door. When he tipped it over Emile’s unused teacup, out poured filaments of a red and golden hue.
The three men were silent for a moment.
Emile sat back.
“Bravo,” he said again.
“May I?” asked Andrey.
“Certainly.”
Andrey picked up the teacup and tipped it back and forth. Then he replaced it so gently on its saucer that the porcelain didn’t make a sound.
“Is it enough?”
Having watched the filaments spill from the envelope, the chef didn’t need a second look.
“Without a doubt.”
“Do we still have the fennel?”
“There are a few bulbs at the back of the larder. We’ll have to discard the outer leaves, but otherwise they’re fine.”
“Did you hear back about the oranges?” asked the Count.
With a somber look, the chef shook his head.
“How many would we need?” asked Andrey.
“Two. Maybe three.”
“I think I know where some can be found. . . .”
“Can they be found today?” asked the chef.
Andrey pulled the pocket watch from his vest and consulted it in the palm of his hand.
“With any luck.”
Where would Andrey be able to acquire three oranges on such short notice? Another restaurant? One of the special stores for hard currencies? A patron in the upper echelons of the Party? Well, for that matter, where did the Count acquire an ounce and a half of saffron? Such questions had stopped being asked years ago. Suffice it to say, the saffron was in hand and the oranges within reach.
The three conspirators exchanged satisfied glances and then pushed back their chairs. Andrey put his glasses back on his head as Emile turned to the Count.
“You’ll get the menus in their hands directly and their orders taken promptly, eh? No malingering?”
“No malingering.”
“Well then,” concluded the chef. “We meet at half past twelve.”
When the Count left the Boyarsky with his white jacket draped across his arm, there was a smile on his lips and a jauntiness to his step. In fact, there was a brightness in his whole demeanor.
“Greetings, Grisha,” he said as he passed the bellhop (who was on his way up the stairs with a vase of tiger lilies two feet tall).
“Guten tag,” he said to the lovely young Fraulein in the lavender blouse (who was waiting by the elevator door).
The Count’s good humor was due in part, no doubt, to the reading on the thermometer. Over the previous three weeks, the temperature had climbed four and a half degrees, setting in motion that course of natural and human events which culminates in hints of mint in cucumber soups, lavender blouses at elevator doors, and midday deliveries of tiger lilies two feet tall. Also lightening his step were the promises of an afternoon assignation and a midnight rendezvous. But the factor that most directly contributed to the Count’s good humor was the double bravo from Emile. This was something that had occurred only once or twice in four years.
Passing through the lobby, the Count returned the friendly wave from the new fellow at the mail window and hailed Vasily, who was hanging up his phone (having undoubtedly secured another two tickets for some sold-out performance).
“Good afternoon, my friend. Hard at work I see.”
In acknowledgment, the concierge gestured to the lobby, which bustled almost as much as it had in its prewar prime. As if on cue, the telephone on his desk began to ring, the bellhop’s bell triple-chimed, and someone called out, “Comrade! Comrade!”
Ah, comrade, thought the Count. Now, there was a word for the ages. . . .
When the Count was a boy in St. Petersburg, one rarely bumped into it. It was always prowling at the back of a mill or under the table in a tavern, occasionally leaving its paw marks on the freshly printed pamphlets that were drying on a basement floor. Now, thirty years later, it was the most commonly heard word in the Russian language.
A wonder of semantic efficiency, comrade could be used as a greeting, or a word of parting. As a congratulations, or a caution. As a call to action, or a remonstrance. Or it could simply be the means of securing someone’s attention in the crowded lobby of a grand hotel. And thanks to the word’s versatility, the Russian people had finally been able to dispense with tired formalities, antiquated titles, bothersome idioms—even names! Where else in all of Europe could one shout a single word to hail any of one’s countrymen be they male or female, young or old, friend or foe?
“Comrade!” someone called again—this time with a little more urgency. And then he tugged on the