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An Alliance; Absinthe; Addendum; 1938 / An Arrival; & Adjustments

Summary: An Alliance

That same evening, when the first round of Boyarsky dinner guests has been served, a guest in the Yellow Room asks for the Count by name. The guest is a man in a gray suit who instructs the Count to dine with him. The man knows the Count’s background and invites the Count to guess at his. The Count correctly describes the man as a former colonel, fortyish, from eastern Georgia. But, the man wants to know, does the Count consider him a gentleman? No, the Count answers after brief hesitation, because of the man’s table manners and failure to introduce himself. The man’s choice of a wine from his homeland, however, was perfectly appropriate. (Wine labels were restored in 1927, after a Central Committee member was unable to order a Bordeaux for the French ambassador.)

The man is Osip Glebnikov, a Party officer. As the Soviet Union establishes diplomatic relations with other nations, people like him need to understand their Western counterparts—to speak their languages but also to know how they see the world and what they value. Glebnikov wants the Count to be his tutor—discreetly. Since Glebnikov is a Boyarsky guest, the Count replies, he is already at Glebnikov’s service. 

Summary: Absinthe

Shortly after midnight, the Shalyapin is alive with jazz music and the chatter of foreign journalists. Aware that the bar’s hostesses are government informants, the journalists compete in fabricating elaborate stories to work into their conversations. The Count orders a glass of absinthe from Audrius. He manages to conceal the glass when unexpectedly confronted by the Bishop, who, suspicious, follows the Count into the Boyarsky kitchen and wants to know what the Count, Andrey, and Emile would be doing there at such a late hour. Inventory, they declare, before Emile’s threatening manner drives the Bishop away.

The absinthe combines with the saffron, and the oranges and fennel, and many other ingredients to produce a heavenly bouillabaisse the three friends have been scheming for almost three years to make. As they enjoy the soup, they talk about their past lives. Volunteering that he was once with the circus, Andrey gives a juggling demonstration—first with oranges, then, effortlessly, with knives.

Back in his room, drunk, the Count tells the portrait of Helena on his wall that Marina was right: life catches one. It brought Katerina to Mishka. It took Andrey to the circus. It will pay Nina a visit, too.

The count cannot find Mishka’s letter, which has fallen behind a bookcase. The second half, which the Count will never see, gives the real reason for Mishka’s despair—not that Katerina left him, but that the famous poet Mayakovsky committed suicide.

Summary: Addendum

That same morning, Nina and her comrades travel east to help modernize farms in Ivanovo. She is full of optimism, unaware that millions will starve because of the program she is so enthusiastic about.

Summary: 1938 / An Arrival

On June twentieth, a voice calls to the Count in the lobby. It is Nina. Matter-of-factly, but with haste, she describes her desperate situation: she has been married for six years, to Leo (the fellow the Count saw wearing a sailor cap); they have a daughter, Sofia (seated nearby); Leo has been arrested and sentenced to five years corrective labor in Siberia (for an unspecified crime); Nina plans to follow him there and needs time to find work and a place to live; and therefore, for the next month or two, she needs the Count to care for Sofia.

The Count agrees without a second thought. After Nina has said a tender goodbye to Sofia and handed the Count a bag with Sofia’s things, she quickly walks away. The Count takes Sofia, tearful and exhausted, up to his quarters, where she falls asleep in his bed before he can get one set up for her.

Summary: Adjustments

The next morning, Sofia, dark-haired and dark-eyed, is at first unnervingly quiet. The Count is prepared to satisfy her curiosity about elephants, but she cuts him off upon learning that he has never seen one. She does not wish to hear about princesses. Surely, the Count tells himself, he can learn to make conversation with a small child. And if she clutters up his personal space and disrupts his routine, surely he can adapt to her needs and habits.

An envelope arrives: “Three o’clock?”

When the clock on the mantle strikes noon, the Count takes Sofia to the Piazza. Over lunch, conversation begins to flow. The Count explains that his clock only strikes twice a day: at noon, to congratulate the owner on a morning well spent, and at midnight, to chide anyone who hears it for still being up. In response to Sofia’s questions about his former life, the Count describes his family and its traditions, and the physical layout of his family’s estate, Idlehour. Martyn, a new waiter with a child of his own, discreetly coaches the Count on matters like cutting meat into small bites and ensuring timely access to a toilet.

Analysis: An Alliance; Absinthe; Addendum; 1938 / An Arrival; & Adjustments

The Metropol symbolizes an oasis from the turmoil outside its doors. In a rare moment of seeing a character outside the hotel in present day, Emile is melancholic when he is away from the Metropol. Once back in his beloved kitchen and practicing his art, his mood shifts back to contentment and, at times, joy. This notion of the familiarity of home carries through many aspects of the hotel, and another example is seen when the Count is called to the Yellow Room. Considering the subtle hand of Fate, the narrative suggests that if the Count hadn’t shed his nobility and joined the working class as a waiter, he would not have been called to this meeting with Osip Glebnikov. The Bolsheviks’ disposal of the aristocracy subsequently alienated them to foreign relations. Now, as they find they may have stunted their ability to make important, diplomatic connections with other nations, Glebnikov requests that the Count train him in the ways of gentlemen so that he can learn more about Western culture. Only in the Metropol oasis can officer and civilian indulge in actions ostensibly forbidden by those in charge of the Soviet Union.

In a time when everything the characters love seems to be dying, truly living is a bold and daring act. When the Bishop threatens to shut the Triumvirate down, Emile stands up for them and chases him off. Together, they indulge in a meal that has not been attainable since before the revolution, each daring to gather all the ingredients in secret. Their camaraderie, which is chosen by them and not by the state, echoes the ecosystem that has been established within the walls of the hotel. Even as the world seems to collapse and rebuild itself outside the walls, the personal connections that exist within the hotel provide a kind of solace, and their friendship is an act of bravery in the face of forces determined to create relationships that are both purely transactional and in service only to the state. The Count reflects how Death comes for man, but so too does Life, and this meal is a celebration of that sentiment. Even as life is being celebrated, in an ominous turn, Mishka's letter describes the suicide of his favorite poet, and thus these moments of life—and subsequently, art—continue to be threatened.

With Nina's return to The Metropol intersecting with her work on behalf of the Bolsheviks, the hotel becomes a metaphor for the country with its elaborate displays of normalcy and wealth, but with secret doors and a hidden world underneath. With a public relations arm working to convince the world of its successes and prosperity, the Soviet Union is also filled with starving peasants. With no one looking too closely at most of the enormous country, it is simpler to take from the poor and use their dwindling resources to prop up the images of the cities. Like the hotel itself, its outward solidity and stolidness a credit to its strength and foundation, if one looks closer at the Soviet Union, the reality is a worn shabbiness run through with secret places full of people you cannot fully control.

The Metropol is also an oasis, somewhere in which Nina can trust that, even if she makes an unprompted and unreasonable request, such as putting her young daughter in the care of the Count, it will be immediately met. Sofia, Nina’s daughter, incites a renewed interest in the importance of history that the Count thought was lost. Sofia is the first person the Count has interacted with who has no memory of life before the Bolshevik Revolution. With this new generation, his history is in danger of being completely erased. Sofia is deeply interested in what the Count has experienced and not in what can be read about in books. This curiosity allows the Count to tell his stories and pass down his history to the next generation so it is not forgotten. With the discussion of his clock, he is transported through time in his memory, but he also connects to a more youthful version of himself who is not stuck in his ways. The hotel, and the Count himself, are safe repositories of strength, compassion, and history, twin beacons in the fog of changing times.

 

 

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