A Gentleman in Moscow

by Amor Towles

  “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, th
ey 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.”

  “I daresay he has something there,” said the Brit. Then he raised his glass and emptied it. So the Count emptied his, and after a grumble, the German followed suit.

  “Number two?” asked the Brit, as Audrius refilled the glasses.

  “Act one, scene one of The Nutcracker.”

  “Tchaikovsky!” the German guffawed.

  “You laugh, mein Herr. And yet, I would wager a thousand crowns that you can picture it yourself. On Christmas Eve, having celebrated with family and friends in a room dressed with garlands, Clara sleeps soundly on the floor with her magnificent new toy. But at the stroke of midnight, with the one-eyed Drosselmeyer perched on the grandfather clock like an owl, the Christmas tree begins to grow. . . .”

  As the Count raised his hands slowly over the bar to suggest the growth of the tree, the Brit began to whistle the famous march from the opening act.

  “Yes, exactly,” said the Count to the Brit. “It is commonly said that the English know how to celebrate Advent best. But with all due respect, to witness the essence of winter cheer one must venture farther north than London. One must venture above the fiftieth parallel to where the course of the sun is its most elliptical and the force of the wind its most unforgiving. Dark, cold, and snowbound, Russia has the sort of climate in which the spirit of Christmas burns brightest. And that is why Tchaikovsky seems to have captured the sound of it better than anyone else. I tell you that not only will every European child of the twentieth century know the melodies of The Nutcracker, they will imagine their Christmas just as it is depicted in the ballet; and on the Christmas Eves of their dotage, Tchaikovsky’s tree will grow from the floor of their memories until they are gazing up in wonder once again.”

  The Brit gave a sentimental laugh and emptied his glass.

  “The story was written by a Prussian,” said the German, as he begrudgingly lifted his drink.

  “I grant you that,” conceded the Count. “And but for Tchaikovsky, it would have remained in Prussia.”

  As Audrius refilled the glasses, the ever-attentive tender at bar noted the Count’s look of inquiry and replied with a nod of confirmation.

  “Third,” said the Count. Then in lieu of explanation, he simply gestured to the Shalyapin’s entrance where a waiter suddenly appeared with a silver platter balanced on the palm of his hand. Placing the platter on the bar between the two foreigners, he lifted the dome to reveal a generous serving of caviar accompanied by blini and sour cream. Even the German could not help but smile, his appetite getting the better of his prejudices.

  Anyone who has spent an hour drinking vodka by the glass knows that size has surprisingly little to do with a man’s capacity. There are tiny men for whom the limit is seven and giants for whom it is two. For our German friend, the limit appeared to be three. For if the Tolstoy dropped him in a barrel, and the Tchaikovsky set him adrift, then the caviar sent him over the falls. So, having wagged a chastising finger at the Count, he moved to the corner of the bar, laid his head on his arms, and dreamed of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

  Taking this as a signal, the Count prepared to push back his stool, but the young Brit was refilling his glass.

  “The caviar was a stroke of genius,” he said. “But how did you manage it? You never left our sight.”

  “A magician never reveals his secrets.”

  The Brit laughed. Then he studied the Count as if with renewed curiosity.

  “Who are you?”

  The Count shrugged.

  “I am someone you have met in a bar.”

  “No. That’s not quite it. I know a man of erudition when I meet one. And I heard how the bartender referred to you. Who are you, really?”

  The Count offered a self-deprecating smile.

  “At one time, I was Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov—recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt. . . .”

  The young Brit held out his hand.

  “Charles Abernethy—presumptive heir to the Earl of Westmorland, financier’s apprentice, and bowman of the losing Cambridge crew at Henley in 1920.”

  The two gentlemen shook hands and drank. And then the presumptive heir to the Earl of Westmorland studied the Count again. “This must have been quite a decade for you. . . .”

  “You could put it that way,” said the Count.

  “Did you try to leave after the Revolution?”

  “On the contrary, Charles; I came back because of it.”

  Charles looked at the Count in surprise.

  “You came back?”

