“Let’s see. What do we have here? Ah, roasted duck. I’ve been told the Boyarsky’s is unparalleled.”
“You are not misinformed. Make sure you take a few cherries and some of the skin.”
The colonel doled out a portion for himself, including cherries and skin, and then served the Count.
“Absolutely delicious,” he said, when he had taken his first bite.
The Count bowed his head to accept the compliment on Emile’s behalf.
The colonel gestured to the Count with his fork.
“You have a very interesting file, Alexander Ilyich.”
“I have a file?”
“I’m sorry. A terrible habit of speech. What I meant to say is that you have an interesting background.”
“Ah, yes. Well. Life has been generous to me in its variety.”
The colonel smiled. Then he commenced in the tone of one who is trying to do justice to the facts.
“You were born in Leningrad. . . .”
“I was born in St. Petersburg.”
“Ah, yes, of course. In St. Petersburg. As your parents died when you were young, you were raised by your grandmother. You attended the academy and then the Imperial University in . . . St. Petersburg.”
“All correct.”
“And you have traveled broadly, I gather.”
The Count shrugged.
“Paris. London. Firenze.”
“But when you last left the country in 1914, you went to France?”
“On the sixteenth of May.”
“That’s right. A few days after the incident with Lieutenant Pulonov. Tell me, why did you shoot the fellow? Wasn’t he an aristocrat like yourself?”
The Count showed an expression of mild shock.
“I shot him because he was an aristocrat.”
The colonel laughed and waved his fork again.
“I hadn’t thought of it that way. But yes, that’s an idea that we Bolsheviks should understand. So you were in Paris at the time of the Revolution, and shortly thereafter you made your way home.”
“Exactly.”
“Now, I think I understand why you hurried back: to help your grandmother safely from the country. But having arranged for her escape, why did you choose to stay?”
“For the cuisine.”
“No, I am serious.”
. . .
“My days of leaving Russia were behind me.”
“But you didn’t take up arms with the Whites.”
“No.”
“And you don’t strike me as a coward. . . .”
“I should hope not.”
“So why didn’t you join in the fray?”
The Count paused, then shrugged.
“When I left for Paris in 1914, I swore I would never shoot another one of my countrymen.”
“And you count the Bolsheviks as your countrymen.”
“Of course I do.”
“Do you count them as gentlemen?”
“That’s another thing entirely. But certainly some of them are.”
“I see. But even from the manner in which you say that, I can tell that you do not count me a gentleman. Now, why is that?”
The Count responded with a light laugh, as much as to say that no gentleman would ever answer such a question.
“Come now,” the colonel persisted. “Here we two are dining together on the Boyarsky’s roasted duck with a bottle of Georgian wine, which practically makes us old friends. And I am genuinely interested. What is it about me that makes you so sure that I am not a gentleman?”
As a sign of encouragement, the colonel leaned across the table to refill the Count’s glass.
“It isn’t any one thing,” the Count said after a moment. “It is an assembly of small details.”
“Like in a mosaic.”
“Yes. Like in a mosaic.”
“So, give me an example of one of these smaller details.”
The Count took a sip from his glass and replaced it on the table at one o’clock.
“As a host, it was perfectly appropriate for you to take up the serving tools. But a gentleman would have served his guest before he served himself.”
The colonel, who had just taken a bite of duck, smiled at the Count’s first example and waved his fork.
“Continue,” he said.
“A gentleman wouldn’t gesture at another man with his fork,” said the Count, “or speak with his mouth full. But perhaps most importantly, he would have introduced himself at the beginning of a conversation—particularly when he had the advantage over his guest.”
The colonel put his utensils down.
“And I ordered the wrong wine,” he added with a smile.
The Count put a finger in the air.
“No. There are many reasons for ordering a particular bottle of wine. And memories of home are among the best.”
“Then allow me to introduce myself: I am Osip Ivanovich Glebnikov—former colonel of the Red Army and an officer of the Party, who as a boy in eastern Georgia dreamed of Moscow, and who as a man of thirty-nine in Moscow dreams of eastern Georgia.”
“It is a pleasure meeting you,” said the Count, reaching across the table. The two men shook hands and then resumed eating. After a moment, the Count ventured: “If I may be so bold, Osip Ivanovich: What is it exactly that you do as an officer of the Party?”
“Let’s just say that I am charged with keeping track of certain men of interest.”
“Ah. Well, I imagine that becomes rather easy to achieve when you place them under house arrest.”
“Actually,” corrected Glebnikov, “it is easier to achieve when you place them in the ground. . . .”
The Count conceded the point.
“But by all accounts,” continued Glebnikov, “you seem to have reconciled yourself to your situation.”
“As both a student of history and a man devoted to living in the present, I admit that I do not spend a lot of time imagining how things might otherwise have been. But I do like to think there is a difference between being resigned to a situation and reconciled to it.”
Glebnikov let out a laugh and gave the table a light slap.
“There you go. That’s just the sort of nuance that has brought me begging to your door.”
Setting his silverware down, the Count looked to his host with interest.
“As a nation, Alexander Ilyich, we are at a very interesting juncture. We have had open diplomatic relations with the French and British for seven years, and there is talk that we will soon have them with the Americans. Since the time of Peter the Great, we have acted the poor cousin of the West—admiring their ideas as much as we admired their clothes. But we are about to assume a very different role. Within a matter of years, we will be exporting more grain and manufacturing more steel than any other country in Europe. And we are leaps ahead of them all in ideology. As a result, for the first time, we are on the verge of taking our rightful place on the world stage. And when we do so, it will behoove us to listen with care and speak with clarity.”
“You would like to learn French and English.”
Osip raised his glass in confirmation.
“Yes, sir. But I don’t simply want to learn the languages. I want to understand those who speak them. And most especially, I would like to understand their privileged classes—for that’s who remains at the helm. I would like to understand how they view the world; what they are likely to count as a moral imperative; what they would be prone to value and what to disdain. It’s a matter of developing certain diplomatic skills, if you will. But for a man in my position, it is best to foster one’s skills . . . discreetly.”
“How do you propose that I help?”
“Simple. Dine with me once a month in this very room. Speak with me in French and English. Share with me your impressions of Western societies. And in exchange . . .”
Glebnikov let his sentence trail off, not to imply the paucity of what he could do for the Count, but rather to suggest the abundance.
But the Count raised a hand to stay any talk of exchanges.
“If you are a customer of the Boyarsky, Osip Ivanovich, then I am already at your service.”
Absinthe