by Amor Towles
“You’ll be the belle of Paris,” one of them said.
“We can’t wait to hear all about it.”
“Someone get her suitcase for her.”
“Yes, her train is leaving within the hour!”
When Marina went outside to call for a taxi, as if by prior agreement Arkady, Vasily, Audrius, Andrey, and Emile all fell a few paces back—so that the Count and Sofia could have a few final words alone. Then father and daughter embraced, and Sofia, despite being uncertain of acclaim, passed through the endlessly spinning doors of the Metropol Hotel.
Returning to the sixth floor, the Count spent a moment looking around his bedroom from corner to corner, finding that it already seemed unnaturally quiet.
So this is an empty nest, he thought. What a sad state of affairs.
Pouring himself a glass of brandy and taking a good swallow, he sat down at the Grand Duke’s desk and wrote five letters on the hotel’s stationery. When he was done, the Count put the letters in the drawer, he brushed his teeth, he donned his pajamas, and then, despite the fact that Sofia was gone, he slept on the mattress under the bedsprings.
An Association
With the coming of the Second World War, many eyes in imprisoned Europe turned hopefully, or desperately, toward the freedom of the Americas. Lisbon became the great embarkation point. But not everybody could get to Lisbon directly, and so, a tortuous, roundabout refugee trail sprang up. Paris to Marseilles, across the Mediterranean to Oran, then by train, or auto, or foot, across the rim of Africa to Casablanca in French Morocco. Here, the fortunate ones, through money, or influence, or luck, might obtain exit visas and scurry to Lisbon, and from Lisbon to the New World. But the others wait in Casablanca—and wait—and wait—and wait. . . .
I’ve got to hand it to you, Alexander,” whispered Osip. “This was an excellent choice. I’d quite forgotten how exciting it is.”
“Shhh,” said the Count. “It’s beginning. . . .”
Having initiated their studies in 1930 with monthly meetings, over the years the Count and Osip had met with less frequency. In the way of these things, the two men began meeting quarterly, then semiannually, then suddenly they weren’t meeting at all.
Why? you might ask.
But does there need to be a reason? Do you still dine with all of the friends with whom you dined twenty years ago? Suffice it to say that the two shared a fondness for each other and despite their best intentions, life intervened. So, when Osip happened to visit the Boyarsky with a colleague one night in early June, as he was leaving the restaurant he approached the Count in order to remark that it had been too long.
“Yes, it has,” agreed the Count. “We should get together for a film.”
“The sooner the better,” said Osip with a smile.
And the two men might have left it at that, but as Osip turned to join his colleague at the door, the Count was struck by a notion.
“What is an intention when compared to a plan?” he said, catching Osip by the sleeve. “If the sooner the better, then why not next week?”
Turning back, Osip considered the Count for a moment.
“You know, you’re absolutely right, Alexander. How about the nineteenth?”
“The nineteenth would be perfect.”
“What shall we watch?”
Without hesitation the Count said, “Casablanca.”
“Casablanca . . . ,” Osip groaned.
“Isn’t Humphrey Bogart your favorite?”
“Of course he is. But Casablanca isn’t a Humphrey Bogart movie. It’s just a love story in which he happens to appear.”
“On the contrary, I suggest to you that Casablanca is the Humphrey Bogart movie.”
“You just think that because he wears a white dinner jacket for half the film.”
“That’s preposterous,” the Count replied a little stiffly.
“Maybe it’s a little preposterous,” conceded Osip, “but I don’t want to watch Casablanca.”
Not one to be outmaneuvered by another man’s childishness, the Count pouted.
“All right,” Osip sighed. “But if you get to pick the film, I get to pick the food.”
As it turned out, once the film was flickering Osip was rapt. After all, there was the murder of two German couriers in the desert, then the rounding up of suspects in the marketplace, the shooting of a fugitive, the pickpocketing of a Brit, the arrival by plane of the Gestapo, music and gambling at Rick’s Café Américain, as well as the stashing of two letters of transit in a piano—and that was in the first ten minutes!
In minute twenty, when Captain Renault instructed his officer to take Ugarte quietly and the officer saluted, Osip saluted too. When Ugarte cashed in his winnings, Osip cashed in his. And when Ugarte dashed between the guards, slammed the door, drew his pistol, and fired four shots, Osip dashed, slammed, drew, and fired.
[With nowhere to hide, Ugarte runs madly down the hallway. Seeing Rick appear from the opposite direction, he grabs him.]
UGARTE: Rick! Rick, help me!
RICK: Don’t be a fool. You can’t get away.
UGARTE: Rick, hide me. Do something! You must help me, Rick. Do something! Rick! Rick!
[Rick stands impassively as guards and gendarmes drag Ugarte off.]
CUSTOMER: When they come to get me, Rick, I hope you’ll be more of a help.
RICK: I stick my neck out for nobody.
[Moving casually among the tables and disconcerted customers, some of whom are on the point of leaving, Rick speaks to the room in a calm voice.]
RICK: I’m sorry there was a disturbance, folks, but it’s all over now. Everything’s all right. Just sit down and have a good time. Enjoy yourself. . . . All right, Sam.
