Until, suddenly, that long-strided watchman of the minutes caught up with his bowlegged brother at the top of the dial. As the two embraced, the springs within the clock’s casing loosened, the wheels spun, and the miniature hammer fell, setting off the first of those dulcet tones that signaled the arrival of noon.
The front feet of the Count’s chair fell to the floor with a bang, and Monsieur Montaigne turned twice in the air before landing on the bedcovers. By the fourth chime the Count was rounding the belfry stairs, and by the eighth he was passing the lobby en route to the lower floor for his weekly appointment with Yaroslav Yaroslavl, the peerless barber of the Metropol Hotel.
For over two centuries (or so historians tell us), it was from the St. Petersburg salons that our country’s culture advanced. From those great rooms overlooking the Fontanka Canal, new cuisines, fashions, and ideas all took their first tentative steps into Russian society. But if this was so, it was largely due to the hive of activity beneath the parlor floors. For there, just a few steps below street level, were the butlers, cooks, and footmen who together ensured that when the notions of Darwin or Manet were first bandied about, all went off without a hitch.
And so it was in the Metropol.
Ever since its opening in 1905, the hotel’s suites and restaurants had been a gathering spot for the glamorous, influential, and erudite; but the effortless elegance on display would not have existed without the services of the lower floor:
Coming off the wide marble steps that descended from the lobby, one first passed the newsstand, which offered a gentleman a hundred headlines, albeit now just in Russian.
Next was the shop of Fatima Federova, the florist. A natural casualty of the times, Fatima’s shelves had been emptied and her windows papered over back in 1920, turning one of the hotel’s brightest spots into one of its most forlorn. But in its day, the shop had sold flowers by the acre. It had provided the towering arrangements for the lobby, the lilies for the rooms, the bouquets of roses that were tossed at the feet of the Bolshoi ballerinas, as well as the boutonnieres on the men who did the tossing. What’s more, Fatima was fluent in the floral codes that had governed polite society since the Age of Chivalry. Not only did she know the flower that should be sent as an apology, she knew which flower to send when one has been late; when one has spoken out of turn; and when, having taking notice of the young lady at the door, one has carelessly overtrumped one’s partner. In short, Fatima knew a flower’s fragrance, color, and purpose better than a bee.
Well, Fatima’s may have been shuttered, reflected the Count, but weren’t the flower shops of Paris shuttered under the “reign” of Robespierre, and didn’t that city now abound in blossoms? Just so, the time for flowers in the Metropol would surely come again.
At the very end of the hall, one finally came to Yaroslav’s barbershop. A land of optimism, precision, and political neutrality, it was the Switzerland of the hotel. If the Count had vowed to master his circumstances through practicalities, then here was a glimpse of the means: a religiously kept appointment for a weekly trim.
When the Count entered the shop, Yaroslav was attending to a silver-haired customer in a light gray suit while a heavyset fellow in a rumpled jacket bided his time on the bench by the wall. Greeting the Count with a smile, the barber directed him to the empty chair at his side.
As the Count climbed into the chair, he offered a friendly nod to the heavyset fellow, then leaned back and let his eyes settle on that marvel of Yaroslav’s shop: his cabinet. Were one to ask Larousse to define the word cabinet, the acclaimed lexicographer might reply: A piece of furniture often adorned with decorative detail in which items may be stowed away from sight. A serviceable definition, no doubt—one that would encompass everything from a kitchen cupboard in the countryside to a Chippendale in Buckingham Palace. But Yaroslav’s cabinet would not fit so neatly into such a description, for having been made solely of nickel and glass it had been designed not to hide its contents, but to reveal them to the naked eye.
And rightfully so. For this cabinet could be proud of all it contained: French soaps wrapped in waxed papers; British lathers in ivory drums; Italian tonics in whimsically shaped vials. And hidden in the back? That little black bottle that Yaroslav referred to with a wink as the Fountain of Youth.
In the mirror’s reflection, the Count now let his gaze shift to where Yaroslav was working his magic on the silver-haired gentleman with two sets of scissors simultaneously. In Yaroslav’s hands, the scissors initially recalled the entrechat of the danseur in a ballet, his legs switching back and forth in midair. But as the barber progressed, his hands moved with increasing speed until they leapt and kicked like a Cossack doing the hopak! Upon the execution of the final snip, it would have been perfectly appropriate for a curtain to drop only to be raised again a moment later so that the audience could applaud as the barber took a bow.
Yaroslav swung the white cape off his customer and snapped it in the air; he clicked his heels when accepting payment for a job well done; and as the gentleman exited the shop (looking younger and more distinguished than when he’d arrived), the barber approached the Count with a fresh cape.
“Your Excellency. How are you?”
“Splendid, Yaroslav. At my utmost.”
“And what is on the docket for today?”
“Just a trim, my friend. Just a trim.”
As the scissors began their delicate snipping, it seemed to the Count that the heavyset customer on the bench had undergone something of a transformation. Although the Count had given his friendly nod just moments before, in the interim the fellow’s face seemed to have taken on a rosier hue. The Count was sure of it, in fact, because the color was spreading to his ears.
The Count tried to make eye contact again, intending to offer another friendly nod, but the fellow had fixed his gaze on Yaroslav’s back.
“I was next,” he said.
Yaroslav, who like most artists tended to lose himself in his craft, continued clipping away with efficiency and grace. So, the fellow was forced to repeat himself, if a little more emphatically.
“I was next.”
Drawn from his artistic spell by the sharper intonation, Yaroslav offered a courteous reply:
“I will be with you in just a moment, sir.”
“That is what you said when I arrived.”
This was said with such unmistakable hostility that Yaroslav paused in his clipping and turned to meet his customer’s glare with a startled expression.
Though the Count had been raised never to interrupt a conversation, he felt that the barber should not be put in the position of having to explain the situation on his behalf. So, he interceded:
“Yaroslav meant no offense, my good man. It just so happens that I have a standing appointment at twelve o’clock on Tuesdays.”
The fellow now turned his glare upon the Count.
“A standing appointment,” he repeated.
“Yes.”
Then he rose so abruptly that he knocked his bench back into the wall. At full height, he was no more than five foot six. His fists, which jutted from the cuffs of his jacket, were as red as his ears. When he advanced a step, Yaroslav backed against the edge of his counter. The fellow took another step toward the barber and wrested one of the scissors from his hand. Then, with the deftness of a much slighter man, he turned, took the Count by the collar, and severed the right wing of his moustaches with a single snip. Tightening his hold, he pulled the Count forward until they were nearly nose to nose.
“You’ll have your appointment soon enough,” he said.
Then shoving the Count back in the chair, he tossed the scissors on the floor and strolled from the shop.
“Your Excellency,” exclaimed Yaroslav, aghast. “I have never seen the man in my life. I don’t even know if he resides in the hotel. But he is not welcome here again, I assure you of that.”