by Amor Towles
“Are there no taxis left in Moscow? No trolley cars?” he wondered aloud.
Or had they stopped somewhere on the way home . . . ? Was it possible that in passing a café they could not resist the impulse to slip inside and share a pastry while he waited and waited and waited? Could they have been so heartless? (If so, they dare not attempt to hide the fact, for he could tell if a pastry had been eaten from a distance of fifty feet!)
The Count paused in his pacing to peek behind the Ambassador, where he had carefully hidden the Dom Pérignon.
Preparing for a potential celebration is a tricky business. If Fortune smiles, then one must be ready to hit the ceiling with the cork. But if Fortune shrugs, then one must be prepared to act as if this were just another night, one of no particular consequence—and then later sink the unopened bottle to the bottom of the sea.
The Count stuck his hand into the bucket. The ice was nearly half melted and the temperature of the water a perfect 50˚. If they did not return soon, the temperature would become so tepid that the bottle belonged at the bottom of the sea.
Well, it would serve them right.
But as the Count withdrew his hand and stood to his full height, he heard an extraordinary sound emanating from the next room. It was the chime of the twice-tolling clock. Reliable Breguet announcing the stroke of midnight.
Impossible! The Count had been waiting for at least two hours. He had paced over twenty miles. It had to be half past one. Not a minute earlier.
“Perhaps reliable Breguet was no longer quite so reliable,” muttered the Count. After all, the clock was over fifty years old, and even the finest timepieces must be subject to the ravages of Time. Cogs will eventually lose their coginess just as springs will lose their springiness. But as the Count was having this thought, through the little window in the eaves he heard a clock tower in the distance tolling once, then twice, then thrice. . . .
“Yes, yes,” he said, collapsing into his chair. “You’ve made your point.”
Apparently, this was destined to be a day of exasperations.
Earlier that afternoon, the Boyarsky’s staff had been assembled by the assistant manager so that he could introduce new procedures for the taking, placing, and billing of orders.
Henceforth, he explained, when a waiter took an order, he would write it on a pad designed for this purpose. Leaving the table, he would bring the order to the bookkeeper, who, having made an entry in his ledger, would issue a cooking slip for the kitchen. In the kitchen, a corresponding entry would be made in the cooking log, at which point the cooking could commence. When the food was ready for consumption, a confirmation slip would be issued by the kitchen to the bookkeeper, who in turn would provide a stamped receipt to the waiter authorizing the retrieval of the food. Thus, a few minutes later, the waiter would be able to make the appropriate notation on his notepad confirming that that dish which had been ordered, logged, cooked, and retrieved was finally on the table. . . .
Now, in all of Russia, there was no greater admirer of the written word than Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov. In his time, he had seen a couplet of Pushkin’s sway a hesitant heart. He had watched as a single passage from Dostoevsky roused one man to action and another to indifference—in the very same hour. He certainly viewed it as providential that when Socrates held forth in the agora and Jesus on the Mount, someone in the audience had the presence of mind to set their words down for posterity. So let us agree that the Count’s concerns with this new regimen were not grounded in some distaste for pencils and paper.
Rather, it was a matter of context. For if one has chosen to dine at the Piazza, one should expect to have one’s waiter leaning over the table and scratching away on his little pad. But ever since the Count had become headwaiter of the Boyarsky, its customers could expect their server to look them in the eye, answer their questions, offer recommendations, and flawlessly record their preferences—without ever taking his hands from behind his back.
Sure enough, when the new regimen was put into practice that evening, the Boyarsky’s customers were shocked to find a clerk sitting at a little desk behind the maître d’s podium. They were bemused to watch pieces of paper flitting about the room as if it were the floor of a stock exchange. But they were beside themselves to find their cutlets of veal and asparagus spears arriving at their table as cold as aspic.
Naturally, this would not do.
As luck would have it, in the middle of the second seating the Count noticed the Bishop stopping momentarily at the Boyarsky’s door. So, having been raised on the principle that civilized men should share their concerns and proceed in the spirit of collegial common sense, the Count crossed the dining room and followed the Bishop into the hall.
“Manager Leplevsky!”
“Headwaiter Rostov,” said the Bishop, showing a hint of surprise at being hailed by the Count. “What can I do for you . . . ?”
“It’s really such a small matter that I hardly wish to trouble you with it.”
“If the matter concerns the hotel, then it concerns me.”
