At the sound of his voice, there was a light clacking of nails on the floor as the borzois appeared from the drawing room.
“Hello, boys,” he said, giving them another scratch behind the ears.
Having paid their respects, the dogs trotted to the windows overlooking Theatre Square and rested their forepaws on the sills in order to watch the movement of the cars below.
“Count Rostov!”
Turning, the Count found the actress dressed in her third outfit of the day: black pants and an ivory blouse. With the smile of an old acquaintance and her hand extended, she approached.
“I’m so pleased you could come.”
“The pleasure is mine, Miss Urbanova.”
“I doubt that. But please, call me Anna.”
Before the Count could reply, there was a knock at the door.
“Ah,” she said. “Here we are.”
Swinging the door open, she stepped aside to let Oleg from room service pass. When Oleg caught sight of the Count, he nearly ran his dinner cart into the competing arrangements of flowers.
“Perhaps over there by the window,” suggested the actress.
“Yes, Miss Urbanova,” said Oleg, who, having regained his composure, set a table for two, lit a candle, and backed out the door.
The actress turned to the Count.
“Have you eaten? I’ve been in two restaurants and a bar today and haven’t had a bite. I’m absolutely starving. Won’t you join me?”
“Certainly.”
The Count pulled back a chair for his hostess and, as he took his seat on the opposite side of the candle, the borzois looked back from their windows. Presumably, here was a scene that neither of the dogs could have anticipated earlier that day. But having long since lost interest in the fickle course of human affairs, they dropped to the floor and trotted back to the drawing room without a second glance.
The actress watched them retire a little wistfully.
“I confess that I am not a dog lover.”
“Then why do you have them?”
“They were . . . a gift.”
“Ah. From an admirer.”
She responded with a wry smile. “I would have settled for a necklace.”
The Count returned the smile.
“Well,” she said. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”
Removing the silver dome from the serving plate, the actress revealed one of Emile’s signature dishes: whole bass roasted with black olives, fennel, and lemon.
“Lovely,” she said.
And the Count could not agree more. For by setting his oven to 450?, Emile ensured that the flesh of the fish was tender, the fennel aromatic, and the lemon slices blackened and crisp.
“So, two restaurants and a bar without having a bite to eat . . .”
Thus began the Count, with the natural intention of letting the actress recount her day while he prepared her plate. But before he could lift a finger, she had taken the knife and serving fork in hand. And as she began to relate the professional obligations that had commandeered her afternoon, she scored the fish’s spine with the tip of the knife and made diagonal cuts at its head and tail. Then slipping the serving fork between the fish’s spine and its flesh, she deftly liberated the filet. In a few succinct movements, she had served portions of the fennel and olives, and topped the filet with the charred lemon. Handing the Count this perfectly prepared plate, she plucked the spine from the fish and served herself the second filet with accompaniments—an operation that took no more than a minute. Then placing the serving utensils on the platter, she turned her attention to the wine.
Good God, thought the Count. So engrossed had he been in watching her technique, he had neglected his own responsibilities. Leaping from his chair, he took the bottle by the neck.
“May I?”
“Thank you.”
As the Count poured the wine, he noted it was a dry Montrachet, the perfect complement to Emile’s bass and clearly the handiwork of Andrey. The Count raised his glass to his hostess.
“I must say that you deboned that fish like an expert.”
She laughed.
“Is that a compliment?”
“Of course it’s a compliment! Well. At least, it was intended as one. . . .”
“In that case, thank you. But I wouldn’t make too much of it. I was raised in a fishing village on the Black Sea, so I’ve tied more than my share of knots and filleted more than my share of fish.”
“You could do worse than dining on fish every night.”
“That’s true. But when you live in a fisherman’s house, you tend to eat what can’t be sold. So more often than not, we dined on flatfish and bream.”
“The bounty of the sea . . .”
“The bottom of the sea.”
And with that disarming memory, Anna Urbanova was suddenly describing how as a girl she would steal away from her mother at dusk and wind her way down the sloping streets of her village so that she could meet her father on the beach and help him mend his nets. And as she talked, the Count had to acknowledge once again the virtues of withholding judgment.
After all, what can a first impression tell us about someone we’ve just met for a minute in the lobby of a hotel? For that matter, what can a first impression tell us about anyone? Why, no more than a chord can tell us about Beethoven, or a brushstroke about Botticelli. By their very nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, that they deserve not only our consideration, but our reconsideration—and our unwavering determination to withhold our opinion until we have engaged with them in every possible setting at every possible hour.
Take the simple case of Anna Urbanova’s voice. In the context of the lobby, where the actress was struggling to rein in her hounds, the hoarseness of her voice had given the impression of an imperious young lady prone to shouting. Very well. But here in suite 208 in the company of charred lemons, French wine, and memories of the sea, her voice was revealed as that of a woman whose profession rarely allowed her the chance for repose, never mind the enjoyment of a decent meal.
As the Count refilled their glasses, he was struck by a memory of his own that seemed in keeping with the conversation.
“I spent a good part of my youth in the province of Nizhny Novgorod,” he said, “which happens to be the world capital of the apple. In Nizhny Novgorod, there are not simply apple trees scattered about the countryside; there are forests of apple trees—forests as wild and ancient as Russia itself—in which apples grow in every color of the rainbow and in sizes ranging from a walnut to a cannonball.”
“I take it you ate your fair share of apples.”
“Oh, we’d find them tucked in our omelets at breakfast, floating in our soups at lunch, and stuffed in our pheasants at dinner. Come Christmas, we had eaten every single variety the woods had to offer.”
The Count was about to lift his glass to toast the comprehensiveness of their apple eating, when he waved a self-correcting finger.
“Actually, there was one apple that we did not eat. . . .”
The actress raised one of her bedeviling eyebrows.
“Which?”
“According to local lore, hidden deep within the forest was a tree with apples as black as coal—and if you could find this tree and eat of its fruit, you could start your life anew.”
The Count took a generous drink of the Montrachet, pleased to have summoned this little folktale from the past.
“So would you?” the actress asked.
“Would I what?”
“If you found that apple hidden in the forest, would you take a bite?”
The Count put his glass on the table and shook his head.
“There’s certainly some allure to the idea of a fresh start; but how could I relinquish my memories of home, of my sister, of my school years.” The Count gestured to the table. “How could I relinquish my memory of this?”
And Anna Urbanova, having put her napkin on her plate and pushed back her chair, came round the table, took the Count by the collar, and kissed him on the mouth.