  “I was in Paris when the Hermitage fell. I had left the country before the war due to certain . . . circumstances.”

  “You weren’t an anarchist, were you?”

  The Count laughed.

  “Hardly.”

  “Then what?”

  The Count looked into his empty glass. He hadn’t spoken of these events in so many years.

  “It is late,” he said. “And the story is long.”

  By way of response, Charles refilled their glasses.

  So the Count took Charles all the way back to the fall of 1913, when on an inclement night he had set out for the twenty-first birthday of the Princess Novobaczky. He described the ice on the driveway, and Mrs. Trent’s roast, and the torn IOU—and how a few degrees here and there had landed him on the terrace in the arms of the Princess while the rash lieutenant retched in the grass.

  Charles laughed.

  “But, Alexander, that sounds splendid. Surely, it’s not the reason you left Russia.”

  “No,” admitted the Count, but then he continued with his fateful tale: “Seven months pass, Charles. It is the spring of 1914, and I return to the family estate for a visit. Having paid my respects to my grandmother in the library, I venture outside in search of my sister, Helena, who likes to read under the great elm at the bend in the river. From a hundred feet away, I can tell that she is not herself—that is, I can tell that she is more than herself. Upon seeing me she sits up with a sparkle in her eye and a smile on her lips, clearly eager to share some piece of news, which I am now equally eager to hear. But just as I cross the lawn toward her, she looks over my shoulder and smiles even more brightly to see a lone figure approaching on a steed—a lone figure in the uniform of the Hussars. . . .

  “You see the dilemma the fox had put me in, Charles. While I had been carousing back in Moscow, he had sought my sister out. He had arranged an introduction and then courted her carefully, patiently, successfully. And when he swung down from the saddle and our eyes met, he could barely keep the twist of mirth from his lips. But how was I to explain the situation to Helena? This angel of a thousand virtues? How was I to tell her that the man she has fallen in love with has sought her affections not due to an appreciation of her qualities, but to settle a score?”

  “What did you do?”

  “Ah, Charles. What did I do? I did nothing. I thought surely his true nature would find occasion to express itself—much as it had at the Novobaczkys’. So in the weeks that followed, I hovered at the edge of their courtship. I suffered through lunches and teas. I ground my teeth as I watched them stroll through the gardens. But as I bided my time, his self-control surpassed my wildest expectations. He pulled out her chair; he picked blossoms; he read verses; he wrote verses! And always when he caught my eye there was that little twist in his smile.

  “
But then on the afternoon of my sister’s twentieth birthday, when he was off on maneuvers and we were paying a visit to a neighbor, we returned at dusk to find his troika in front of our house. From a glance at Helena, I could sense her elation. He has rushed back all the way from his battalion, she was thinking, to wish me well on my day. She nearly jumped from her horse and ran up the steps; and I followed her like a condemned man to the noose.”

  The Count emptied his glass and slowly set it back onto the bar.

  “But there inside the entry hall, I did not find my sister in his arms. I found her two steps from the door, trembling. Against the wall was Nadezhda, my sister’s handmaiden. Her bodice torn open, her arms across her chest, her face scarlet with humiliation, she looked briefly at my sister then ran up the stairs. In horror, my sister stumbled across the hall, collapsed in a chair, and covered her face with her hands. And our noble lieutenant? He grinned at me like a cat.

  “When I began to express my outrage, he said: ‘Oh, come now, Alexander. It is Helena’s birthday. In her honor, let us call it even.’ Then roaring with laughter, he walked out the door without giving my sister a glance.”

  Charles whistled softly.

  The Count nodded.

  “But at this juncture, Charles, I did not do nothing. I crossed the entryway to the wall where a pair of pistols hung beneath the family crest. When my sister grabbed at my sleeve and asked where I was going, I too walked out the door without giving her a glance.”

  The Count shook his head in condemnation of his own behavior.

  “He had a one-minute head start, but he hadn’t used it to put distance between us. He had casually climbed into his troika and set his horses moving at little more than a trot. And there you have him in a nutshell, my friend: a man who raced toward parties, and trotted from his own misdeeds.”