“Just so,” agreed the Count. “Now, I assure you, Manager Leplevsky, that in all of Russia there is no greater admirer of the written word . . .” And having thus broached the subject, the Count went on to applaud the couplets of Pushkin, the paragraphs of Dostoevsky, and the transcriptions of Socrates and Jesus. Then he explained the threat that pencils and pads posed to the Boyarsky’s tradition of romantic elegance.
“Can you imagine,” concluded the Count with a glint in his eye, “if when you sought your wife’s hand, you had to issue your proposal with the stamp of a presiding agency, and were then required to take down her response on a little pad of paper in triplicate—so that you could give one copy to her, one to her father, and one to the family priest?”
But even as the Count was delivering this quip, he was reminded by the expression on the Bishop’s face that one should generally avoid quips in which a man’s marriage played a part. . . .
“I don’t see that my wife has anything to do with this,” said the Bishop.
“No,” agreed the Count. “That was poorly put. What I am trying to say is that Andrey, Emile, and I—”
“So you are bringing this grievance on behalf of Maître d’ Duras and Chef Zhukovsky?”
“Well, no. I have hailed you of my own accord. And it is not a grievance per se. But the three of us are dedicated to ensuring the satisfaction of the Boyarsky’s customers.”
The Bishop smiled.
“Of course. And I am sure that all three of you have your own special concerns given your specific duties. But as manager of the Metropol, I am the one who must ensure that every aspect of the hotel meets a standard of perfection; and that requires a vigilant attention to the elimination of all discrepancies.”
The Count was confused.
“Discrepancies? What sort of discrepancies?”
“All kinds of discrepancies. One day, there may be a discrepancy between how many onions arrived in the kitchen and how many were served in the stew. On another, there may be a discrepancy between how many glasses of wine were ordered and how many poured.”
The Count grew cold.
“You are speaking of thievery.”
“Am I?”
The two men stared at each other for a moment, then the Bishop smiled narrowly.
“Given your shared dedication, please feel free to relate our conversation to Chef Zhukovsky and Maître d’ Duras at your earliest convenience.”
The Count gritted his teeth.
“Rest assured, I shall do so word for word tomorrow at our daily meeting.”
The Bishop studied the Count.
“You have a daily meeting . . . ?”
Suffice it to say that at the Boyarsky’s second seating, the customers were shocked, bemused, and beside themselves once again as slips of paper flew about the dining
room like pheasants at the crack of a rifle. And after enduring all of that, here was the Count sitting alone in his study counting the minutes.
After drumming his fingers on the armrest of his chair, the Count rose and recommenced his pacing while humming Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 1 in C major.
“Dum de dum de dum,” he hummed.
It was a delightful composition, you had to admit, and one quite well suited to his daughter’s personality. The first movement had the tempo of Sofia coming home from school at the age of ten with fifteen things to relate. Without taking the time to explain who was who or what was what, she would zip along, punctuating her report with and then, and then, and then, and then. In the second movement, the sonata transitioned to an andante tempo more in keeping with Sofia at seventeen, when she would welcome thunderstorms on Saturday afternoons so that she could sit in their study with a book in her lap or a recording on the phonograph. In the third movement, with its fleet pace and pointillist style, you could almost hear her at the age of thirteen, running down the hotel’s stairs, freezing on a landing momentarily to let someone pass, and then bolting brightly ahead.
Yes, it was a delightful composition. There was no debating that. But was it too delightful? Would it be viewed by the judges as insufficiently weighty for the times? When Sofia had selected the composition, the Count had attempted to signal his concerns diplomatically, by referring to the piece as “pleasant” and “quite diverting”; and then he had kept his peace. For it is the role of the parent to express his concerns and then take three steps back. Not one, mind you, not two, but three. Or maybe four. (But by no means five.) Yes, a parent should share his hesitations and then take three or four steps back, so that the child can make a decision by herself—even when that decision may lead to disappointment.
But wait!
What was that?
As the Count turned, the closet door swung open and Anna charged into the study, dragging Sofia behind her.
“She won!”
For the first time in twenty years, the Count let out a shout: “Ha-ha!”
He embraced Anna for delivering the news.
Then he embraced Sofia for winning.
Then he embraced Anna again.
“We’re sorry we’re so late,” said Anna breathlessly. “But they wouldn’t let her leave the reception.”
“Don’t think of it for a minute! I hadn’t even noticed the time. But sit, sit, sit, and tell me everything.”
Offering the ladies the high-back chairs, the Count perched himself on the edge of the Ambassador and trained his gaze on Sofia, expectantly. Smiling shyly, Sofia deferred to Anna.
“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.
“Voilà!”
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 s
ay: 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.
