don’t see what is happening?” he demanded while pointing at the screen. “Having traveled from the Orient to the docks of San Franchesko, Captain Jacoby has been shot five times. He has jumped from a burning ship, stumbled through the city, and used his final breaths to bring comrade Spadsky this mysterious package wrapped in paper and bound in string. And you choose this moment to engage in metaphysics!”
The Count, who had turned around, was holding up a hand to cut the glare from the projection.
“But, Osip,” he said, “we have watched him open the bundle on at least three occasions.”
“What difference does that make? You have read Anna Karenina at least ten times, but I’d wager you still cry when she throws herself under the train.”
“That’s something else altogether.”
“Is it?”
There was silence. Then with an expression of exasperation, Osip turned off the projector. He flicked on the lights and returned to the table.
“All right, my friend. I can see that you are vexed by something. Let’s see if we can make sense of it, so we can get on with our studies.”
Thus, the Count described for Osip the conversation he’d had with Mishka. Or rather, he relayed Mishka’s views on the burning of Moscow, and the toppling of statues, and the silencing of poets, and the slaughter of fourteen million head of cattle.
Osip, having already aired his frustrations, now listened to the Count attentively, occasionally nodding his head at Mishka’s various points.
“All right,” he said, once the Count had finished. “So, what is it exactly that is bothering you, Alexander? Does your friend’s assertion shock you? Does it offend your sensibilities? I understand that you are worried about his state of mind; but isn’t it possible that he is right in his opinions while being wrong in his sentiments?”
“What do you mean?”
“It is like the Maltese Falcon.”
“Osip. Please.”
“No, I am quite serious. What is the black bird if not a symbol of Western heritage itself? A sculpture fashioned by knights of the Crusades from gold and jewels as tribute to a king, it is an emblem of the church and the monarchies—those rapacious institutions that have served as the foundation for all of Europe’s art and ideas. Well, who is to say that their love of that heritage isn’t as misguided as the Fat Man’s for his falcon? Perhaps that is exactly what must be swept aside before their people can hope to progress.”
His tone grew softer.
“The Bolsheviks are not Visigoths, Alexander. We are not the barbarian hordes descending upon Rome and destroying all that is fine out of ignorance and envy. It is the opposite. In 1916, Russia was a barbarian state. It was the most illiterate nation in Europe, with the majority of its population living in modified serfdom: tilling the fields with wooden plows, beating their wives by candlelight, collapsing on their benches drunk with vodka, and then waking at dawn to humble themselves before their icons. That is, living exactly as their forefathers had lived five hundred years before. Is it not possible that our reverence for all the statues and cathedrals and ancient institutions was precisely what was holding us back?”
Osip paused, taking a moment to refill their glasses with wine.
“But where do we stand now? How far have we come? By marrying American tempo with Soviet aims, we are on the verge of universal literacy. Russia’s long-suffering women, our second serfdom, have been elevated to the status of equals. We have built whole new cities and our industrial production outpaces that of most of Europe.”
“But at what cost?”
Osip slapped the table.
“At the greatest cost! But do you think the achievements of the Americans—envied the world over—came without a cost? Just ask their African brothers. And do you think the engineers who designed their illustrious skyscrapers or built their highways hesitated for one moment to level the lovely little neighborhoods that stood in their way? I guarantee you, Alexander, they laid the dynamite and pushed the plungers themselves. As I’ve said to you before, we and the Americans will lead the rest of this century because we are the only nations who have learned to brush the past aside instead of bowing before it. But where they have done so in service of their beloved individualism, we are attempting to do so in service of the common good.”
When he parted company with Osip at ten, rather than climbing the stairs to the sixth floor, the Count headed to the Shalyapin in the hopes of