or “shock workers,” in the collectivization of the region. At the end of 1928, only 10 percent of the farms in Ivanovo had been operating as collectives. By the end of 1931, nearly all of them would be.
“For generations the kulaks have farmed the land for themselves, organizing the local peasant labor to their own ends. But the time has come for the common land to serve the common good. It is a historical necessity,” she added matter-of-factly, “an inevitability. After all, does a teacher only teach his own children? Does a physician only care for his parents?”
As Nina began this little speech, the Count was taken aback for a moment by her tone and terminology—by her exacting assessment of kulaks and the “inevitable” need for collectivization. But when she tucked her hair behind her ears, he realized that her fervor shouldn’t have come as a surprise. She was simply bringing to the Komsomol the same unwavering enthusiasm and precise attention to detail that she had brought to the mathematics of Professor Lisitsky. Nina Kulikova always was and would be a serious soul in search of serious ideas to be serious about.
Nina had told her comrades that she would only be a minute, but as she elaborated on the work that lay ahead, she seemed to forget that they were still standing on the other side of the potted palm.
With an inward smile, the Count noted over her shoulder that the handsome captain, having volunteered to wait for Nina, was sending the others on ahead—a reasonable gambit under any ideology.
“I should go,” she said, after drawing her remarks to a close.
“Yes. Absolutely,” replied the Count. “You must have a great deal to see to.”
In sober acknowledgment, she shook his hand; and when she turned, she barely seemed to notice that two of her comrades had already left—as if having a handsome fellow wait for her was something to which she had already become accustomed.
As the two young idealists left the hotel, the Count watched through the revolving doors. He watched as the young man spoke to Pavel, and Pavel signaled a taxi. But when the taxi appeared and the young man opened the door, Nina gestured across Theatre Square, indicating that she was headed in another direction. The handsome captain made a similar gesture, presumably offering to accompany her, but Nina shook his hand just as soberly as she had shaken the Count’s and then walked across the square in the general direction of historical necessity.
“Isn’t that more of a cream than a pearl?”
Together, the Count and Marina were staring at a spool that she had just taken from a drawer filled with threads in every possible shade of white.
“I am so sorry, Your Excellency,” Marina replied. “Now that you bring it to my attention, it does seem more creamy than pearly.”
The Count looked up from the spool into Marina’s stationary eye, which was filled with concern; but her wandering eye seemed filled with mirth. Then she laughed like a schoolgirl.
“Oh, give me that,” he said.
“Here,” she said in a conciliatory tone. “Let me.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Oh, come now.”
“I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself, thank you.”
But to the Count’s credit, he was not simply making a peevish point. He was, in fact, perfectly capable of doing it himself.
It stands to reason that if you wish to be a good waiter you must be master of your own appearance. You must be clean, well groomed, and graceful. But you must also be neatly dressed. You certainly can’t wander around the dining room with fraying collars or cuffs. And God forbid you should presume to serve with a dangling button—for next thing you knew, it would be floating in a customer’s vichyssoise. So, three weeks after joining the staff of the Boyarsky, the Count had asked Marina to teach him Arachne’s art. To be conservative, the Count had set aside an hour for the lesson. It ended up taking eight hours over the course of four weeks.
Who knew that there was such a plethora of stitches? The backstitch, cross-stitch, slip stitch, topstitch, whipstitch. Aristotle, Larousse, and Diderot—those great encyclopedists who spent their lives segmenting, cataloging, and defining all manner of phenomena—would never have imagined that there were so many, and each one suited to a different purpose!
With his creamy thread in hand, the Count settled himself into a chair; and when Marina held out her pincushion, he surveyed the needles as a child surveys chocolates in a box.