A Gentleman in Moscow

by Amor Towles

  “No doubt,” said the concierge, in the manner of a librarian agreeing with a scholar.

  Earlier that day, in fact, the first strawberries of the season had arrived in the kitchen and Emile had slipped a handful to the Count for his breakfast the following morning.

  “Without question,” concluded the Count, “summer is now at the gates and the days that ensue are sure to be long and carefree. . . .”

  “Alexander Ilyich.”

  At the unexpected sound of his own name, the Count turned to find another young lady standing right behind him, though this one was in a pair of pants. Five and a half feet tall, she had straight blond hair, light blue eyes, and a rare sense of self-possession.

  “Nina!” he exclaimed. “What a sight for sore eyes. We haven’t heard from you in ages. When did you get back to Moscow?”

  “May I speak with you a moment?”

  “Certainly . . .”

  Sensing that something personal must have prompted the visit, the Count followed Nina a few paces from the concierge’s desk.

  “It is my husband—” she began.

  “Your husband,” the Count interjected. “You’ve gotten married!”

  “Yes,” she said. “Leo and I have been married for six years. We worked together in Ivanovo—”

  “Why, I remember him!”

  Frustrated by the Count’s interruptions, Nina shook her head.

  “You would not have met.”

  “You’re quite right. We did not meet, per se; but he was here with you in the hotel just before you left.”

  The Count couldn’t help but smile to recall the handsome Komsomol captain who had sent the others on ahead so that he could wait for Nina alone.

  Nina tried for a moment to recollect this visit with her husband to the Metropol; but then waved a hand as if to say whether or not they had been in the hotel all those years ago was of no consequence.

  “Please, Alexander Ilyich. I don’t have much time. Two weeks ago, we were recalled from Ivanovo to attend a conference on the future of agricultural planning. On the first day of the meetings, Leo was arrested. After some effort, I tracked him to the Lubyanka, but they wouldn’t let me see him. Naturally, I began to fear the worst. But yesterday, I received word that he has been sentenced to five years corrective labor. They are putting him on a train tonight for Sevvostlag. I’m going to follow him there. What I need is for someone to watch over Sofia while I get myself settled.”

  “Sofia?”

  The Count followed Nina’s glance across the lobby to where a girl of five or six with black hair and ivory skin was in a high-back chair, her feet dangling a few inches from the floor.

  “I can’t take her with me now as I will need to find work and a place to live. It may take a month or two. But once I have established myself, I’ll come back for her.”

  Nina had explained these developments as one reports a series of scientific outcomes—a succession of facts that warranted our fear and indignation as much as would the laws of gravity or motion. But the Count could no longer contain some sense of shock, if only due to the speed at which the particulars were unfolding: a husband, a daughter, an arrest, the Lubyanka, corrective labor . . .

  Interpreting the Count’s expression as one of hesitation, Nina—that most self-reliant of souls—gripped the Count by the arm.

  “I have no one else to turn to, Alexander.” Then after a pause she added: “Please.”

  Together, the Count and Nina crossed the lobby to this child of five or six with black hair, white skin, and dark blue eyes. Had the Count been introduced to Sofia under different circumstances, he might have observed with quiet amusement the signs of Nina’s rugged practicality on display: that Sofia wore simple clothes; that her hair was almost as short as a boy’s; and that the linen doll she hugged by the neck didn’t even have a dress.

  Nina knelt so that she could see her daughter eye to eye. She put a hand on Sofia’s knee and began to speak in a tenor the Count had never heard her speak in before. It was the tenor of tenderness.

  “Sonya, this is your Uncle Sasha whom I have told you so much about.”

  “The one who gave you the pretty binoculars?”

  “Yes,” said Nina with a smile. “The very same.”

  “Hello, Sofia,” said the Count.

  Nina then explained that while Mama went to prepare their new home, Sofia would be staying for a few weeks in this lovely hotel. Nina told her that until Mama returned, she must be strong and respectful and listen to her uncle.

  “And then we will take the long train to Papa,” the girl said.

  “That’s right, my sweet. Then we will take the long train to Papa.”

  Sofia was doing her best to match her mother’s fortitude; but she did not yet have her mother’s command over her own emotions. So while she did not question, or plead, or act dismayed, when she nodded to show that she understood, tears fell down her cheeks.

  Nina used her thumb to wipe the tears away from one side of her daughter’s face as Sofia used the back of her hand to wipe them away from the other. Nina looked Sofia in the eye until she was sure the tears had stopped. Then nodding once, she gave her daughter a kiss on the forehead and led the Count a few yards away.

  “Here,” she said, handing him a canvas pack with shoulder straps, the sort that might have been worn on the back of a soldier. “These are her things. And you should probably take this too.” Nina handed him a small photograph without a frame. “It may be better to keep it to yourself. I don’t know. You will have to decide.”

  Nina gripped the Count on the arm again; then she walked across the lobby at the pace of one who hopes to leave herself no room for second thoughts.

