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 certain 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.

If the kitchen of the Boyarsky is an orchestra and Emile its conductor, then his chopping knife is the baton. With a blade two inches wide at the base and ten inches long to the tip, it is rarely out of his hand and never far from reach. Though the kitchen is outfitted with paring knives, boning knives, carving knives, and cleavers, Emile can complete any of the various tasks for which those knives were designed with his ten-inch chopper. With it he can skin a rabbit. He can zest a lemon. He can peel and quarter a grape. He can use it to flip a pancake or stir a soup, and with the stabbing end he can measure out a teaspoon of sugar or a dash of salt. But most of all, he uses it for pointing.

“You,” he says to the saucier, waving the point of his chopper. “Are you going to boil that to nothing? What are you going to use it for, eh? To pave roads? To paint icons?

“You,” he says to the conscientious new apprentice at the end of the counter. “What are you doing there? It took less time for that parsley to grow than for you to mince it!”

And on the last day of spring? It is Stanislav who receives the tip of the knife. For in the midst of trimming the fat from racks of lamb, Emile suddenly stops and glares across the table.

“You!” he says, pointing the chopper at Stanislav’s nose. “What is that?”

Stanislav, a lanky Estonian who has dutifully studied his master’s every move, looks up from his pigeons with startled eyes.

“What is what, sir?”

“What is that you’re whistling?”

Admittedly, there has been a melody playing in Stanislav’s head—a little something that he had heard the night before while passing the entrance of the hotel’s bar—but he had not been conscious of whistling it. And now that he faces the chopper, he cannot for the life of him remember what the melody was.

“I am not certain,” he confesses.

“Not certain! Were you whistling or weren’t you?”

“Yes, sir. It was I who must have been whistling. But I assure you it was just a ditty.”

“Just a ditty?”

“A little song.”

“I know what a ditty is! But under what authority are you whistling one? Eh? Has the Central Committee made you Commissar of Ditty Whistling? Is that the Grand Order of Dittyness I see pinned to your chest?”

Without looking down, Emile slams his chopper to the counter, splitting a lamb chop from its rack as if he were severing the melody from Stanislav’s memory once and for all. The chef raises his chopper again and points its tip, but before he can elaborate, that door which separates Emile’s kitchen from the rest of the world swings open. It is Andrey, as prompt as ever, with his Book in hand and a pair of spectacles resting on the top of his head. Like a brigand after a skirmish, Emile slips his chopper under the tie of his apron and then looks expectantly at the door, which a moment later swings again.

With the slightest turn of the wrist the shards of glass tumble into a new arrangement. The blue cap of the bellhop is handed from one boy to the next, a dress as yellow as a canary is stowed in a trunk, a little red guidebook is updated with the new names of streets, and through Emile’s swinging door walks Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov—with the white dinner jacket of the Boyarsky draped across his arm.

 

One minute later, sitting at the table in the little office overlooking the kitchen were Emile, Andrey, and the Count—that Triumvirate which met each day at 2:15 to decide the fate of the restaurant’s staff, its customers, its chickens and tomatoes.

As was customary, Andrey convened the meeting by resting his reading glasses on the tip of his nose and opening the Book.

“There are no parties in the private rooms tonight,” he began, “but every table in the dining room is reserved for two seatings.”

“Ah,” said Emile with the grim smile of the commander who prefers to be outnumbered. “But you’re not going to rush them, eh?”

“Absolutely not,” assured the Count. “We’ll simply see to it that their menus are delivered promptly and their orders taken directly.”

Emile nodded in acknowledgment.

“Are there any complications?” asked the Count of the maître d’.

“Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Andrey spun the Book so that his headwaiter could see for himself.

The Count ran a finger down the list of reservations. As Andrey had said, there was nothing out of the ordinary. The Commissar of Transport loathed American journalists; the German ambassador loathed the Commissar of Transport; and the deputy head of the OGPU was loathed by all.* The most delicate matter was that two different members of the Politburo were hosting tables during the second seating. As both were relatively new to their positions, it was not essential that either have the best tables in the house. What was essential was that their treatment be identical in every respect. They must be served with equal attention at tables of equal size equidistant from the kitchen door. And ideally, they would be on opposite sides of the centerpiece (tonight an arrangement of irises).

“What do you think?” asked Andrey, with his pen in hand.

As the Count made his suggestions of who should sit where, there came a delicate knock on the door. Stanislav entered, carrying a serving bowl and platter.

“Good day, gentlemen,” the sous-chef said to Andrey and the Count with a friendly smile. “In addition to our normal fare, tonight we have cucumber soup and—”

“Yes, yes,” said Emile with a scowl. “We know, we know.”

Stanislav apologetically placed the bowl and platter on the table, even as Emile waved him from the room. Once he was gone, the chef gestured at the offering. “In addition to our normal fare, tonight we have cucumber soup and rack of lamb with a red wine reduction.”

