“More often than not, Commissar, it’s the roosters that give the trouble.”
He chuckled.
“If you’d like a little help with passing the time here, sir, I have a question to ask you. About being commander of the Soviet. I’ve been wanting to ask for a long time.”
“Well, then, don’t wait. The doctor says my blood pressure is through the roof. What can this question be?”
“Diego told me you were meant to succeed Lenin. You were his second in command, with the people’s support. You would have led the revolution to a democratic Soviet Republic.”
“This is the case.”
“Then why did Stalin come to power instead of you? The books say ‘an unsettled transition,’ that kind of thing. But Diego said it differently.”
“How did he say it?”
“An accident of history. Like a coin toss, that could have gone either way.”
Lev was quiet for an extremely long time. It seemed likely that Jacson and Sylvia would leave before this conversation moved forward at all. It was a bold question, possibly even rude. Van had said many times that Lev hates to talk about this, and won’t.
But finally he did. “Vladimir Lenin died in 1924, this you know. He had a stroke, soon after the Thirteenth Party Conference. He was exhausted by that conference, and I was also. I had been ill many weeks and came down with pneumonia during the sessions. Natalya insisted we go to the Caucasus afterward for a rest. She was right, I might have died otherwise. The conference concluded, and I embraced my comrade and friend Vladimir before departing.”
He paused, took off his gloves, and wiped his eyes.
“Natalya and I were on the train to the Caucasus. In the dining car, having a cup of tea. The porter came and handed us a telegram: Lenin was dead of a stroke. Stalin had sent the wire. ‘Dear comrade Lev,’ he said, or some such thing. In friendship and full solidarity he shared my grief, and gave details of a funeral. He said for various reasons, mostly for maintaining calm, the family and secretariat had decided against a large state funeral. They would hold a private burial the very next day. There was no time for me to return, of course, but Stalin assured that I should not worry. The family understood. In due time, they would want me to eulogize Lenin in a state ceremony.”
“And so you went to the Caucasus.”
“We proceeded to the Caucasus, for a week of rest. And before the end of it, learned that Stalin had lied. The information he sent in the wire was false. The funeral had not been immediate or small. It was a large state funeral, three days after the wire. I could have managed to return in time, had I known. I should have been the one to speak there. To calm people, because it was a frightening time. With Lenin gone so suddenly, it was chaotic. People were very uncertain about the future.”
“But instead of you, Stalin spoke at the funeral.”
“The newspapers said I had refused to come, declining to be disturbed from my vacation. He told that story openly. But not from the platform, of course. At the funeral he spoke of leadership and reassurance. How he accepted the mantle of the people’s trust, when others had shirked it…. Everyone knew of whom he spoke.”
“You had their loyalty, a few days before. Did that count for nothing?”
“They were so afraid. In that moment their keenest desire was to lean on someone who seemed unfailingly strong.”
His eyes fixed on the sky, above the wall that enclosed him. No wound to his flesh could have pained Lev more than this memory. It was cruel to raise the subject, Van had been right about that.
“Sir, you couldn’t have known. It was not your mistake.”
“The mistake was to believe him. To accept the sympathy of a friend extended in a telegram. I was very ill of course, with a fever, Natalya reminds me of that. And the loss was disorienting, no one expected it so suddenly. But to take Stalin at his word, look what has come of this. A hundred thousand deaths. The whole revolution betrayed.”
“How long did it take you to get back to Moscow?”
“Too long. That is the simple truth. Stalin moved so quickly to fill the bureaucracy with men who swore loyalty to him. These were supposed to be neutral positions, men dedicated only to the country. But loyalty to Stalin guaranteed the future of Stalin. It’s hard for a nation to retrieve itself from such a change of guard.”
“But people desire fair government. You say that constantly.”
“They want to believe in heroes, also. And villains. Especially when very frightened. It’s less taxing than the truth.”
Lev scrutinized the doorway to the dining room. The visitors were leaving. He waved the grain scoop. Jacson and Sylvia waved back. Natalya stood on the patio with a raincoat pulled over her shoulders like a cape. The sky was dark with a threat of rain.
“So that was the accident of history. A false telegram on a train.”
“It was no accident.”
22 August
This impossible thing cannot be. Something should have stopped this.
In the morning he was in the best spirits. He transplanted four cactus plants in a new garden. He was pleased about devising a new cactus-planting technology involving a canvas hammock, chicken wire, and a counterweight. “From now on everything will go faster!” he declared, as if he had invented internal combustion.
By lunchtime he’d finished revising the next-to-last chapter of his book on Stalin. In the afternoon he dictated an article on the American mobilization. From three thirty to four it rained pitchforks, and the day remained overcast. At five he took a break to have tea with Natalya, as always, and afterward asked for help with the rabbits. Two females had given birth to litters, in the same hutch. He needed to move one family lest the mothers cause trouble with one another’s young. Cannibalism is always a possibility.
Lev had one of them by her nape, the big spotted one called Minuschka, when Jacson arrived unexpectedly from the gatehouse. Lev handed over the hare with instructions on where to move her kits. Jacson also appeared to have his hands full: a folder of papers, his hat, a raincoat over his arm. He was leaving for New York shortly, he said. But had finished his first article. Please, could Lev give it an honest critique?
Lev looked back, shooting a certain feckless glance, nearly comic: Help! I would sooner face the gulag! But he said, “Of course. Come into my office.”
They went in the house, he probably asked Natalya to make a cup of tea for the visitor, and then they must have proceeded to Lev’s office. It’s easy to picture: Lev sitting down, rooting out a clearing on his desk to set down the pages, collecting the patience to read it and make some tactful comment. The future waits. The world revolution waits, while Trotsky gives his full attention to a shallow-thinking but hopeful fellow, because nothing wondrous can come in this world unless it rests on the shoulders of kindness.