“On the contrary. I found them to be the perfect height. But tell me, my friend, what brings you to Moscow?”
“Nominally, Sasha, I am here to help plan the inaugural congress of RAPP, which is to be held in June. But of greater consequence . . .”
Here Mishka reached into a shoulder satchel and produced a bottle of wine with an image of two crossed keys embossed in the glass above the label.
“I hope I am not too late.”
The Count took the bottle in hand. He ran his thumb over the surface of the insignia. Then he shook his head with the smile of the deeply moved.
“No, Mishka. As always, you are right on time.” Then he led his old friend through his jackets.
As the Count excused himself to rinse a pair of glasses from the Ambassador, Mishka surveyed his friend’s study with a sympathetic gaze. For the tables, the chairs, the objets d’art, he recognized them all. And well he knew that they had been culled from the halls of Idlehour as reminders of Elysian days.
It must have been in 1908 that Alexander began inviting him to Idlehour for the month of July. Having traveled from St. Petersburg by a series of consecutively smaller trains, they would finally arrive at that little halt in the high grass on the branch line, where they would be met by a Rostov coach-and-four. With their bags on top, the driver in the carriage, and Alexander at the reins, they would charge across the countryside waving at every peasant girl until they turned onto the road lined with apple trees that led to the family seat.
As they shed their coats in the entry hall, their bags would be whisked to the grand bedrooms of the east wing, where velvet cords could be pulled to summon a cold glass of beer, or hot water for a bath. But first, they would proceed to the drawing room where—at this very table with its red pagoda—the Countess would be hosting some blue-blooded neighbor for tea.
Invariably dressed in black, the Countess was one of those dowagers whose natural independence of mind, authority of age, and impatience with the petty made her the ally of all irreverent youth. She would not only abide, but enjoyed when her grandson would interrupt polite conversation to question the standing of the church or the ruling class. And when her guest grew red and responded in a huff, the Countess would give Mishka a conspiratorial wink, as if they stood arm in arm in the battle against boorish decorum and the outmoded attitudes of the times.
Having paid their respects to the Countess, Mishka and Alexander would head out the terrace doors in search of Helena. Sometimes they would find her under the pergola overlooking the gardens and sometimes under the elm tree at the bend in the river; but wherever they found her, at the sound of their approach she would look up from her book and offer a welcoming smile—not unlike the one captured in this portrait on the wall.
With Helena, Alexander was always his most outlandish, claiming as he collapsed on the grass that they had just met Tolstoy on the train; or that he had decided after careful consideration to join a monastery and take an eternal vow of silence. Immediately. Without a moment’s delay. Or, as soon as they’d had lunch.
“Do you really think that silence would suit you?” Helena would ask.
“Like deafness suited Beethoven.”
Then, after casting a friendly glance at Mishka, Helena would laugh, look back at her brother, and ask, “What is to become of you, Alexander?”
They all asked that question of the Count. Helena, the Countess, the Grand Duke. What is to become of you, Alexander? But they asked it in three different ways.
For the Grand Duke the question was, of course, rhetorical. Confronted with a report of a failed semester or an unpaid bill, the Grand Duke would summon his godson to his library, read the letter aloud, drop it on his desk, and ask the question without expectation of a response, knowing full well that the answer was imprisonment, bankruptcy, or both.
For his grandmother, who tended to ask the question when the Count had said something particularly scandalous, What is to become of you, Alexander? was an admission to all in earshot that here was her favorite, so you needn’t expect her to rein in his behavior.