On the table were three teacups. Emile ladled the soup into two of the cups and waited for his colleagues to sample it.

“Excellent,” said Andrey.

Emile nodded and then turned to the Count with his eyebrows raised.

A puree of peeled cucumber, thought the Count. Yogurt, of course. A bit of salt. Not as much dill as one might expect. In fact, something else entirely . . . Something that speaks just as eloquently of summer’s approach, but with a little more flair . . .

“Mint?” he asked.

The chef responded with the smile of the bested.

“Bravo, monsieur.”

“. . . To anticipate the lamb,” the Count added with appreciation.

Emile bowed his head once and then, slipping the chopper from his waist, he carved four chops from the rack and stacked two on each of his colleagues’ plates.

The lamb, which had been encrusted with rosemary and breadcrumbs, was savory and tender. Both maître d’ and headwaiter sighed in appreciation.

Thanks to a member of the Central Committee, who had tried unsuccessfully to order a bottle of Bordeaux for the new French ambassador in 1927, wines with labels could once again be found in the Metropol’s cellar (after all, despite its considerable size, the neck of a dragon has been known to whip about like that of an asp). So, turning to the Count, Andrey asked what he thought they should recommend with the lamb.

“For those who can afford it, the Château Latour ’99.”

The chef and maître d’ nodded.

“And for those who cannot?”

The Count considered.

“Perhaps a Côtes du Rhône.”

“Excellent,” said Andrey.

Picking up his chopper, Emile pointed at the rest of the rack and cautioned the Count: “Tell your boys that my lamb is served rare. If someone wants it medium, they can go to a canteen.”

The Count expressed his comprehension and willingness to comply. Then Andrey closed the Book and Emile wiped his chopper. But as they began pushing back their chairs, the Count remained where he was.

“Gentlemen,” he said. “Just one more thing before we adjourn. . . .”

Given the expression on the Count’s face, the chef and the maître d’ pulled their chairs back to the table.

The Count looked through the window into the kitchen to confirm that the staff were consumed with their work. Then from his jacket pocket he took the envelope that had been slipped under his door. When he tipped it over Emile’s unused teacup, out poured filaments of a red and golden hue.

The three men were silent for a moment.

Emile sat back.

“Bravo,” he said again.

“May I?” asked Andrey.

“Certainly.”

Andrey picked up the teacup and tipped it back and forth. Then he replaced it so gently on its saucer that the porcelain didn’t make a sound.

“Is it enough?”

Having watched the filaments spill from the envelope, the chef didn’t need a second look.

“Without a doubt.”

“Do we still have the fennel?”

“There are a few bulbs at the back of the larder. We’ll have to discard the outer leaves, but otherwise they’re fine.”

“Did you hear back about the oranges?” asked the Count.

With a somber look, the chef shook his head.

“How many would we need?” asked Andrey.

“Two. Maybe three.”

“I think I know where some can be found. . . .”

“Can they be found today?” asked the chef.

Andrey pulled the pocket watch from his vest and consulted it in the palm of his hand.

“With any luck.”

Where would Andrey be able to acquire three oranges on such short notice? Another restaurant? One of the special stores for hard currencies? A patron in the upper echelons of the Party? Well, for that matter, where did the Count acquire an ounce and a half of saffron? Such questions had stopped being asked years ago. Suffice it to say, the saffron was in hand and the oranges within reach.

The three conspirators exchanged satisfied glances and then pushed back their chairs. Andrey put his glasses back on his head as Emile turned to the Count.

“You’ll get the menus in their hands directly and their orders taken promptly, eh? No malingering?”

“No malingering.”

“Well then,” concluded the chef. “We meet at half past twelve.”

 

When the Count left the Boyarsky with his white jacket draped across his arm, there was a smile on his lips and a jauntiness to his step. In fact, there was a brightness in his whole demeanor.

“Greetings, Grisha,” he said as he passed the bellhop (who was on his way up the stairs with a vase of tiger lilies two feet tall).

“Guten tag,” he said to the lovely young Fraulein in the lavender blouse (who was waiting by the elevator door).

The Count’s good humor was due in part, no doubt, to the reading on the thermometer. Over the previous three weeks, the temperature had climbed four and a half degrees, setting in motion that course of natural and human events which culminates in hints of mint in cucumber soups, lavender blouses at elevator doors, and midday deliveries of tiger lilies two feet tall. Also lightening his step were the promises of an afternoon assignation and a midnight rendezvous. But the factor that most directly contributed to the Count’s good humor was the double bravo from Emile. This was something that had occurred only once or twice in four years.

Passing through the lobby, the Count returned the friendly wave from the new fellow at the mail window and hailed Vasily, who was hanging up his phone (having undoubtedly secured another two tickets for some sold-out performance).