player, and another pianist. All five had done the Conservatory proud, comporting themselves professionally and playing their instruments with precision. Two pieces by Tchaikovsky, two by Rimsky-Korsakov, and something by Borodin. But then it was Sofia’s turn.
“I tell you, Sasha, there was an audible gasp when she appeared. She crossed the stage to the piano without the slightest rustle of her dress. It was as if she were floating.”
“You taught me that, Aunt Anna.”
“No, no, Sofia. The manner in which you entered is unteachable.”
“Without a doubt,” agreed the Count.
“Well. When the director announced that Sofia would be playing Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 1, there was some muttering and a shifting of chairs. But the moment she began to play, they were overcome.”
“I knew it. Didn’t I say so? Didn’t I say that a little Mozart is never out of step?”
“Papa . . .”
“She played with such tenderness,” Anna continued, “such joy, that the audience was won over from the start. There was a smile on every face in every row, I tell you. And the applause when she finished! If only you could have heard it, Sasha. It shook the dust from the chandeliers.”
The Count clapped his own hands and rubbed them together.
“How many musicians performed after Sofia?”
“It didn’t matter. The competition was over and everyone knew it. The poor boy who was up next practically had to be dragged onstage. And then, she was the belle of the reception, being toasted from every corner.”
“Mon Dieu!” exclaimed the Count, leaping to his feet. “I nearly forgot!”
He shoved aside the Ambassador and produced the bucket with the champagne.
“Voilà!”
As his hand dipped in the water, the Count could tell the temperature had climbed to 53˚, but what did that matter. With a single twist of the fingers he spun the foil off the bottle, then to the ceiling with the cork! The champagne flowed over his hands and they all laughed. He filled two flutes for the ladies and a wine glass for himself.
“To Sofia,” he said. “Let tonight mark the beginning of a grand adventure—one that is sure to take her far and wide.”
“Papa,” she said with a blush. “It was just a school competition.”
“Just a school competition! It is one of the intrinsic limitations of being young, my dear, that you can never tell when a grand adventure has just begun. But as a man of experience, you may take my word that—”
Suddenly Anna silenced the Count by holding up her hand. She looked to the closet door.
“Did you hear that?”
The three stood motionless. Sure enough, though muffled, they could hear the sound of a voice. Someone must have been at the bedroom door.
“I’ll find out who it is,” whispered the Count.
Setting down his glass, he slipped between his jackets, opened the closet door, and stepped into his bedroom only to discover—Andrey and Emile at the foot of the bed in the midst of a hushed debate. Emile was holding a ten-layered cake in the shape of a piano, and Andrey must have just suggested they leave it on the bed with a note, because Emile was replying that one does not “dump a Dobos torte on a bedcover”—when the closet door opened and out popped the Count.
Andrey let out a gasp.
The Count drew in a breath.
Emile dropped the cake.
And the evening might have come to an end right then and there, but for Andrey’s instinctive inability to let an object fall to the floor. With the lightest of steps and his fingers outstretched, the onetime juggler caught the torte in midair.
As Andrey breathed a sigh of relief and Emile stared with his mouth open, the Count attempted to act matter-of-factly.
“Why, Andrey, Emile, what a pleasant surprise. . . .”
Taking his cue from the Count, Andrey acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. “Emile made a little something for Sofia in anticipation of her victory,” he said. “Please give her our heartfelt congratulations.” Then placing the cake gently on the Grand Duke’s desk, Andrey turned to the door.
But Emile didn’t budge.
“Alexander Ilyich,” he demanded: “What in the name of Ivan were you doing in the closet?”
“In the closet?” asked the Count. “Why, I . . . I was . . .” His voice trailed off diminuendo.
Andrey offered a sympathetic smile and then made a little sweeping motion with his hands, as if to say: The world is wide, and wondrous are the ways of men. . . .