A Granddaughter In Moscow

It was the noise outside the hotel that woke her. Was it a horse? Maybe it was bells that invaded her sleep. No matter, it was daylight, and she had appointments on this first day of the new year. She reached for her cell phone on the bedside table and discovered she had failed to connect it to the charger. The phone still responded when she picked it up, but there was no greeting with the time and date on the screen. She put it down and stretched herself awake. The phone would charge while she was in the shower. As she pulled back the sheet and blanket, she discovered the room was rather cold. She reached for her robe on the foot of the bed, stood and looked for the thermostat. It was still too dark to see, and she was not wearing her glasses. First things first, she said to herself, put on slippers and glasses, plug in the phone charger, and turn up the room heat. A cup of coffee would be nice.

Nina was the guest pianist at the Moscow Symphony Orchestra for the last concert of 2019. The symphony company invited her to play both the New Year’s Eve concert and the first concert of the 2020 season, which would be on January 2. In addition to transportation, the stipend included a suite at the Metropol Hotel. Money was no longer Nina’s main priority after a long career as a professional pianist. Following the concert, a limousine took her back to the hotel, where she changed clothes so she could join the New Year’s Eve party in the Shalyapin Bar hosted by the Orchestra conductor and several patrons. It was a wonderful night of music, food, and just the right amount of Russian vodka. The Metropol Hotel lived up to its legendary attention to detail.

Nina put on her glasses and upon inspection, realized the room did not look familiar. The clothes she wore to the New Year’s Eve party were on the desk chair with her purse, but nothing else was familiar. The only explanation was that after the party, she had somehow gained entrance to the wrong room. Most likely, she was on the wrong floor, which did not explain why her key card had allowed her to enter the wrong room. It was time to call the front desk to sort out this mix up of rooms. She would quickly dress, use the restroom facilities and put a brush through her hair. She put on her slippers and walked across the room to the bathroom only to discover that not only was the door closed, but it was also locked. Nina decided the next best thing to do was to call the front desk. She knew just enough Russian to convey what was hard to explain in any language. She went to the desk beside the bed and started to put on her clothes when she realized the telephone she used yesterday was missing. She picked up her cell phone and tapped the phone icon, but it was showing no connection to cell service. The coffee maker next to the TV was missing, as was the TV. This was not a good start to the new year.

Nina put on her dress shoes, did her best to untangle her hair, and checked to make sure the room key card was in her purse. She put the cell phone in her purse more out of habit than necessity. She left the room and headed for the elevators down the hall. As she was walking down the poorly lit hallway, a man descended the stairway just a few steps ahead of her and paused on the landing. He was tall and dressed in an old-style Russian military uniform with a dress sword and black riding boots. Nina concluded he must have been one of the survivors of the costume ball in the Red Hall last evening. As she approached, the man gave a slight bow and said something in Russian that she did not fully understand. Nina was thankful that in the dim light he could not see her without makeup and combed hair, she smiled and continued walking past him to the elevators. The man waited a few seconds after she passed and continued his journey down the stairs.

After an unsuccessful search for the elevators, Nina hurriedly returned to her room to consider the options. The door was locked, and the key card not only didn’t work, but there was also no mechanism on the door for such a device. The door needed a key much like the skeleton keys in the ancient homes she saw as a child in New York. Then she noticed there was no room number on the door. Looking around at the other doors, she found the room numbers were all missing. Some rooms had words written in Russian, but most were unmarked. She stood before an unmarked locked door in the cold and poorly lit hallway, unable to go back to what she thought was her room and unable to find the elevators she used only hours before. It was time to get help at the concierge desk of the hotel.

She carefully descended the uncarpeted stairs, finding that each hallway appeared darker than the one above. The only sound was that of her shoes on the wood stairs. Finally, she reached the first floor and was disheartened to see the lobby was empty. There was no staff, no guests and the only lighting was the early daylight through exterior windows. The reception counter was like a silent sentinel standing in an empty room. There were no chairs, no furniture, no art objects and no paintings on the walls. The famous hotel floral arrangements were missing. Everything was gray and the marble tile floor was dusty.

             “Hello,” she called out as she slowly looked around and walked toward the front door. Then she switched to her best Russian version of hello and called out again.

She was startled by the sound of a door opening behind her and a male voice respond in Russian. “How may I help you?” he asked.

She turned and saw the same young man in the military uniform she saw minutes ago outside her suite. He stood by a door behind the reception counter.

Nina slowly walked to the counter and said in English, “I’m having difficulty with my room.”

The man switched to English and said, “I’m sure you are since this is not a residence for civilians as you seem to believe it to be. May I ask who you are a why you are here?”

His manner was polite, but his reply was somewhat direct, Nina thought.

“I’m Nina Kulikova and I am here as the guest pianist of the Moscow Symphony Orchestra,” she replied with hesitation and then continued. “When you saw me on the fifth floor, I had just left what I thought was my suite, but nothing is as it was when I retired last night,” she explained.

The man slowly approached the opposite side of the reception counter and Nina could see by his manner that she had no reason to be concerned about his intentions. Now that he was closer, Nina could see his light brown well-trimmed mustache that covered parts of his upper lip. A full head of hair framed his bright green eyes set above high cheekbones.  

“You have a Russian name, but you are not Russian,” he observed.

“Why yes, my mother was Russian and came to the United States from Moscow.”

“And you believe this is the Metropol Hotel?” he suggested.

“Yes, of course,” she replied. “But the suite I stayed in for the past two days is not the same as today. This lobby and everything around me is not the same as it was before the New Year,” she explained, realizing how strange this sounded even as she spoke the words.

