"Then shall we call this a pleasant cooperation? I inform the Foreign Affairs Committee, and you give what I want."
Jörg pulled a cigarette from his silver case. The two n stood beneath the birch trees, smoking in the bitter cold as they looked out over the snowbound forest, where the hoarfrost had begun to lt beneath a weak winter light.
Their hands t.
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. "ntor Lenin is waiting for you inside. Have a good eting, Jörg."
He withdrew his hand and tamped out his pipe.
"You are a very interesting man. I hope that next ti I see you, it will be in a higher position."
Jörg smiled faintly. "And if you do not see next ti?"
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 the trouble of dealing with a dangerous opponent."
Crunch.
A second floor window was pushed open. The dicinal scent drifting from inside imdiately swallowed the lingering sll of tobacco.
Jörg looked up.
A thin, bald old man had appeared at the window.
The mont 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 ti I have seen such a young diplomat."
"And it is my first ti seeing you, Mr. Lenin," Jörg replied. "You do not look like so lofty ruler at all. You look more like an ordinary man."
"An ordinary man?"
For the first ti since waking, Lenin showed a genuine smile.
"Yes," he said, amused. "An ordinary man who is no longer young. Co 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 frad 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 ti, the formation of the Soviet governnt filled with such exhilaration that I could not sleep. So after a full day of work, I slipped past the guards before dawn, took a cara, and went alone into the woods outside Moscow."
His voice softened with mory.
"That deer was the trophy. I prefer to call it Tsarist Russia. A hunter from the outskirts of Moscow helped take the photograph. He was a simple, kind man, and afterwards he invited 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 sa flas, 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 regi."
He leaned back slightly in the wheelchair.
"I often think the ti left for the Soviet has been too short, while the ti left for myself has been too long. In the end, I simply moved my ho 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 , do you think my ideals were correct? So call stubborn. So say I was indecisive. But I would rather hear the judgnt 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 ti that day, his thoughts did not co at once.
"Of course they were correct," he said at last. "By any reasonable asure, 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 mont his gaze drifted away, lost in so mory no one else in the room could see.
Then, as though rembering himself, he asked, "Now then, what official business did you want to discuss with ?"
"I have already spoken with Mr. Stalin," Jörg said. "He gave 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 ntion 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 so 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 t 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 sa coin. Too fond of administration, too ready at tis 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 sothing better."
He fell silent for a while.
Then he asked, very softly:
"In my current condition, I cannot wait for them to beco what I would wish them to be. Who do you think ought to succeed ?"
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 ti.
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 sa."
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, soone 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 ti.
"Stalin, is it..."
The rest of the thought never fully ford.
With a quiet shake of his head, he fed the docunt to the fire.
The paper curled, blackened, and vanished into new flas.
.....
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