by Amor Towles
Charles refilled their glasses and waited.
“Our drive was a grand circle that connected the house to the main road by two opposing arcs lined with apple trees. My horse was still tied at its post. So, when I saw him riding away, I mounted and set off in the opposite direction at a gallop. In a matter of minutes, I had reached the point where the two arcs of the drive met the road. Dismounting, I stood and waited for his approach.
“You can picture the scene—me alone in the drive with the sky blue, the breeze blowing, and the apple trees in bloom. Though he had left the house at little more than a trot, when he saw me, he rose to his feet, raised his whip, and began driving his horses at full speed. There was no question as to what he intended to do. So without a second thought, I raised my arm, steadied my aim, and pulled the trigger. The impact of the bullet knocked him off his feet. The reins flew free and the horses careened off the drive, rolling the troika, and tossing him into the dust—where he lay unmoving.”
“You killed him?”
“Yes, Charles. I killed him.”
The presumptive heir to the Earl of Westmorland slowly nodded his head.
“Right there in the dust . . .”
The Count sighed and took a drink.
“No. It was eight months later.”
Charles looked confused.
“Eight months later . . . ?”
“Yes. In February 1915. You see, ever since my youth I had been known for my marksmanship, and I had every intention of shooting the brute in the heart. But the road was uneven . . . and he was whipping his reins . . . and the apple blossoms were blowing about in the wind . . . In a word, I missed my mark. I ended up shooting him here.”
The Count touched his right shoulder.
“So, then you didn’t kill him. . . .”
“Not at that moment. After binding his wound and righting his troika, I drove him home. Along the way he cursed me at every turn of the wheel, and deservedly so. For while he survived the gunshot wound, with his right arm now lame, he was forced to surrender his commission in the Hussars. And when his father filed an official complaint, my grandmother sent me to Paris, as was the custom at the time. But later that summer when the war broke out, despite his injury he insisted upon resuming his place at the head of his regiment. And in the Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes, he was knocked from his horse and run through with a bayonet by an Austrian dragoon.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Alexander, I am sorry that this fellow died in battle; but I think I can safely say that you have assumed more than your share of guilt for these events.”
“But there is one more event to relate: Ten years ago tomorrow, while I was biding my time in Paris, my sister died.”
“Of a broken heart . . . ?”
“Young women only die of broken hearts in novels, Charles. She died of scarlet fever.”
The presumptive earl shook his head in bewilderment.
“But don’t you see?” explained the Count. “It is a chain of events. That night at the Novobaczkys’ when I magnanimously tore his marker, I knew perfectly well that word of the act would reach the Princess; and I took the greatest satisfaction in turning the tables on the cad. But if I had not so smugly put him in his place, he would not have pursued Helena, he would not have humiliated her, I would not have shot him, he might not have died in Masuria, and ten years ago I would have been where I belonged—at my sister’s side—when she finally breathed her last.”
Having capped off his snifter of brandy with six glasses of vodka, when the Count emerged from the attic hatch shortly before midnight, he weaved across the hotel’s roof. With the wind a little wild and the building shifting back and forth, one could almost imagine one was crossing the deck of a ship on high seas. How fitting, thought the Count, as he paused to steady himself at a chimney stack. Then picking his way among the irregular shadows that jutted here and there, he approached the building’s northwest corner.
For one last time, the Count looked out upon that city that was and wasn’t his. Given the frequency of street lamps on major roads, he could easily identify the Boulevard and Garden Rings—those concentric circles at the center of which was the Kremlin and beyond which was all of Russia.
As long as there have been men on earth, reflected the Count, there have been men in exile. From primitive tribes to the most advanced societies, someone has occasionally been told by his fellow men to pack his bags, cross the border, and never set foot on his native soil again. But perhaps this was to be expected. After all, exile was the punishment that God meted out to Adam in the very first chapter of the human comedy; and that He meted out to Cain a few pages later. Yes, exile was as old as mankind. But the Russians were the first people to master the notion of sending a man into exile at home.
As early as the eighteenth century, the Tsars stopped kicking their enemies out of the country, opting instead to send them to Siberia. Why? Because they had determined that to exile a man from Russia as God had exiled Adam from Eden was insufficient as a punishment; for in another country, a man might immerse himself in his labors, build a house, raise a family. That is, he might begin his life anew.
But when you exile a man into his own country, there is no beginning anew. For the exile at home—whether he be sent to Siberia or subject to the Minus Six—the love for his country will not become vague or shrouded by the mists of time. In fact, because we have evolved as a species to pay the utmost attention to that which is just beyond our reach, these men are likely to dwell on the splendors of Moscow more than any Muscovite who is at liberty to enjoy them.
But enough of all that.
Having retrieved a Bordeaux glass from the Ambassador, the Count set it on a chimney top. He wrested the cork from the labelless bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape that he had taken from the Metropol’s cellar back in 1924. Even as he poured the wine, he could tell it was an excellent vintage. Perhaps a 1900 or 1921. With his glass filled, he raised it in the direction of Idlehour.