As Sam and his orchestra began to play, restoring something of a carefree mood to the saloon, Osip leaned toward the Count.
“You may have been right, Alexander. This may be Bogart at his best. Did you see the indifference he expressed as Ugarte was practically pulled from his lapels? And when that superior American makes his smug remark, Bogart doesn’t even deign to look at him when he replies. Then after instructing the piano player to play, he goes about his business as if nothing has happened.”
Listening to Osip with a frown, the Count suddenly stood and switched off the projector.
“Are we going to watch the movie, or talk about it?”
Taken aback, Osip assured his friend: “We’re going to watch.”
“Until the end?”
“Until the credits roll.”
Thus, the Count switched the projector back on while Osip paid his utmost attention to the screen.
If the truth be told, having made such a fuss about attentiveness, the Count did not pay his utmost attention to the progress of the movie. Yes, he was watching closely enough when at minute thirty-eight Sam finds Rick drinking whiskey alone in the saloon. But when the smoke from Rick’s cigarette dissolves into a montage of his days in Paris with Ilsa, the Count’s thoughts dissolved into a Parisian montage of his own.
Unlike Rick’s, however, the Count’s montage did not draw on his memories; it drew instead on his imaginings. It began with Sofia disembarking in the Gare du Nord as steam from the locomotive billowed across the platform. Moments later, she was outside the station with her bags in hand, preparing to board the bus with her fellow musicians. Then she was looking out the window at the sights of the city as they drove to the hotel, where the young musicians would remain until their concert—under the watchful gaze of two members of the Conservatory staff, two representatives from VOKS, a cultural attaché, and three “chaperones” in the employ of the KGB. . . .
When the movie returned from Paris to Casablanca, so did the Count. Setting aside thoughts of his daughter, he followed the action while noting through the corner of his eye Osip’s complete submission to the plights of the princip
als.
But the Count took particular pleasure in his friend’s engagement during the final minutes of the film. For with the plane to Lisbon in the air and Major Strasser dead on the ground, when Captain Renault frowned at the bottle of Vichy water, dropped it in a wastebasket, and kicked it across the floor, Osip Glebnikov, the former Red Army colonel and high official of the Party, who was sitting on the edge of his seat, poured, frowned, dropped, and kicked.
Antagonists at Arms (And an Absolution)
Good evening and welcome to the Boyarsky,” began the Count in Russian, as the middle-aged couple with blond hair and blue eyes looked up from their menus.
“Do you speak English?” the husband asked in English, though with a decidedly Scandinavian cadence.
“Good evening and welcome to the Boyarsky,” the Count translated accordingly. “My name is Alexander and I will be your waiter tonight. But before describing our specials, may I offer you an aperitif?”
“I think we are ready to order,” said the husband.
“We have just arrived in the hotel after a long day of travel,” explained the wife with a weary smile.
The Count hesitated.
“And where, if I may ask, have you been traveling from . . . ?”
“Helsinki,” said the husband with a hint of impatience.
“Well then, tervetuloa Moskova,” said the Count.
“Kiitos,” replied the wife with a smile.
“Given your long journey, I will see to it that you are served a delightful meal without delay. But before I take your order, would you be so kind as to give me your room number . . . ?”
From the beginning, the Count had determined that he would need to filch a few things from a Norwegian, a Dane, a Swede, or a Finn. On the face of it, this task should not have posed a significant challenge, as Scandinavian visitors were reasonably common at the Metropol. The problem was that the visitor in question was sure to notify the hotel’s manager as soon as he discovered that his pocket had been picked, which in turn might lead to the notification of authorities, the official interviewing of hotel staff, perhaps even the searching of rooms and the posting of guards at railway stations. So, the pocket picking would have to take place at the very last minute. In the meantime, the Count could only cross his fingers that a Scandinavian man would be residing in the hotel at the critical juncture.
With grim attention, he had watched as a salesman from Stockholm checked out of the hotel on the thirteenth of June. Then on the seventeenth, a journalist from Oslo had been recalled by his paper. In no small terms, the Count berated himself for not acting sooner. When, lo and behold, with only twenty-four hours to spare, a pair of beleaguered Finns came into the Boyarsky and sat right at his table.
But there remained one small complication: The primary item that the Count hoped to secure was the gentleman’s passport. And as most foreigners in Russia carried their passports about on their person, the Count would not be able to pay a visit to the Finns’ suite on the following morning when they were touring about the city; he would need to visit the suite tonight—while they were in it.
As much as we hate to admit the fact, Fate does not take sides. It is fair-minded and generally prefers to maintain some balance between the likelihood of success and failure in all our endeavors. Thus, having put the Count in the challenging position of having to lift a passport at the very last minute, Fate offered the Count a small consolation: for at 9:30, when he asked the Finns if they would like to see the dessert cart, they declined on the grounds that they were exhausted and ready for bed.
Shortly after midnight, when the Boyarsky was closed and the Count had bid goodnight to Andrey and Emile, he climbed the stairs to the third floor, went halfway down the hall, took off his shoes, and then by means of Nina’s key slipped into suite 322 in his stocking feet.
