The Road to Leningrad

The night before I left for Leningrad.

I was packing my bag and looking around the room when I noticed a single book sitting alone on the shelf. As if compelled, I reached for it—and the information that flowed in unbidden made me frown.

That whisper again.

What the hell was this privilege? Why couldn't I use it at will—and why did it always choose moments like this to speak up?

I set the book down and sat on the edge of the bed. My mind began to work in a familiar pattern. An old habit, worn deep into muscle memory.

Gather the cases. Find the pattern. Build a hypothesis…

I went back over every moment this ability had opened its mouth. The history of Zamoskvorechye. The death of Zoya's father. The origins and political geometry of Leningrad. And now, the story of this battered engineering textbook.

Put simply: the history of cities, the deeds of people, the currents of an age, the presence or absence of something in the past. And if I looked for a common thread across all four cases, they were all things that had been recorded.

So one hypothesis took shape: this ability recited history as memory.

But a counterexample rose almost at once. How was I supposed to explain the memories that never surfaced for me? What Yakov liked. What he ate. How he and Zoya had gotten together. Those small, intimate things stayed out of reach no matter how hard I reached for them.

So why weren't the unrecorded things recited as "history"?

Three further hypotheses followed from that thought.

First: this ability could not be commanded by my will. It fell silent when I wanted it and poured out when I didn't. That was evidence enough that control of the information did not rest with me.

Second: the ability recited someone's "memory"—and whose, exactly, remained unknown. The snippet that had just arrived was a good example. Microscopic detail like he never earned Stalin's recognition. That meant the speaker of the ability was an individual, and that what it recited was history filtered through someone's memory.

I turned the peculiar nature of this history over in my mind. From the beginning, history had always meant records that had passed through someone's hands. History was the product of victors; later generations painted over it.

From that angle, the usefulness of whatever this ability recited would swing wildly depending on who the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠speaker was—because there would be no way to tell where fact ended and distortion began.

Third: the ability supplied macroscopic information but not the microscopic. But an ability that had first fed me facts about the Soviet Union had suddenly appended footnotes on Yakov's private story. So that hypothesis ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠collapsed on the spot. Discarded.

To doubt history as source material is the first duty of any student of the past. From all of this I could set three principles for handling the privilege.

One: never believe it blindly.

Two: consult it—then verify.

Three: record every whisper from now on, and from the pattern try to deduce who the speaker is…

"If only it had been the all-seeing eye of some god, I wouldn't have to do this exhausting work…"

I shoved the engineering primer—its cover worn thin from constant turning—into my bag and managed a bitter smile. It was like carrying an entire library of untraceable knowledge inside my body. Still, a hundred times better than being thrown bare-handed into this age of upheaval. Knowledge has held infinite value in every place and every time.

Knock, knock.

Lost in thought, I heard a knock at the door.

"Yasha, are you still awake?"

Nadezhda's voice. I rose from the bed at once and opened the door.

"May I come in?"

"Of course, Mother."

She looked up at me with a face full of worry. In her expression I saw again the thing she had almost said that afternoon and then swallowed.

"You're really going…"

Nadezhda looked quietly down at the bag I had packed.

"Yes."

At my brief answer her eyes went wet as she looked at me.

"Are you sure you'll be all right? Leningrad is a cold, bleak place. And you, Yasha—you've never even lived alone."

She stroked my cheek with genuine concern. Warmth spread from my face through my whole body.

"Please don't worry about me, Mother. I'm not leaving forever. I can come back whenever I want."

Nadezhda, Yakov's stepmother. She was too close in age to be called a stepmother, and already a mother with a child of her own to be called a sister. But it was Nadezhda who had raised Yakov in place of Stalin's first wife—dead young—and of Stalin himself, forever buried in politics.

When Stalin humiliated Yakov as a fool, she scolded him and took Yakov's side. She treated him with the same tenderness she showed her own son, Vasily.

In practice, she was the only shield Yakov had…

So to Yakov, Nadezhda was more a mother than anyone else in the world.