  The Count watched her exit the hotel and head across Theatre Square, just as he had eight years before. When she was gone, he looked down at the photograph in his hand. It was a picture of Nina and her husband, Sofia’s father. From Nina’s face, the Count could tell that the picture had been taken some years before. He could also tell that he had only been half right. For while he had seen her husband all those years ago in the lobby of the Metropol, Nina had not married the handsome captain—she had married the hapless young fellow with the sailor’s cap who had so eagerly retrieved her coat.

  This entire exchange—from Nina’s saying the Count’s name to her passing through the hotel’s doors—had taken less than fifteen minutes. So, the Count had little more than a moment to consider the nature of the commitment he was being asked to make.

  Granted it was only for a month or two. He would not be responsible for the girl’s education, her moral instruction, or her religious upbringing. But her health and comfort? He would be responsible for those even were he to care for her for one night. What was she to eat? Where was she to sleep? And, while it was his night off tonight, what was he to do with her the following evening, when he had to don the white jacket of the Boyarsky?

  But let us imagine that before committing himself, the Count had had the time to see the problem in its full scope, to consider every challenge and obstacle, to acknowledge his own lack of experience, to concede that in all likelihood he was the least fitting, least well-equipped, and most poorly situated man in Moscow to care for a child. Had he the time and presence of mind to weigh all of this, would he have denied Nina her request?

  He would not even have attempted to dissuade her.

  How could he?

  This was the very woman who, as a child herself, had crossed the Piazza without hesitation in order to become his friend; who had shown him the hidden corners of the hotel and bestowed upon him, quite literally, the key to its mysteries. When such a friend has sought one out to ask for aid—particularly one for whom asking favors in a time of need does not come naturally—then there is only one acceptable response.

  The Count slipped the photograph in his pocket. He composed h
imself. Then he turned to find his new charge looking up at him.

  “Well, Sofia. Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then why don’t we head upstairs and get ourselves situated.”

  The Count helped Sofia down from the chair and led her across the lobby. But as he was about to mount the stairs, he noticed her staring when the elevator doors opened to let off two of the hotel’s guests.

  “Have you ever ridden on an elevator before?” he asked.

  Gripping her doll by the neck, Sofia shook her head again.

  “In that case . . .”

  Holding the doors open, the Count gestured for Sofia to proceed. With an expression of cautious curiosity, she stepped onto the elevator, made room for the Count, and then watched as the doors slid shut.

  With a theatrical flourish and the command of Presto! the Count pressed the button for the fifth floor. The elevator lurched and began to move. Sofia steadied herself; then she leaned a little to her right so that she could watch the floors pass by through the caging.

  “Voilà,” said the Count when they arrived a moment later at their destination.

  Leading Sofia down the hall and into the belfry, the Count gestured again for her to proceed. But having looked up the narrow twisting stair, Sofia turned to the Count and raised both hands in the air in the international symbol of Pick me up.

  “Hmm,” said the Count. Then despite his age, he picked her up.

  She yawned.

  Once in his room, the Count sat Sofia on his bed, put her knapsack on the Grand Duke’s desk, and then told her he would be right back. He walked down the hall and retrieved a winter blanket from his trunk. His plan was to make her a small bed on the floor beside his own and lend her one of his pillows. He would just have to be careful not to step on her, should he wake in the night.

  But the Count needn’t have worried about stepping on Sofia. For when he returned to his room with the blanket, she had already climbed under his covers and fallen asleep.

  Adjustments

  Never had the toll of a bell been so welcome. Not in Moscow. Not in Europe. Not in all the world. When the Frenchman Carpentier faced the American Dempsey, he could not have felt more relief upon hearing the clang that signaled the end of the third round than the Count felt upon hearing his own clock strike twelve. Nor could the citizens of Prague upon hearing the church bells that signaled the end of their siege at the hands of Frederick the Great.

  What was it about this child that prompted a grown man to count so carefully the minutes until lunch? Did she prattle on nonsensically? Did she flit about giggling? Did she dissolve into tears or launch into tantrums at the slightest provocation?

  On the contrary. She was quiet.

  Unsettlingly so.

  Upon waking she rose, dressed, and made her bed without a word. When the Count served breakfast, she nibbled her biscuits like a Trappist. Then, having quietly cleared her plate, she climbed up onto the Count’s desk chair, sat on her hands, and gazed at him in silence. And what a gaze it was. With irises as dark and foreboding as the deep, it was positively unnerving. Without shyness or impatience, it seemed simply to say: What now, Uncle Alexander?

  What now, indeed. For having made their beds and nibbled their biscuits, the two of them had the whole day before them. 16 hours. 960 minutes. 57,600 seconds!

  The notion was indisputably daunting.

  But who was Alexander Rostov, if not a seasoned conversationalist? At weddings and name-day celebrations from Moscow to St. Petersburg, he had inevitably been seated beside the most recalcitrant of dinner guests. The prudish aunts and pompous uncles. The mirthless, mordant, and shy. Why? Because Alexander Rostov could be counted upon to draw his dinner companions into a lively conversation, whatever their dispositions.