“To Helena Rostov,” he said, “the flower of Nizhny Novgorod. Lover of Pushkin, defender of Alexander, embroiderer of every pillowcase within reach. A life too brief, a heart too kind.” Then he drank to the bottom of the glass.
Though the bottle was far from empty, the Count did not refill the glass; nor did he toss it over his shoulder. Rather, he placed it with care on the chimney top and then approached the parapet, where he stood to his full height.
Before him sprawled the city, glorious and grandiose. Its legions of lights shimmered and reeled until they mixed with the movement of the stars. In one dizzy sphere they spun, confusing the works of man with the works of heaven.
Placing his right foot on the parapet’s edge, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov said, “Good-bye, my country.”
As if in reply, the beacon on Mishka’s tower blinked.
It was now the simplest of matters. Like one who stands on a dock in spring preparing to take the first plunge of the season, all that remained was a leap. Starting just six stories off the ground and falling at the speed of a kopek, a teacup, or a pineapple, the entire journey would only take a matter of seconds; and then the circle would be complete. For as sunrise leads to sunset and dust to dust, as every river returns to the sea, just so a man must return to the embrace of oblivion, from whence—
“Your Excellency!”
Turning in dismay at the interruption, the Count discovered Abram standing behind him in a state of excitement. In fact, Abram was in such a state of excitement that he showed not the slightest surprise at finding the Count poised on the spot where the roof met the ether.
“I thought I heard your voice,” said the old handyman. “I’m so glad you’re here. You must come with me at once.”
“Abram, my friend,” the Count began to explain, but the old man continued unabated:
“You will not believe it, if
I tell you. You will have to see it for yourself.” Then without waiting for a response, he hurried with surprising agility toward his encampment.
The Count let out a sigh. Assuring the city that he would be back in a moment, he followed Abram across the roof to the brazier, where the old man stopped and pointed to the northeast corner of the hotel. And there, against the brightly lit backdrop of the Bolshoi, one could just make out a frenzy of tiny shadows darting through the air.
“They’ve returned!” Abram exclaimed.
“The bees . . . ?”
“Yes. But that is not all. Sit, sit.” Abram gestured toward the plank of wood that had so often served as the Count’s chair.
As the Count stood the plank on end, Abram bent over his makeshift table. On it was a tray from one of the hives. He cut into the comb with a knife, spread the honey on a spoon, and handed it to the Count. Then he stood back with a smile of anticipation.
“Well?” he prompted. “Go ahead.”
Dutifully, the Count put the spoon in his mouth. In an instant, there was the familiar sweetness of fresh honey—sunlit, golden, and gay. Given the time of year, the Count was expecting this first impression to be followed by a hint of lilacs from the Alexander Gardens or cherry blossoms from the Garden Ring. But as the elixir dissolved on his tongue, the Count became aware of something else entirely. Rather than the flowering trees of central Moscow, the honey had a hint of a grassy riverbank . . . the trace of a summer breeze . . . a suggestion of a pergola. . . . But most of all, there was the unmistakable essence of a thousand apple trees in bloom.
Abram was nodding his head.
“Nizhny Novgorod,” he said.
And it was.
Unmistakably so.
“All these years, they must have been listening to us,” Abram added in a whisper.
The Count and the handyman both looked toward the roof’s edge where the bees, having traveled over a hundred miles and applied themselves in willing industry, now wheeled above their hives as pinpoints of blackness, like the inverse of stars.
It was nearly two in the morning when the Count bid Abram goodnight and returned to his bedroom. Taking the gold coin from his pocket, he placed it back on the stack inside the leg of his godfather’s desk—where it would remain untouched for another twenty-eight years. And the following evening at six, when the Boyarsky opened, the Count was the first one through its doors.
“Andrey,” he said to the maître d’. “Can you spare a moment . . . ?”
BOOK THREE
1930
Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov stirred at half past eight to the sound of rain on the eaves. With a half-opened eye, he pulled back his covers and climbed from bed. He donned his robe and slipped on his slippers. He took up the tin from the bureau, spooned a spoonful of beans into the Apparatus, and began to crank the crank.
Even as he turned the little handle round and round, the room remained under the tenuous authority of sleep. As yet unchallenged, somnolence continued to cast its shadow over sights and sensations, over forms and formulations, over what has been said and what must be done, lending each the insubstantiality of its domain. But when the Count opened the small wooden drawer of the grinder, the world and all it contained were transformed by that envy of the alchemists—the aroma of freshly ground coffee.
In that instant, darkness was separated from light, the waters from the lands, and the heavens from the earth. The trees bore fruit and the woods rustled with the movement of birds and beasts and all manner of creeping things. While closer at hand, a patient pigeon scuffed its feet on the flashing.
Easing the little drawer from the Apparatus, the Count poured its contents into the pot (which he had mindfully primed with water the night before). He lit the burner and shook out the match. As he waited for the coffee to brew, he did thirty squats and thirty stretches and took thirty deep breaths. From the little cupboard in the corner, he took a small pitcher of cream, a pair of English biscuits, and a piece of fruit (today an apple). Then having poured the coffee, he began to enjoy the morning’s sensations to their fullest:
The crisp tartness of the apple . . .
The hot bitterness of the coffee . . .
