we are not disturbing you,” said the Bishop.

“Well, it is a rather unusual hour for paying a call. . . .”

“Of course,” said the Bishop with a smile. “But allow me to introduce you to comrade Frinovsky. He was asking after you in the lobby, so I took the liberty of showing him the way, what with your room's . . . remoteness.”

“How considerate of you,” replied the Count.

When Vasily had noted that comrade Frinovsky was
petit
, the Count had assumed the concierge was being colorful in his choice of adjectives. But in point of fact, the word
small
would not have been sufficiently diminutive to suggest comrade Frinovsky's size. When the Count addressed the visitor, he had to resist the temptation of getting down on his haunches.

“How can I be of service to you, Mr. Frinovsky?”

“I am here in regards to your daughter,” Frinovsky explained, taking his little hat from his head.

“Sofia?” asked the Count.

“Yes, Sofia. I am the director of the Red October Youth Orchestra. Your daughter was recently brought to our attention as a gifted pianist. In fact, I had the pleasure of attending her performance tonight, which accounts for the lateness of my visit. But with the greatest pleasure, I come to confer upon her a position as our second pianist.”

“The Youth Orchestra of Moscow!” exclaimed the Count. “How wonderful. Where are you housed?”

“No. I'm sorry if I haven't been clear,” explained Frinovsky. “The Red October Youth Orchestra is not in Moscow. It is in Stalingrad.”

After a moment of bewilderment, the Count attempted to compose himself.

“As I said, it is a wonderful offer, Mr. Frinovsky. . . . But I am afraid that Sofia would not be interested.”

Frinovsky looked to the Bishop as if he hadn't understood the Count's remark.

The Bishop simply shook his head.

“But it is not a matter of interest,” Frinovsky said to the Count. “A requisition has been made and an appointment has been granted—by the regional undersecretary of cultural affairs.” The director took a letter from his jacket, handed it to the Count, and reached over to point to the undersecretary's signature. “As you can see, Sofia is to report to the orchestra on the first of September.”

With a feeling of nausea, the Count read over this letter that, in the most technical of language, welcomed his daughter to an orchestra in an industrial city six hundred miles away.

“The Youth Orchestra of Stalingrad,” the Bishop said. “How exciting this must be for you, Alexander Ilyich. . . .”

Looking up from the letter, the Count saw the flash of spite in the Bishop's smile, and just like that the Count's feelings of nausea and bewilderment were gone—having been replaced by a cold fury. Standing to his full height, the Count took a step toward the Bishop with every intention of grabbing him by the lapels, or better yet the throat—when the door to the closet opened and Anna Urbanova stepped into the room.

The Count, the Bishop, and the
petit
musical director all looked up in surprise.

Crossing gracefully to the Count's side and delicately placing her hand at the small of his back, Anna studied the expressions of the two men in the doorway then addressed the Bishop with a smile.

“Why, Manager Leplevsky, you look as if you've never seen a beautiful woman step from a closet before.”

“I haven't,” sputtered the Bishop.

“Of course,” she said sympathetically. Then she turned her attention to the stranger. “And who have we here?”