“Miss Kulikova, this is no longer the Metropol Hotel, it is now the Second House of Soviets and serves as quarters and offices of the Bolshevik Army,” he informed her.

Bolshevik Army! Nina stared as the man, unsure she heard his Russian accented English explanation correctly.

“Sir, who are you and what is your name,” she demanded.

The man straightened his already erect posture. “I am Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov,” he said with confidence. “I am assigned to the Red Army as second in command at this headquarters.”  

“I don’t understand what you mean when you say the Red Army.”

“The revolution,” he explained. “The Bolshevik Army has taken over this hotel and turned it into headquarters.”

As he was speaking, Nina suddenly realized the man’s name is one she heard before. She heard it repeatedly from her mother since she was a child.

“Count Rostov, I am the granddaughter of Nina Kulikova and daughter of Sofia Kulikova. Do those names mean anything to you?” she asked with a sense of urgency in her voice.

He thought a moment and leaned over the reception counter to look at her more closely. “I regret to say I do not recognize those names,” he said finally.

“And you are too young to be the same man, but you have the same name,” she tried to explain more to herself than to the soldier.

“In all of Russia, I do not believe there is another Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov,” he assured her.

Nina thought a minute and realized all of this was not solving the problem of how to get back to her suite. “I’m sorry, Count Rostov. All of this happened in the 1950s, so the Count Rostov my mother told me about must have been another person.”

For the first time, this very self-assured soldier showed emotion as color came to his cheeks and his hands dropped straight to his sides. “Perhaps we are having a language problem,” he suggested. “You are talking about things in the future as though they were in the past.”

“My mother was born in Russia in the 1930s and came to America in the 1950s,” Nina explained. “She was a talented piano player and Count Rostov, who at the time lived in the Metropol Hotel, helped her escape the Soviet Union. That is why I say it must have been a person with the same name as you.”

The soldier continued to peer at her with concern and fascination, determined to defend his name and title. “May I show you today’s newspaper?” he asked. “It arrived early this morning.” Without waiting for her answer, he went back through the door from which he arrived. He returned carrying a broadsheet newspaper and laid it out on top of the counter before her. It was the Pravda, still folded and just below the Nameplate was the date ‘January 1, 1920.’ Although Nina had only rudimentary skills at reading Russian, there was no doubt about the date.

Nina stared at the newspaper. She looked around the room as though to match the date with her surroundings. She walked to the hotel mahogany double doors with glass panels and looked out into the street. She saw people dressed like something from the Doctor Zhivago movie. People in wagons drawn by horses. As she looked at the people in the street, she realized the young man was speaking to her.

“Tell me about this Soviet Union,” he said.

Turning from the door, Nina slowly walked back to the reception counter and again gazed at the newspaper. “How long ago was the October Revolution?” she asked, without answering his question.

“This year will be the third anniversary,” the soldier replied.

“And the Emperor, the Romanov family – what of them?” she asked, still staring at the newspaper.

“Killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918,” he advised.

Nina looked away from the newspaper and raised her eyes to the young soldier. “If you are part of the Russian aristocracy, what are you doing here?”

The man nodded, indicating he understood the import of her question. “I am useful to the Bolshevik authorities as a military officer with a title. I am on house arrest as a means of being under control and given duties that require administrative skill with logistics,” he explained without any display of emotion.

“You will survive this,” Nina offered. “To answer your question, the Soviet Union is created by the Bolsheviks after the revolution. Unlike you, the Soviet Union does not survive the twentieth century and is replaced by Russia as a nation, but not an empire.”

“You speak of things you wish for, or things you know?” he inquired.

“May I call you Alexander?”

“Certainly,” he replied.

“Alexander, I went to bed last night on December 31, 2019, at the Metropol Hotel after playing piano with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra at the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. I appreciate this is hard for you to believe, just as it is hard to believe my circumstances this first morning of the new year. We are both victims of something we cannot control,” she concluded.   

Alexander and Nina looked at each other across the reception counter. Separated by age, language, culture, and one hundred years, they continued to talk about his future and her past, which they had in common. The soldier read some of the headlines to her, further confirming their mutual place in time and space.

After some time, Nina reflexively looked at her watch, which was not on her wrist because it was up in her suite. She looked around the room for a clock and saw none. Alexander noticed she was anxious about the time and pulled out his pocket watch and told her it was approximately half-past nine.

“I have an appointment at the Moscow Conservatory,” she informed him.  

“Yes, but in 1920 or 2020?” he asked with a grin.

Nina smiled but remained determined to move forward with life in her own time frame. “Would you be so kind as to accompany me to my suite so I can pack the personal belongings I can find?” she asked.

“It will be my pleasure, but where are you going after you pack your belongings?”

“I intend to keep my appointments,” she replied.

They walked up to her suite, and the Count let her in the room with a master key and waited outside. A few minutes later Nina opened the door and he took her suitcase. They descended back to the lobby and she thanked him for his hospitality.

“Alexander, thank you for your courtesy and for the kindness you did show or will bestow on my mother and grandmother. You are a gentleman. May I give you a word of advice?” she asked.

He smiled, nodded his consent and stood before her with his hands clasped behind his back.

“Adversity presents itself in many forms, and if a man does not learn to master his circumstances, then he is bound to be mastered by them.”

Alexander’s smile turned to a grin as he took Nina’s hand, kissed it and thanked her for the advice. He walked her to the door, took her overcoat, and held it out for her. Nina slipped her arms into the sleeves and he used his master key to open one of the doors. She picked up her suitcase and walked out of the hotel and out of his life.  

Tom Moser

1-3-2020