  If he had happened to be seated beside Sofia at a dinner party—or, for that matter, in the compartment of a train traveling across the countryside—what would he do? Naturally, he would ask about her life: Where are you from, my friend? Ivanovo, you say. I have never been, but always wanted to go. What is the best season to visit? And what should one see whilst one is there?

  “So, tell me . . . ,” the Count began with a smile, as Sofia’s eyes opened wide.

  But even as the words were leaving his lips, the Count was having second thoughts. For he was decidedly not seated beside Sofia at a dinner party, or in a railway car. She was a child who, with little explanation, had been uprooted from her home. To pursue a line of inquiry about the sights and seasons of Ivanovo or daily life with her parents was almost certain to raise a host of sad associations, spurring feelings of longing and loss.

  “So, tell me . . . ,” he said again, feeling the onset of dizziness, as her eyes opened wider. But just in time, he had a flash of inspiration:

  “What is your dolly’s name?”

  A sure step, that one, thought the Count, with an inward pat on the back.

  “Dolly doesn’t have a name.”

  “What’s that? No name? But surely, your doll must have a name.”

  Sofia stared at the Count for a moment then tilted her head like a raven.

  “Why?”

  “Why?” repeated the Count. “Why, so that she can be addressed. So that she can be invited for tea; called to from across the room; discussed in conversation when absent; and included in your prayers. That is, for all the very reasons that you benefit from having a name.”

  As Sofia considered this, the Count leaned forward, ready to elaborate on the matter to the smallest detail. But nodding once, the girl said, “I shall call her Dolly.” Then she looked to the Count with her big blue eyes as if to say: Now that that’s decided, what next?

  The Count leaned back in his chair and began to sort through his vast catalog of casual questions, discarding one after another. But as luck would have it, he noticed that Sofia’s gaze had shifted almost furtively toward something behind him.

  Discreetly, the Count glanced back.

  The ebony elephant, he realized with a smile. Raised her entire life in a rural province, the child had probably never even imagined that such an animal existed. What sort of fantastical beast is that? she must be wondering. Is it mammal or reptile? Fact or fable?

  “Have you ever seen one of those before?” the Count asked with a backward gesture and a smile.

  “An elephant?” she asked. “Or a lamp?”

  The Count coughed.

  “I meant an elephant.”

  “Only in books,” she admitted a little sadly.

  “Ah. Well. It is a magnificent animal. A wonder of creation.”

  Sofia’s interest piqued, the Count launched into a description of the species, animating each of its characteristics with an illustrative flourish of the arms. “A native of the Dark Continent, the mature example can weigh over ten thousand pounds. Its legs are as thick as tree trunks, and it bathes itself by drawing water into its proboscis and spraying it into the air—”

  “So, you have seen one?” she interrupted brightly. “On the Dark Continent?”

  The Count fidgeted.

  “Not exactly on the Dark Continent . . .”

  “Then where?”

  “In various books . . .”

  “Oh,” said Sofia, bringing the topic to a close with the efficiency of the guillotine.

  . . .

  . . .

  The Count considered for a moment what other sort of wonder might capture her imagination, but which he had actually seen in person.

  “Would you like to hear a story about a princess?” he suggested.

  Sofia sat upright.

  “The age of the nobility has given way to the age of the common man,” she said with the pride of one who has recited her times tables correctly. “It was historically inevitable.”

 
“Yes,” said the Count. “So I’ve been told.”

  . . .

  . . .

  “Do you enjoy pictures?” he asked, picking up an illustrated guide to the Louvre that he had borrowed from the basement. “Here is a lifetime’s supply. While I wash up, why don’t you delve in?”

  Sofia moved a little in order to set Dolly at her side and then accepted the book in a ready and determined manner.

  Retreating to the safety of the washroom, the Count took off his shirt, bathed his upper body, and lathered his cheeks, all the while muttering the principal riddle of the day:

  “She is no more than thirty pounds; no more than three feet tall; her entire bag of belongings could fit in a single drawer; she rarely speaks unless spoken to; and her heart beats no louder than a bird’s. So how is it possible that she takes up so much space?!”

  Over the years, the Count had come to think of his rooms as rather ample. In the morning, they easily accommodated twenty squats and twenty stretches, a leisurely breakfast, and the reading of a novel in a tilted chair. In the evenings after work, they fostered flights of fancy, memories of travel, and meditations on history all crowned by a good night’s sleep. Yet somehow, this little visitor with her kit bag and her rag doll had altered every dimension of the room. She had simultaneously brought the ceiling downward, the floor upward, and the walls inward, such that anywhere he hoped to move she was already there. Having roused himself from a fitful night on the floor, when the Count was ready for his morning calisthenics, she was standing in the calisthenics spot. At breakfast, she ate more than her fair share of the strawberries; then when he was about to dip his second biscuit in his second cup of coffee, she was staring at it with such longing that he had no choice but to ask if she wanted it. And when, at last, he was ready to lean back in his chair with his book, she was already sitting in it, staring up at him expectantly.

  But having caught himself waving his shaving brush emphatically at his own reflection, the Count stopped cold.