Had he felt pride in Sofia before? Of course he had. On a daily basis. He was proud of her success in school, of her beauty, of her composure, of the fondness with which she was regarded by all who worked in the hotel. And that is how he could be certain that what he was experiencing at that moment could not be referred to as pride. For there is something knowing in the state of pride. Look, it says, didn’t I tell you how special she is? How bright? How lovely? Well, now you can see it for yourself. But in listening to Sofia play Chopin, the Count had left the realm of knowing and entered the realm of astonishment.
On one level he was astonished by the revelation that Sofia could play the piano at all; on another, that she tackled the primary and subordinate melodies with such skill. But what was truly astonishing was the sensitivity of her musical expression. One could spend a lifetime mastering the technical aspects of the piano and never achieve a state of musical expression—that alchemy by which the performer not only comprehends the sentiments of the composer, but somehow communicates them to her audience through the manner of her play.
Whatever personal sense of heartache Chopin had hoped to express through this little composition—whether it had been prompted by a loss of love, or simply the sweet anguish one feels when witnessing a mist on a meadow in the morning—it was right there, ready to be experienced to its fullest, in the ballroom of the Hotel Metropol one hundred years after the composer’s death. But how, the question remained, could a seventeen-year-old girl achieve this feat of expression, if not by channeling a sense of loss and longing of her own?
As Sofia began the third iteration of the melody, Viktor Stepanovich looked over his shoulder with his eyebrows raised, as if to say: Can you believe it? Have you ever in all your years even imagined? Then he quickly looked back to the piano and dutifully turned the page for Sofia almost in the manner of an apprentice turning the page for his master.
After the Count had led Viktor Stepanovich into the hall, where they could confer for a moment in private, he returned to the ballroom. Finding Sofia still at the piano, he took a seat at her side with his back to the keys.
They were both silent.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were studying piano?” the Count asked after a moment.
“I wanted it to be a surprise,” she said. “For your birthday. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m so sorry if I did.”
“Sofia, if anyone should be apologizing, it should be me. You have done nothing wrong. On the contrary. That was wonderful—and unambiguously so.”
Sofia blushed and looked down at the keyboard.
“It is a lovely composition,” she said.
“Well, yes,” agreed the Count with a laugh, “it is a lovely composition. But it is also a piece of paper with circles, lines, and dots. Nearly every student of piano for a century has learned to play that little bit of Chopin. But for most of them, it is an act of recitation. Only one in a thousand—or even a hundred thousand—can bring the music to life as you just have.”
Sofia continued to look at the keyboard. The Count hesitated. And then with a touch of trepidation, he asked:
“Is everything all right?”
Sofia looked up, a little surprised. Then seeing how grave her father’s expression was, she smiled.
“Of course, Papa. Why do you ask?”
The Count shook his head.
“I’ve never played an instrument in my life, but I understand something of music. To have played the opening measures of that piece with feelings so perfectly evocative of heartache, one can only assume that you have drawn on some wellspring of sorrow within yourself.”
“Oh, I see,” she said. Then with the enthusiasm of a young scholar she began to explain: “Viktor Stepanovich calls that the mood. He says that before one plays a note, one must discover an example of the composition’s mood hidden away in one’s heart. So for this piece, I think about my mother. I think of how my few memories of her seem to be fading, and then I begin to play.”
The Count was quiet, overwhelmed by another wave of astonishment.
“Does that make sense?” Sofia asked.
“Abundantly,” he said. Then after a moment of reflection, he added: “As a younger man, I used to feel the same way about my sister. Every year that passed, it seemed a little more of her had slipped away; and I began to fear that one day I would come to forget her altogether. But the truth is: No matter how much time passes, those we have loved never slip away from us entirely.”
They were both quiet now. Then looking about him, the Count gestured with his hand.
“This was a favorite room of hers.”
“Of your sister’s?”
“No, no. Of your mother’s.”
Sofia looked around with some surprise.
“The ballroom . . . ?”
“Most definitely. After the Revolution, all the old ways of doing things were abandoned—which was the point, I suppose. But the new ways of doing things had yet to be established. So all across Russia, all manner of groups—trade unions, citizens’ committees, commissariats—gathered in rooms like this one in order to hash things out.”
The Count pointed to the balcony.
“When your mother was nine, she would crouch up there behind the balustrade to watch these Assemblies for hours on end. She found it all very thrilling. The shuffling of chairs and the heartfelt speeches and the pounding of the gavel. And in retrospect, she was perfectly right. After all, a new course for the country was being charted right before our eyes. But at the time, what with the crawling and the hunching, it just gave me a crick in the neck.”
“You would go up there too?”
“Oh, she insisted.”
The Count and Sofia both smiled.
“Come to think of it,” added the Count after a moment, “that’s how I came to know your Aunt Marina. Because every other visit to the balcony, I’d split the seat of my pants.”
Sofia laughed. Then the Count wagged a finger in the manner of one who has remembered something else.
“Later, when your mother was thirteen or fourteen, she would come here to enact experiments . . .”
“Experiments!”
“Your mother was not one to take anything on faith. If she hadn’t witnessed a phenomenon with her own eyes, then as far as she was concerned it was a hypothesis. And that included all the laws of physics and mathematics. One day, I found her here testing the principles of Galileo and Newton by dropping various objects from the balcony and timing their descent with a sprinter’s watch.”
“Is that even possible?”
“It was for your mother.”
They were quiet for another moment, then Sofia turned and kissed the Count on the cheek.
When Sofia had gone off to meet a friend, the Count went to the Piazza and treated himself to a glass of wine with lunch—something that he had done on a daily basis in his thirties and had rarely done since. Given the morning’s revelations, it seemed only appropriate. In fact, when his plate had been cleared and he had dutifully declined dessert, he ordered a second glass.
As he leaned back with his wine in hand, he regarded the young man at the neighboring table, who was sketching in his sketchbook. The Count had noticed him in the lobby the day before with the book in his lap and a small tin of colored pencils at his side.
The Count leaned a little to his right.
“Landscape, portrait, or still life?”
The young man looked up with a touch of surprise.
“Excuse me?”
“I couldn’t help but notice you sketching away. I was just wondering if it was a landscape, a portrait, or a still life.”
“None of the above, I’m afraid,” the young man replied politely. “It is an interior.”
“Of the restaurant?”
“Yes.”
“May I see?”
The young man hesitated then handed the Count his book.
As soon as the Count had it in hand, he regretted his reference to sketching. The word hardly did justice to the young man’s skills as an artist, for he had captured the Piazza perfectly. The guests at the tables were rendered with the short, bright strokes of Impressionism, adding to the sense that they were engaged in lively conversations; while the waiters moving deftly between the tables were rendered in something of a blur. But the suggestive style with which the young man had drawn the people was sharply contrasted by the level of detail with which he had drawn the room itself. The columns, the fountain, the arches were all realized in perfect perspective to perfect proportion, with every ornament in place.