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Maybe not for the first time but definitely not for the last time, Stalin wonders if something is wrong that he does not know about. What could it be? His clothes are the same as they were yesterday. No one has tried to swap out his old slippers or his greatcoat under his nose. The fish he ate yesterday isn't troubling him. That's because he caught it fresh with his bodyguards and had it for dinner with his crew; fish caught and eaten that soon has no time to go bad. He sometimes recalls that unpleasant episode in Tiflis. But his stomach feels well, so it's not a case of food poisoning anyways and Stalin decides that something else must be wrong as he wanders into his home office-bedroom.
His office is fine. There is nothing out of place. All of his things are where he's used to having them, even the rumpled blankets on the divan he keeps in here. The heater is on and it is not cold enough to set his joints aching. Did he forget something important? Some meeting he has to take or a telegram he needs to answer? He checks his lists on his desk to see that everything is organized and he's gotten everything he needs done for now, some very rare downtime while the proletarian state he's spent decades building now steadies itself after surviving and giving as good as it got, now it races to finish off the fascists for once and for all. Despite it all, he feels nervous knowing that the best he's done has not been enough. He tries to put the thought of what he knows to be true out of his head, countless funerals he's gotten used to attending, even to the point that remembering the names of all the dearly missed dead takes too long.
If the problem is not external then it follows that it's internal. Perhaps he knows this feeling, it descends onto him when he doesn't have anyone else to distract him, without their voices to listen to. That now his dacha is empty since his daughter left has turned it into a void, but Stalin has his communal dinners to look forwards to at least, where his companions will bring their agendas to the table, he'll arbitrate, after the business comes the fun squeezed out of the circumstances. It used to be that Kirov would stay with him after Nadya died, then Alyosha did after Kirov was murdered, but then for a while it was no one after Alyosha was taken, too. He spends his nights in silence if he can't get anything scheduled with the others after working on drafts and replies to letters far into the evening, his old Siberian-exile schedule still chasing him to stay up into the early morning after all these years.
Alone, he'll lie wide-awake, warm and secure under the covers, but staring up at the ceiling in the dark. One of the windows will have the curtains cracked open to see the brightening sky and the setting moon, and he will watch it fall and wait for the glow of the sun come through. It won't be the light that bothers him either way, it'll be the silence and having to be alone with his thoughts, which will inevitably turn to the past, his memories, the whole width of them, every experience replaying to him like a movie of his entire life, every possible emotion that a human can experience repeating, overlapping on each other until he can't think of himself anymore in the noise.
Stalin sits down on the divan and it sinks beneath his weight a little and he breathes in a deep breath, in and out, suddenly aware of the tiny echoes of the empty room.
Perhaps he could poke his head out the door and ask the guards- tonight it's Antonov and Rybin who are on the night watch- sitting at the little shack at the edge of the property to come in. But this has always made him feel awkward, conscripting them to keep him company even as he literally trusts them with his life and distracting them from their sworn duty to boot; he knows they'll remind him of all of the threats against his life in short order and he'll have no way to deny that. Then he wants them to talk to him, but they'll deflect and ask about him instead in a perfect modest turnabout. No doubt that they love him, but then, he wants something from them that they can't quite provide. And then he'll have to think of something that won't bore them, but he knows he'll lose their interest after a few sentences. He's long learned that not everyone loves films or history or other subjects as much as him, or even has any passions like that they know the complete depth of, as absurd that seems to him.
And now this has got him thinking of Zhdanov, with whom he can literally speak with for hours and hours, one of his favorite people, but he's far away, recovering from his work in some shiny sanatorium. There was that wonderful time far too long ago, before the war, he went on vacation with Andrei and his son and Kirov was invited to round out the group and they would discuss historiography and materialism and all sorts of topics that Sergei couldn't keep up with. Stalin smiles at that, remembering that Sergei tried to hide his impatience but he could see right through him and he poked at him for that, and he said that he was no historian, well, neither were Stalin or Zhdanov for that matter, they were mere pedestrian scholars at best, and Kirov was there as an indispensable aid to break up the conversations once they became too long and winding. Thank you, Sergei. We love you for that.
He sighs to himself as he collapses onto the mattress and wriggles into the blankets, burying his face into his pillow. He remembers how he would share his bed with Kirov when he was staying over. The moments that stick out to him after all these years were when they were in silence alone together, when Kirov would quiet down after running out of things to discuss and Stalin sat next to him, simply basking in his presence. Stalin would scoot closer to lean on him, resting his head on his shoulder, Kirov would chuckle a little and wrap his arm around him, holding him in a strong embrace. Being alone together in the sauna, the best treatment for Siberian-cold-damaged joints, was a special treat for Stalin; Kirov was one of the very few people to whom he felt like his body in the nude was not an eyesore towards, who could look on it and accept it for what it was, and Kirov was just as relaxed and wonderful in the nude as clothed.
Stalin wanted to be near him always and grow warm under that boundless ray of light, but, perhaps it was strange for him to get attached to the point of asking him to take the Leningrad job to be closer to Moscow. But Kirov had talent that was constrained by merely staying in Baku, the city that he loved. But everyone wanted him close, it's not like he was alone in admiring Kirov, he was popular, especially it was Sergo-
-Stalin still winces when he recalls him, a fleeting image of lovely fluffy dark hair and a fist raised in brashness, Sergo who made trouble with him in the Caucasus back then as bright-eyed young revolutionaries, whose life ended too soon after Kirov's, whose last ever words to Stalin were one of hatred and anger and betrayal and maybe he did deserve those lashing words but Sergo couldn't understand that this pain and grief had to be transformed into something useful, that Kirov couldn't have died for nothing, that he would have done the same for him if it was the other way around, why couldn't he get it after everything they faced together? Why did he leave him? Why, Sergo, why did you-
-who loved him so much too, this was the single thing that they could both agree no matter what. Stalin in Kirov's presence could not stop the tender feeling in his chest nor ever hide his affection. It was the kindness, his outgoing, energetic nature, his devotion to the party and to the people foremost, every trait that made him beloved by Leningraders, his adopted people, was a trait that Stalin also admired in him. And he was good at nurturing the city-region and fought for its interests; he did everything right down to his last day alive and paid the ultimate price for it. With a wrenching feeling in his chest, Stalin whispers Kirov's name into the air but there is no one else to hear it and so it passes into nothingness again like it never existed.
That beautiful sun was extinguished long ago, and he'll always remember the funeral when he stared uncomprehendingly at the corpse of his friend. The image becomes blurred in his imagination, the edges smudged with unshed tears. Sergei looked as if he was asleep in that casket and might wake up again, and Stalin, long a disbeliever of miracles, still impulsively wanted him to sit up and greet him with arms open, laughing. And a horrible impulse ran aground in his psyche, repeating over and over, that he should be the one lying in state with bullet wounds in the back of his neck, that it should be Kirov standing here in his place instead...
He stepped up to the casket and whimpered his last farewell and kissed him goodbye, lips finding only lifeless cold stone.