Chapter 44: A Newcomer
"Then shall we call this a pleasant cooperation? I inform the Foreign Affairs Committee, and you give me what I want."
Jörg pulled a cigarette from his silver case. The two men stood beneath the birch trees, smoking in the bitter cold as they looked out over the snowbound forest, where the hoarfrost had begun to melt beneath a weak winter light.
Their hands met.
In that brief handshake, Stalin secured his ticket to the summit of power, while Jörg won one of his most important wagers.
"A pleasant cooperation," Stalin said. "Mentor Lenin is waiting for you inside. Have a good meeting, Jörg."
He withdrew his hand and tamped out his pipe.
"You are a very interesting man. I hope that next time I see you, it will be in a higher position."
Jörg smiled faintly. "And if you do not see me next time?"
Faced with the joke, Stalin's lips curved upward. Snowflakes caught in his thick beard slipped quietly to the ground.
"Then I would be even happier," he said. "Because Germany would have saved me the trouble of dealing with a dangerous opponent."
Crunch.
A second floor window was pushed open. The medicinal scent drifting from inside immediately swallowed the lingering smell of tobacco.
Jörg looked up.
A thin, bald old man had appeared at the window.
The moment he saw Stalin's expression shift into instinctive respect, Jörg understood at once that his earlier suspicion had been wrong. There was no substitute, no political stand in.
The man on the second floor was the real Lenin.
Jörg crushed his cigarette beneath his heel.
He had just prepared to raise a hand in greeting when Lenin spoke first.
"Let him in, Stalin. So you are Roman? This is the first time I have seen such a young diplomat."
"And it is my first time seeing you, Mr. Lenin," Jörg replied. "You do not look like some lofty ruler at all. You look more like an ordinary man."
"An ordinary man?"
For the first time since waking, Lenin showed a genuine smile.
"Yes," he said, amused. "An ordinary man who is no longer young. Come up, boy. I would like to hear what you wish to discuss."
The window closed.
Only then did Stalin's rigid, respectful posture loosen, and he let out a long breath.
With a small wave, he signaled the hidden sentries on both sides to stand down, and Jörg walked into the villa.
The interior was simple to the point of austerity. It was not luxurious in the slightest. One could only say that it contained everything necessary and nothing more.
A hunting rifle still hung above the fireplace.
In a framed photograph nearby, Lenin stood laughing with a deer slung over one shoulder and a rifle in hand.
Yet compared to the man Jörg saw now, the Lenin in that picture was far more alive. The body was stronger, the face fuller, the force in his eyes less veiled by age and illness.
"That photograph was taken six or seven years ago, in October," Lenin said, noticing where Jörg's gaze had settled. "At the time, the formation of the Soviet government filled me with such exhilaration that I could not sleep. So after a full day of work, I slipped past the guards before dawn, took a camera, and went alone into the woods outside Moscow."
His voice softened with memory.
"That deer was the trophy. I prefer to call it Tsarist Russia. A hunter from the outskirts of Moscow helped me take the photograph. He was a simple, kind man, and afterwards he invited me into his log cabin for pine needle tea."
"You must have been very happy then," Jörg said.
He sat down casually in a wicker chair by the fireplace. Firelight flickered over the room as the young man and the old revolutionary, facing the same flames, began to speak as if they had known each other for years.
"I was," Lenin said. "Very happy. But I soon learned that governing a country is no easier than overthrowing a rotten regime."
He leaned back slightly in the wheelchair.
"I often think the time left for the Soviet has been too short, while the time left for myself has been too long. In the end, I simply moved my home into my office."
Jörg listened quietly.
His blue eyes, calm as still water, gave him the look of a young traveler listening to an old innkeeper recount the weight of a vanished age.
"Roman," Lenin said after a pause, "if you do not mind, I will call you comrade. Tell me, do you think my ideals were correct? Some call me stubborn. Some say I was indecisive. But I would rather hear the judgment of a young man who does not live inside the Soviet than the praises or complaints of those who do."
The question made Jörg hesitate.
For the first time that day, his thoughts did not come at once.
"Of course they were correct," he said at last. "By any reasonable measure, you gave new life to a nation that was rotting from within. But I think you placed too much trust in morality. As for the flaws others speak of, I would say this: human beings are never perfect, and it is precisely their imperfections that make transcendence possible."
"Transcendence..." Lenin murmured. "You are very interesting, Roman. Truly very interesting."
He repeated the word quietly, as if testing its weight.
For a moment his gaze drifted away, lost in some memory no one else in the room could see.
Then, as though remembering himself, he asked, "Now then, what official business did you want to discuss with me?"
"I have already spoken with Mr. Stalin," Jörg said. "He gave me a gift, and I returned the courtesy with one of my own."
"I see." Lenin's smile was faint, almost knowing. "So the two of you had a very pleasant conversation?"
Jörg nodded. "Mr. Stalin is also a very interesting man."
At the mention of Stalin, Lenin leaned deeper into his chair and spoke in the tone of an old teacher complaining about his unruly students.
"Yes. Stalin is very interesting. But he is too narrow in some ways. He tends to turn small wounds into great matters, and even when he acts, he likes to look over every path twice before taking a step."
He turned his head slightly.
"Have you met Trotsky?"
"Unfortunately not," Jörg said. "Mr. Trotsky appears to be unwell and is recovering in a sanatorium."
Lenin gave a small, thoughtful nod.
"Then he is simply the other side of the same coin. Too fond of administration, too ready at times to make very foolish mistakes."
A tired smile crossed his face.
"But as you said, no one in this world is perfect. Every man has faults, and one may only correct them little by little while trying to approach something better."
He fell silent for a while.
Then he asked, very softly:
"In my current condition, I cannot wait for them to become what I would wish them to be. Who do you think ought to succeed me?"
Jörg said nothing.
Lenin noticed the silence and added, "Do not worry. I am only asking. If you do not wish to answer, you need not."
Jörg thought for a long time.
This was not a question that history itself had ever answered cleanly, and he had no intention of pretending otherwise.
In the end, he shook his head slightly.
"From a personal standpoint, I would naturally lean toward Mr. Stalin. We have, after all, spoken rather well."
Lenin listened without interruption.
"But from the standpoint of the state, frankly speaking, I do not think it matters much to Germany which of them takes power. Under the current direction of Soviet German relations, the broad line remains the same."
Lenin nodded, then looked toward the clearing sky beyond the frost edged window. The clock continued ticking in the quiet.
"It is getting late, Comrade Roman," he said. "You should go back. If you remain any longer, someone will be displeased."
Jörg rose to his feet.
"Take care of yourself, Mr. Lenin. You are the soul of the Soviet."
After a respectful bow, he turned and slowly left the room.
The sound of his footsteps faded.
Only then did Lenin look back toward the sheet of freshly drafted transfer orders concerning Stalin. He stared at it for a long time.
"Stalin, is it..."
The rest of the thought never fully formed.
With a quiet shake of his head, he fed the document to the fire.
The paper curled, blackened, and vanished into new flames.
.....
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