“There are no more sympathetic souls than strangers. So, what say we skip the preambling. Is it women? Money? Writer’s block?”
The Count laughed again; and then like other well-mannered men since days of old, he unburdened himself to this sympathetic soul. He described Mishka and his notion that Russians were somehow unusually adept at destroying that which they have created. Then he described Osip and his notion that Mishka was perfectly right, but that the destruction of monuments and masterpieces was essential to the progress of a nation.
“Oh, so that’s it,” said the captain, as if this would have been his fourth guess.
“Yes. But what conclusions would you draw from it all?” asked the Count.
“What conclusions?”
Richard took a drink.
“I think that both of your friends are very sharp. I mean it takes a good bit of dexterity to pull a thread out of the fabric all in one piece. But I can’t help feeling that they’re missing something. . . .”
He drummed his fingers on the bar as he tried to formulate his thoughts.
“I understand that there’s a little history of dismantling here in Russia; and that the razing of a beautiful old building is bound to engender a little sorrow for what’s gone and some excitement for what’s to come. But when all is said and done, I can’t help suspecting that grand things persist.
“Take that fellow Socrates. Two thousand years ago, he wandered around the marketplace sharing his thoughts with whomever he bumped into; and he wouldn’t even take the time to write them down. Then, in something of a fix, he punched his own ticket; pulled his own plug; collapsed his own umbrella. Adios. Adieu. Finis.
“Time marched on, as it will. The Romans took over. Then the barbarians. And then we threw the whole Middle Ages at him. Hundreds of years of plagues and poisonings and the burning of books. And somehow, after all of that, the grand things this fellow happened to say in the marketplace are still with us.
“I guess the point I’m trying to make is that as a species we’re just no good at writing obituaries. We don’t know how a man or his achievements will be perceived three generations from now, any more than we know what his great-great-grandchildren will be having for breakfast on a Tuesday in March. Because when Fate hands something down to posterity, it does so behind its back.”
They were both silent for a moment. Then the captain emptied his glass and pointed a finger at the Count’s brandy.
“Tell me, though, is that thing pulling its weight?”
When the Count left the Shalyapin an hour later (having joined Captain Vanderwhile for two rounds of Audrius’s magenta-colored concoction), he was surprised to see Sofia still reading in the lobby. Catching her eye, he gave a little wave and she gave a little wave back before returning to her book, demurely. . . .
It took all of the Count’s presence of mind to cross the lobby at a stroll. With the undeniable appearance of a man at ease, he carefully mounted the stairs and slowly began to ascend. But the moment he turned the corner, he broke into a sprint.
As he vaulted upward, he could barely contain his sense of glee. The hidden genius of Sofia’s game had always been that she chose when it was played. Naturally, she would wait for those moments when he was distracted or off his guard, such that the game was generally over before he even knew it had begun. But tonight, things were going to be different—because by the casualness of Sofia’s wave, the Count could tell the game was afoot.
I’ve got her now, he thought as he passed the second floor with a sinister little laugh. But as he turned the landing on the third floor, he was forced to acknowledge a second advantage that Sofia had in this game: her youth. For without question, his pace had begun to slow considerably. If his shortness of breath was any indication, he would be crawling by the time he reached the sixth floor—assuming he reached it alive. To be on the safe side, when he got to the fifth floor he slowed his pace to a purposeful walk.
Opening the door to the belfry, he paused to listen. Looking down the stairs, he couldn’t see a thing. Could she have already flown past? Impossible. She hadn’t the time. Still, on the off chance that she had transported herself by means of witchcraft, the Count climbed the final flight on the tips of his toes and when he opened their door, he did so with an affect of indifference—only to find that, in fact, the room was empty.
Rubbing his hands together, he wondered: Where should I place myself? He considered climbing into bed and acting like he was asleep, but he wanted to see the expression on her face. So he sat in the desk chair, tilted it back on two legs, and grabbed the closest book at hand, which happened to be Monsieur Montaigne. Opening the tome at random, he landed on the essay “Of the Education of Children.”
“Just so,” he said with a wily smile. Then he adopted an expression of perfect erudition as he pretended to read.
But after five minutes, she hadn’t appeared.
“Ah, well. I must have been mistaken,” he was conceding with some disappointment, when the door flung open. But it wasn’t Sofia.
It was one of the chambermaids. In a state of distress.
“Ilana. What is it?”
“It’s Sofia! She has fallen!”
The Count leapt from his chair.
“Fallen! Where?”
“In the service stair.”
The Count brushed past the chambermaid and bolted down the belfry. After two flights of empty stairs, a voice in some corner of his mind began to reason that Ilana must have been mistaken; but as he rounded the third-floor landing, there Sofia was—splayed across the steps, her eyes closed, her hair matted with blood.
“Oh, my God.”
The Count fell to his knees.
“Sofia . . .”
She didn’t respond.
Gently raising her head, the Count could see the gash above her brow. Her skull did not appear compromised, but she was bleeding and unconscious.
Ilana was behind him now, in tears.
“I will go for a doctor,” she said.
But it was after eleven. Who could say how long that would take?
The Count slid his arms under Sofia’s neck and knees, lifted her off the steps, and carried her down the remaining flights. At the ground floor, he pushed the door open with his shoulder and cut through the lobby. Only in the most remote sense was he aware of a middle-aged couple waiting for the elevator; of Vasily at his desk; of voices in the bar. And suddenly, he found himself on the steps of the Metropol in the warm summer air—for the first time in over twenty years.
Rodion, the night doorman, looked at the Count in shock.
“A taxi,” the Count said. “I need a taxi.”
Over the doorman’s shoulder, he could see four of them parked fifty feet from the entrance, waiting for the last of the Shalyapin’s customers. Two drivers at the front of the line were smoking and chatting. Before Rodion could raise his whistle to his lips, the Count was running toward them.
When the drivers noted the Count’s approach, the expression on one’s face was a knowing smirk and on the other’s a look of condemnation—having both concluded that the gentleman had a drunken girl in his arms. But they stood to attention when they saw the blood on her face.
“My daughter,” said the Count.
“Here,” said one of the drivers, throwing his cigarette on the ground and running to open the back door of the cab.
“To St. Anselm’s,” said the Count.
“St. Anselm’s . . . ?”
“As fast as you can.”
Putting the car in gear, the driver pulled onto Theatre Square and headed north as the Count, pressing a folded handkerchief against Sofia’s wound with one hand and combing her hair with the other, murmured assurances that went unheard—while the streets of the city raced past unregarded.
In a matter of minutes, the cab came to a stop.
“We’re here,” said the driver. He got out and opened the back door.
The Count carefully slipped out with Sofia in his arms then suddenly stopped. “I have no money,” he said.