Many years before, under a spell cast by a certain actress, the Count had dwelt for a time among the ranks of the invisible. So, as he tiptoed into the Finns’ bedroom, he called upon Venus to veil him in a mist—just as she had for her son, Aeneas, when he wandered the streets of Carthage—so that his footfalls would be silent, his heartbeat still, and his presence in the room no more notable than a breath of air.
As it was late in June, the Finns had drawn their curtains to block out the glow of the white nights, but a sliver of light remained where the two drapes met. By this narrow illumination, the Count approached the foot of the bed and took in the sleeping forms of the travelers. Thanks be to God, they were about forty years old. Fifteen years younger, they would not have been asleep. Having stumbled back from a late dinner in the Arbat at which they had ordered two bottles of wine, they would now be in each other’s arms. Fifteen years older, they would be tossing and turning, getting up twice a night to visit the loo. But at forty? They had enough appetite to eat well, enough temperance to drink in moderation, and enough wisdom to celebrate the absence of their children by getting a good night’s sleep.
Within a matter of minutes the Count had secured the gentleman’s passport and 150 Finnish marks from the bureau, tiptoed through the sitting room, and slipped back into the hallway, which was empty.
In fact, it was so empty that even his shoes weren’t in it.
“Confound it,” said the Count to himself. “They must have been picked up by the night service for shining.”
After issuing a litany of self-recriminations, the Count took comfort that in all likelihood on the following morning his shoes would simply be returned by the Finns to the main desk, where they would be cast into the hotel’s collection of unidentifiable misplaced possessions. As he climbed the stairs of the belfry he took additional comfort that all else had gone according to plan. By this time tomorrow night . . . , he was thinking as he opened his bedroom door—only to discover the Bishop, sitting at the Grand Duke’s desk.
Naturally enough, the Count’s first instinct at the sight was a feeling of indignation. Not only had this accountant of discrepancies, this stripper of wine labels entered the Count’s quarters without invitation, he had actually rested his elbows on that dimpled surface where once had been written persuasive arguments to statesmen and exquisite counsel to friends. The Count was just opening his mouth to demand an explanation, when he saw that a drawer had been opened, and that a sheet of paper was in the Bishop’s hand.
The letters, the Count realized with a feeling of dread.
Oh, if it had only been the letters. . . .
Carefully written expressions of fondness and fellowship may not have been common between colleagues, but they were hardly suspicious in and of themselves. A man has every right—and some responsibility—to communicate his good feelings to his friends. But it was not one of the recently written letters that the Bishop was holding. It was the first of the Baedeker maps—the one on which the Count had drawn the bright red line connecting the Palais Garnier to the American Embassy by way of the Avenue George V.
Then again, perhaps whether it was a letter or a map mattered not. For when the Bishop had turned at the sound of the door, he had witnessed the transition in the Count’s expression from indignation to horror—a transition that confirmed a state of guilt even before an accusation had been made.
“Headwaiter Rostov,” said the Bishop, as if surprised to see the Count in his own room. “You truly are a man of many interests: Wine . . . Cuisine . . . The streets of Paris . . .”
“Yes,” said the Count while attempting to compose himself. “I have been reading a bit of Proust lately, and thus have been reacquainting myself with the arrangement of the city’s arrondissements.”
“Of course,” said the Bishop.
Cruelty knows that it has no need of histrionics. It can be as calm and quiet as it likes. It can sigh, or lightly shake its head in disbelief, or offer a sympathetic apology for whatever it must do. It can move slowly, methodically, inevitably. Thus, the Bishop, having gently laid the
map on the dimpled surface of the Grand Duke’s desk, now rose from the chair, walked across the room, and slipped past the Count without a word.
What went through the mind of the Bishop as he descended the five flights from the attic to the ground floor? What emotion did he feel?
Perhaps it was gloating. Having felt belittled by the Count for over thirty years, perhaps he now felt the pleasure of finally putting this pretentious polymath in his place. Or perhaps it was righteousness. Maybe comrade Leplevsky was so dedicated to the brotherhood of the Proletariat (from which he’d sprung), that the persistence of this Former Person in the new Russia galled his sense of justice. Or maybe it was simply the cold satisfaction of the envious. For those who had difficulty in school or at making friends when they were young will forever recognize with a bitter glance those for whom life has seemed to come easy.
Gloating, righteousness, satisfaction, who can say? But the emotion the Bishop felt upon opening the door to his office was almost certainly that of shock—for the adversary that he had left in the attic just minutes before was now sitting behind the manager’s desk with a pistol in his hand.
How was this possible?
When the Bishop left the Count’s bedroom, the Count was frozen in place by a torrent of emotions—by feelings of fury, incredulity, self-recrimination, and fear. Rather than burn the map, like a fool he had slipped it in his drawer. Six months of the most careful planning and painstaking execution overturned by a single misstep. And what was worse, he had put Sofia at risk. What price was she to pay for his carelessness?
But if the Count was frozen in place, he was frozen for all of five seconds. For these perfectly understandable sentiments, which threatened to drain the blood from his heart, were swept aside by resolve.
