the Bishop could put the Central Committee on hold while he dialed up the Politburo). In place of the burgundy chaise where the old Pole had allegedly reclined, there were now three gray filing cabinets with stainless-steel locks standing at attention. And the delightful hunting scenes that had once adorned the mahogany panels had been replaced, of course, with portraits of Messrs. Stalin, Lenin, and Marx.
Having inscribed his signature on twelve sheets of paper to his perfect satisfaction, the Bishop established a seventh pile at the edge of his desk, replaced the pen in its stand, and for the first time looked the Count in the eye.
“I gather you are an early riser, Alexander Ilyich,” he said after a moment of silence.
“Men of purpose usually are.”
The corner of the Bishop’s mouth rose ever so slightly.
“Yes, of course. Men of purpose.”
He reached across his desk to straighten his newest pile of papers.
“And you breakfast in your room at around seven . . . ?”
“That’s right.”
“Then at eight, it is your habit to read the papers in the lobby.”
Confound the fellow, thought the Count. He interrupts the conclusion of a perfectly delightful lunch with a hand-delivered summons. Clearly, there is something on his mind. But must it always be on the bias with him? Has he no facility with the direct question? No appreciation for it? Were they to sit there reviewing the Count’s typical day minute by minute—when the Triumvirate was scheduled to meet in less than an hour?
“Yes,” confirmed the Count a little impatiently. “I read the morning papers in the morning.”
“But in the lobby. You come down to the lobby.”
“Without fail, I walk down the stairs to read in the comfort of the lobby.”
The Bishop sat back in his chair and offered the briefest of smiles.
“Then perhaps you are aware of the incident that occurred this morning in the fourth-floor corridor at a quarter to eight. . . .”
For the record, the Count had risen shortly after seven. Having completed fifteen squats and fifteen stretches, having enjoyed his coffee, biscuit, and a piece of fruit (today a tangerine), having bathed, shaved, and dressed, he kissed Sofia on the forehead and departed from their bedroom with the intention of reading the papers in his favorite lobby chair. Descending one flight, he exited the belfry and traversed the hall to the main stair, as was his habit. But as he turned on the fifth-floor landing, he heard sounds of commotion coming from below.
The immediate impression was of fifteen voices shouting in twenty languages. These were accompanied by the slamming of a door, the shattering of a plate, and a rather insistent squawking that seemed distinctly avian in character. When he reached the fourth floor at approximately 7:45, the Count, in fact, discovered a genuine state of upheaval.
Nearly every door was open and every guest in the hall. Among those assembled were two French journalists, a Swiss diplomat, three Uzbek fur traders, a representative of the Roman Catholic Church, and a repatriated opera tenor with his family of five. Still in their pajamas, most of the members of this convention were waving their arms and expressing themselves emphatically—as three adult geese scurried between their legs, honking and beating their wings.
Several of the women were acting as terrorized as if they had been descended upon by Harpies. The wife of the tenor was cowering behind her husband’s prodigious torso, and Kristina, one of the hotel’s chambermaids, was backed against a wall, clutching an empty tray to her chest while at her feet lay a confusion of cutlery and kasha.
When the tenor’s three sons displayed their fortitude by giving chase to the three different birds in three different directions, the ambassador from the Vatican advised the tenor on the proper behavior of children. The tenor, who spoke only a few words of Italian, informed the prelate (fortissimo) that he was not a man to be toyed with. The Swiss diplomat, who spoke both Russian and Italian fluently, exemplified his nation’s reputation for neutrality by listening to both men with his mouth shut. When the prelate stepped forward to make his point more pontifically, one of the geese, which had been cornered by the tenor’s eldest son, shot through his legs into his apartment—at which point, a young woman, who was decidedly not a representative of the Roman Catholic Church, came racing into the hallway wrapped only in a blue kimono.
By this point, the commotion had apparently awakened the guests on the fifth floor, as