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Apotheosis; Afterword: Afterwards . . . ; & And Anon

Summary: Apotheosis

The next evening, the Count steals a raincoat and fedora from the coatroom, packs a rucksack with a few essentials (including wine to toast Mishka with in 1963), and seats himself in the lobby.

Sofia’s performance in Paris is divine. As the next performer takes the stage, she proceeds to a bathroom and changes into the shirt and pants from her knapsack. Unfortunately, there are no men’s shoes. She dyes the streak in her hair with the Fountain of Youth liquid, then cuts her hair short with her father’s egret-shaped scissors. Slipping on the newsboy cap, she steps out a back exit into the Paris night. Using the map, she makes her way, barefoot, to the American Embassy, where she asks Richard Vanderwhile for asylum. 

Sofia gives Richard her knapsack, in exchange for a parcel the Count passed to him via Webster months ago. The parcel contains Montaigne’s Essays, which in turn contain a compartment with gold coins. In the knapsack, sewn into hidden location, are the Count’s detailed notes on the meeting of the two committees, plus instructions for notifying the Count that Sofia is safe. Richard hastily assembles a team of people to make some phone calls.

In the Metropol, a phone rings, then another, and quickly the hotel fills with the sound of phones demanding to be answered. In the resulting commotion, the Count, dressed in a coat and fedora, walks out the front door.

AFTERWORD

Summary: Afterwards . . .

In a café inside the St. Petersburg train station, the Count meets Viktor, whom he has asked one last favor. An hour later, Viktor takes a train to Vyborg, near the Finnish border, leaves the hat and fedora, and the guide to Finland with the maps torn out, in a washroom, and takes the next train back to Moscow.

KGB officers come to the Metropol to question the Count, but he cannot be found, and his associates know nothing. Marina, Audrius, Vasily, Emile, and Andrey subsequently receive goodbye letters from the Count, with gold coins as parting gifts. The next afternoon, Osip, now a high KGB official, receives a report: a young Conservatory student has defected in Paris, and her guardian is missing from the Metropol. Acting on a tip from the hotel manager, who was found locked in a basement room, investigators have found evidence in Vyborg that the guardian crossed over into Finland. Smiling almost imperceptibly, Osip responds to the report with a line from Casablanca: “Round up the usual suspects.”

Summary: And Anon

After several days’ walk, the Count arrives at his old family property in Nizhny Novgorod Province. He chats with two youngsters, a brother and his younger sister, who are playing in the apple trees. They take him to where Idlehour once stood and the burned-out remnants are still visible. Wishing the youngsters well, the Count makes his way to a nearby village. In a tavern, seated in a corner at a table for two, Anna Urbanova is waiting for him.

Analysis: Apotheosis; Afterword: Afterwards . . . ; & And Anon

By using Casablanca as reference, the story concludes with its central theme of Fate and Fortune at the forefront of the characters’ lives. While Fate put Richard Vanderwhile at the American Embassy in Paris, it is up to the Count and Sofia to take action in the service of Fortune. The egret scissors appear once more and offer Sofia her freedom as she cuts her hair to change her appearance, but only through action and adaptation, contributing to Sofia's ongoing transformation. The Count’s escape is just as elaborate, and with all the phones of the Metropol ringing, mirroring the chime of his twice-tolling clock, he slips out of the hotel in a grand, yet ghost-like exit. The Count is dressed like Humphrey Bogart, the star of Casablanca, in the hat and coat he stole. By encompassing the disparate parts of his life, his experience, his nobility of birth, and his willingness to change, the Count is able to marshal the fortuitous hand of Fate when it is extended by his ability to take action. A life unwanted was transformed into one well-lived and ultimately fulfilling.

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