attaché, and three “chaperones” in the employ of the KGB. . . .
When the movie returned from Paris to Casablanca, so did the Count. Setting aside thoughts of his daughter, he followed the action while noting through the corner of his eye Osip’s complete submission to the plights of the principals.
But the Count took particular pleasure in his friend’s engagement during the final minutes of the film. For with the plane to Lisbon in the air and Major Strasser dead on the ground, when Captain Renault frowned at the bottle of Vichy water, dropped it in a wastebasket, and kicked it across the floor, Osip Glebnikov, the former Red Army colonel and high official of the Party, who was sitting on the edge of his seat, poured, frowned, dropped, and kicked.
Antagonists at Arms (And an Absolution)
Good evening and welcome to the Boyarsky,” began the Count in Russian, as the middle-aged couple with blond hair and blue eyes looked up from their menus.
“Do you speak English?” the husband asked in English, though with a decidedly Scandinavian cadence.
“Good evening and welcome to the Boyarsky,” the Count translated accordingly. “My name is Alexander and I will be your waiter tonight. But before describing our specials, may I offer you an aperitif?”
“I think we are ready to order,” said the husband.
“We have just arrived in the hotel after a long day of travel,” explained the wife with a weary smile.
The Count hesitated.
“And where, if I may ask, have you been traveling from . . . ?”
“Helsinki,” said the husband with a hint of impatience.
“Well then, tervetuloa Moskova,” said the Count.
“Kiitos,” replied the wife with a smile.
“Given your long journey, I will see to it that you are served a delightful meal without delay. But before I take your order, would you be so kind as to give me your room number . . . ?”
From the beginning, the Count had determined that he would need to filch a few things from a Norwegian, a Dane, a Swede, or a Finn. On the face of it, this task should not have posed a significant challenge, as Scandinavian visitors were reasonably common at the Metropol. The problem was that the visitor in question was sure to notify the hotel’s manager as soon as he discovered that his pocket had been picked, which in turn might lead to the notification of authorities, the official interviewing of hotel staff, perhaps even the searching of rooms and the posting of guards at railway stations. So, the pocket picking would have to take place at the very last minute. In the meantime, the Count could only cross his fingers that a Scandinavian man would be residing in the hotel at the critical juncture.
With grim attention, he had watched as a salesman from Stockholm checked out of the hotel on the thirteenth of June. Then on the seventeenth, a journalist from Oslo had been recalled by his paper. In no small terms, the Count berated himself for not acting sooner. When, lo and behold, with only twenty-four hours to spare, a pair of beleaguered Finns came into the Boyarsky and sat right at his table.
But there remained one small complication: The primary item that the Count hoped to secure was the gentleman’s passport. And as most foreigners in Russia carried their passports about on their person, the Count would not be able to pay a visit to the Finns’ suite on the following morning when they were touring about the city; he would need to visit the suite tonight—while they were in it.
As much as we hate to admit the fact, Fate does not take sides. It is fair-minded and generally prefers to maintain some balance between the likelihood of success and failure in all our endeavors. Thus, having put the Count in the challenging position of having to lift a passport at the very last minute, Fate offered the Count a small consolation: for at 9:30, when he asked the Finns if they would like to see the dessert cart, they declined on the grounds that they were exhausted and ready for bed.
Shortly after midnight, when the Boyarsky was closed and the Count had bid goodnight to Andrey and Emile, he climbed the stairs to the third floor, went halfway down the hall, took off his shoes, and then by means of Nina’s key slipped into suite 322 in his stocking feet.
Many years before, under a spell cast by a certain actress, the Count had dwelt for a time among