The savory sweetness of the biscuit with its hint of spoiled butter . . .
So perfect was the combination that upon finishing, the Count was tempted to crank the crank, quarter the apple, dole out the biscuits, and enjoy his breakfast all over again.
But time and tide wait for no man. So, having poured the remnants of the coffee from its pot, the Count brushed the biscuit crumbs from his plate onto the window ledge for his feathered friend. Then he emptied the little pitcher of cream into a saucer and turned toward the door with the intention of placing it in the hall—and that was when he saw the envelope on the floor.
Someone must have slipped it under his door in the middle of the night.
Setting the saucer down for his one-eyed friend, he picked up the envelope and discovered that it had an unusual feel, as if something quite different than a letter had been enclosed. On the back, it bore the dark blue moniker of the hotel, while on the front, in place of a name and address, was written the query: Four o’clock?
The Count sat on his bed and took the last sip of coffee. Then he tucked the point of his paring knife under the envelope’s flap, slit it from corner to corner, and gazed within.
“Mon Dieu,” he said.
Arachne’s Art
History is the business of identifying momentous events from the comfort of a high-back chair. With the benefit of time, the historian looks back and points to a date in the manner of a gray-haired field marshal pointing to a bend in a river on a map: There it was, he says. The turning point. The decisive factor. The fateful day that fundamentally altered all that was to follow.
There on the third of January 1928, the historians tell us, was the launch of the First Five-Year Plan—that initiative which would begin the transformation of Russia from a nineteenth-century agrarian society into a twentieth-century industrial power. There on the seventeenth of November 1929, Nikolai Bukharin, founding father, editor of Pravda, and last true friend of the peasant, was outmaneuvered by Stalin and ousted from the Politburo—clearing the way for a return to autocracy in all but name. And there on the twenty-fifth of February 1927, was the drafting of Article 58 of the Criminal Code—the net that would eventually ensnare us all.
There on the twenty-seventh of May, or there on the sixth of December; at eight or nine in the morning.
There it was, they say. As if—like at the opera—a curtain has closed, a lever has been pulled, one set has been whisked to the rafters and another has dropped to the stage, such that when the curtain opens a moment later the audience will find itself transported from a richly appointed ballroom to the banks of a wooded stream. . . .
But the events that transpired on those various dates did not throw the city of Moscow into upheaval. When the page was torn from the calendar, the bedroom windows did not suddenly shine with the light of a million electric lamps; that Fatherly gaze did not suddenly hang over every desk and appear in every dream; nor did the drivers of a hundred Black Marias turn the keys in their ignitions and fan out into the shadowy streets. For the launch of the First Five-Year Plan, Bukharin’s fall from grace, and the expansion of the Criminal Code to allow the arrest of anyone even countenancing dissension, these were only tidings, omens, underpinnings. And it would be a decade before their effects were fully felt.
No. For most of us, the late 1920s were not characterized by a series of momentous events. Rather, the passage of those years was like the turn of a kaleidoscope.
At the bottom of a kaleidoscope’s cylinder lie shards of colored glass in random arrangement; but thanks to a glint of sunlight, the interplay of mirrors, and the magic of symmetry, when one peers inside what one finds is a pattern so colorful, so perfectly intricate, it seems certa
in to have been designed with the utmost care. Then by the slightest turn of the wrist, the shards begin to shift and settle into a new configuration—a configuration with its own symmetry of shapes, its own intricacy of colors, its own hints of design.
So it was in the city of Moscow in the late 1920s.
And so it was at the Metropol Hotel.
In fact, if a seasoned Muscovite were to cross Theatre Square on the last day of spring in 1930, he would find the hotel much as he remembered it.
There on the front steps still stands Pavel Ivanovich in his greatcoat looking as stalwart as ever (though his hip now gives him some trouble on foggy afternoons). On the other side of the revolving doors are the same eager lads in the same blue caps ready to whisk one’s suitcases up the stairs (though they now answer to Grisha and Genya rather than Pasha and Petya). Vasily, with his uncanny awareness of whereabouts, still mans the concierge’s desk directly across from Arkady, who remains ready to spin the register and offer you a pen. And in the manager’s office, Mr. Halecki still sits behind his spotless desk (though a new assistant manager with the smile of an ecclesiast is prone to interrupt his reveries over the slightest infraction of the hotel’s rules).
In the Piazza, Russians cut from every cloth (or at least those who have access to foreign currency) gather to linger over coffee and happen upon friends. While in the ballroom, the weighty remarks and late arrivals that once characterized the Assemblies now characterize Dinners of State (though no one with a penchant for yellow spies from the balcony anymore).
And the Boyarsky?
At two o’clock its kitchen is already in full swing. Along the wooden tables the junior chefs are chopping carrots and onions as Stanislav, the sous-chef, delicately debones pigeons with a whistle on his lips. On the great stoves, eight burners have been lit to simmer sauces, soups, and stews. The pastry chef, who seems as dusted with flour as one of his rolls, opens an oven door to withdraw two trays of brioches. And in the center of all this activity, with an eye on every assistant and a finger in every pot, stands Emile Zhukovsky, his chopping knife in hand.