"Yasha…"

The hand that had been stroking my cheek opened into two arms. Without hesitation I let myself sink into her embrace. Natural. Not a flicker of resistance.

Rustle.

From the pocket of her apron Nadezhda drew a carefully folded sheet of paper and held it out to me.

"If you ever need help, go to this address. The Alliluyev family will look after you. My people know your face, and they've known Soso for years. If you run into trouble, don't hesitate—lean on them."

"Thank you, Mother."

"Ah—and Yasha."

She hesitated ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a moment, then spoke.

"Soso told me you put one over on him. I've never heard him admit he had to yield a point to anyone."

She spoke of Stalin in that gentle voice of hers. But the tone was carefully stern; there was nothing in it that sounded like mockery of him.

"Even so, you mustn't get conceited! Soso is a man who cannot stand to lose. Once something settles in his mind, he doesn't forget it in ten years…"

In Yakov's memories Nadezhda was only a kind, fragile stepmother. To me, she was a woman of real intelligence who had worked in Lenin's secretariat—and, more than that, a figure who had spent a lifetime at Stalin's side as his political partner. She was never going to be the woman of pure gentleness Yakov had taken her for.

"Oh—and don't worry about the military school. He said he's arranged someone to help with your living there."

"Pardon?"

Military school? The word snagged somehow in my ear.

"Mother—did you just say military school?"

"Hm? I did…?"

I was certain Stalin had told me Leningrad Polytech. Polytechnic—a comprehensive university focused on engineering degrees. A world away, in character and purpose, from any military school.

"I'm not going to a military school. It's the Polytech. I think you've been misinformed, Mother."

"Oh, really?"

Nadezhda tilted her head.

"I must have gotten it wrong. Soso was so curt about it. He's always so short with his words, isn't he?"

"That's true enough."

I answered with a smile, but inside I was burning. Two pieces of information had collided in my head.

What Stalin told me and what Nadezhda heard don't match. What is going on?

Instinctively I called for that "whisper."

As expected—nothing. Even the possession privilege was useless. All that remained was my own judgment.

The man himself, speaking directly—or his wife, who had half-heard it secondhand. The weight clearly favored the former.

First: the speaker, Stalin, was not a kindly patriarch to his family. He would have told Nadezhda something as vague as "somewhere in Leningrad," and she would have guessed my destination from that scrap of an address. So there was nothing strange about her being wrong.

And yet something in the center of my chest kept insisting that my reasoning was off.

…Should I go find Stalin right now?

He was away on official business. Preparing for this year's Fourteenth Party Congress, no doubt. To see him I would have to go all the way to the Politburo in the Kremlin.

Hmm…

I thought it over a moment, then shook my head. Groundless worry, most likely.

The next morning.

The train for Leningrad left from Moscow's Oktyabrsky Station. I waited for the train that would soon arrive and looked around.

Workers with their coat collars turned up. Farmers with bundles on their backs. Young soldiers in uniform. The station was packed with every kind of person.

The scars of the Revolution and the Civil War were still fresh—and yet the energy of the workers at Moscow Station lay over those scars like a second skin. Temporary stalls lined the square in front of the station; the smell of boiled potatoes and black bread drifted through the cold air.

I stood on the platform with my hands in my coat pockets. One trunk for luggage. Inside: a few changes of clothes, underthings, Yakov's technical school diploma—and the envelope Stalin had handed me himself. On the outside of the envelope was written: Open upon arrival at the lodging (zhilyo) in Leningrad.

No matter how you look at it, it's suspicious.

The words had been heavy with implication—but I knew Stalin was a man who enjoyed this kind of staging.

According to Montefiore's biography of Stalin, he was the sort who would put a tomato on a subordinate's chair at a dacha dinner and sit there snickering by himself. Handing his son a little entertainment in the form of one sealed envelope would have been nothing to him.

Pshhhhhh…!

Right up until the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠train pulled in, I took in the scenery around me and sorted through what lay ahead in my head.