“That’s right, my sweet. Then we will take the long train to Papa.”
Sofia was doing her best to match her mother’s fortitude; but she did not yet have her mother’s command over her own emotions. So while she did not question, or plead, or act dismayed, when she nodded to show that she understood, tears fell down her cheeks.
Nina used her thumb to wipe the tears away from one side of her daughter’s face as Sofia used the back of her hand to wipe them away from the other. Nina looked Sofia in the eye until she was sure the tears had stopped. Then nodding once, she gave her daughter a kiss on the forehead and led the Count a few yards away.
“Here,” she said, handing him a canvas pack with shoulder straps, the sort that might have been worn on the back of a soldier. “These are her things. And you should probably take this too.” Nina handed him a small photograph without a frame. “It may be better to keep it to yourself. I don’t know. You will have to decide.”
Nina gripped the Count on the arm again; then she walked across the lobby at the pace of one who hopes to leave herself no room for second thoughts.
The Count watched her exit the hotel and head across Theatre Square, just as he had eight years before. When she was gone, he looked down at the photograph in his hand. It was a picture of Nina and her husband, Sofia’s father. From Nina’s face, the Count could tell that the picture had been taken some years before. He could also tell that he had only been half right. For while he had seen her husband all those years ago in the lobby of the Metropol, Nina had not married the handsome captain—she had married the hapless young fellow with the sailor’s cap who had so eagerly retrieved her coat.
This entire exchange—from Nina’s saying the Count’s name to her passing through the hotel’s doors—had taken less than fifteen minutes. So, the Count had little more than a moment to consider the nature of the commitment he was being asked to make.
Granted it was only for a month or two. He would not be responsible for the girl’s education, her moral instruction, or her religious upbringing. But her health and comfort? He would be responsible for those even were he to care for her for one night. What was she to eat? Where was she to sleep? And, while it was his night off tonight, what was he to do with her the following evening, when he had to don the white jacket of the Boyarsky?
But let us imagine that before committing himself, the Count had had the time to see the problem in its full scope, to consider every challenge and obstacle, to acknowledge his own lack of experience, to concede that in all likelihood he was the least fitting, least well-equipped, and most poorly situated man in Moscow to care for a child. Had he the time and presence of mind to weigh all of this, would he have denied Nina her request?
He would not even have attempted to dissuade her.
How could he?
This was the very woman who, as a child herself, had crossed the Piazza without hesitation in order to become his friend; who had shown him the hidden corners of the hotel and bestowed upon him, quite literally, the key to its mysteries. When such a friend has sought one out to ask for aid—particularly one for whom asking favors in a time of need does not come naturally—then there is only one acceptable response.
The Count slipped the photograph in his pocket. He composed himself. Then he turned to find his new charge looking up at him.
“Well, Sofia. Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat?”
She shook her head.
“Then why don’t we head upstairs and get ourselves situated.”
The Count helped Sofia down from the chair and led her across the lobby. But as he was about to mount the stairs, he noticed her staring when the elevator doors opened to let off two of the hotel’s guests.
“Have you ever ridden on an elevator before?” he asked.
Gripping her doll by the neck, Sofia shook her head again.
“In that case . . .”
Holding the doors open, the Count gestured for Sofia to proceed. With an expression of cautious curiosity, she stepped onto the elevator, made room for the Count, and then watched as the doors slid shut.
With a theatrical flourish and the command of Presto! the Count pressed the button for the fifth floor. The elevator lurched and began to move. Sofia steadied herself; then she leaned a little to her right so that she could watch the floors pass by through the caging.
“Voilà,” said the Count when they arrived a moment later at their destination.
Leading Sofia down the hall and into the belfry, the Count gestured again for her to proceed. But having looked up the narrow twisting stair, Sofia turned to the Count and raised both hands in the air in the international symbol of Pick me up.
“Hmm,” said the Count. Then despite his age, he picked her up.
She yawned.
Once in his room, the Count sat Sofia on his bed, put her knapsack on the Grand Duke’s desk, and then told her he would be right back. He walked down the hall and retrieved a winter blanket from his trunk. His plan was to make her a small bed on the floor beside his own and lend her one of his pillows. He would just have to be careful not to step on her, should he wake in the night.
But the Count needn’t have worried about stepping on Sofia. For when he returned to his room with the blanket, she had already climbed under his covers and fallen asleep.
Adjustments
Never had the toll of a bell been so welcome. Not in Moscow. Not in Europe. Not in all the world. When the Frenchman Carpentier faced the American Dempsey, he could not have felt more relief upon hearing the clang that signaled the end of the third round than the Count felt upon hearing his own clock strike twelve. Nor could the citizens of Prague upon hearing the church bells that signaled the end of their siege at the hands of Frederick the Great.
What was it about this child that prompted a grown man to count so carefully the minutes until lunch? Did she prattle on nonsensically? Did she flit about giggling? Did she dissolve into tears or launch into tantrums at the slightest provocation?
On the contrary. She was quiet.
Unsettlingly so.
Upon waking she rose, dressed, and made her bed without a word. When the Count served breakfast, she nibbled her biscuits like a Trappist. Then, having quietly cleared her plate, she climbed up onto the Count’s desk chair, sat on her hands, and gazed at him in silence. And what a gaze it was. With irises as dark and foreboding as the deep, it was positively unnerving. Without shyness or impatience, it seemed simply to say: What now, Uncle Alexander?
What now, indeed. For having made their beds and nibbled their biscuits, the two of them had the whole day before them. 16 hours. 960 minutes. 57,600 seconds!
The notion was indisputably daunting.
But who was Alexander Rostov, if not a seasoned conversationalist? At weddings and name-day celebrations from Moscow to St. Petersburg, he had inevitably been seated beside the most recalcitrant of dinner guests. The prudish aunts and pompous uncles. The mirthless, mordant, and shy. Why? Because Alexander Rostov could be counted upon to draw his dinner companions into a lively conversation, whatever their dispositions.
If he had happened to be seated beside Sofia at a dinner party—or, for that matter, in the compartment of a train traveling across the countryside—what would he do? Naturally, he would ask about her life: Where are you from, my friend? Ivanovo, you say. I have never been, but always wanted to go. What is the best season to visit? And what should one see whilst one is there?