He woke up with a start and a hot flush of panic.
For a moment, Misha didn't know where he was. The blanket was unfamiliar, the pillow flat, and the light all wrong. Then he saw the ceiling's crooked water stain, the towel draped over Kolya's bunk, and the pair of boots hanging upside-down from a nail someone had hammered into the wall. It rushed back in—the dormitory, the train, the city that felt like it might accidentally spit him out if he moved too loudly.
He reached for his watch and groaned.
11:42.
Almost noon.
He sat up too fast and felt the back of his neck prickle. Outside the window, the morning was already full and gold-edged, stretching long over rooftops and chimneys. From somewhere on the floor below, a radio murmured a woman's voice reading agricultural statistics.
He had slept through everything.
Misha rubbed at his face. The inside of his mouth was dry. The air in the room was heavy with sleep, cigarette smoke, and the faint iron tang of radiator heat. His shirt from yesterday was crumpled under his knee. He tugged it out and stood, bones stiff from a bad angle of rest.
No one else was in the room.
Danya's bed was made with with characteristic neatness, the corner folded in a precise triangle. Vitya's mattress was still rumpled, but his boots were gone from their place under the window. Kolya's blanket had migrated halfway to the floor, and a sock rested serenely on his pillow like a tiny surrendered flag. The record player's needle had been left midway through a side and spun in lazy circles without sound.
Misha felt a stab of something—shame, or its cousin—pull low in his gut. He had missed breakfast. He had missed something. At the very least, the opportunity to arrive somewhere early, to sit quietly and take notes and make a favorable impression by the sheer lack of being a problem.
Instead he had done exactly what he had promised himself he wouldn't: lingered in sleep like a child without an alarm clock. He'd wanted to be seen as serious. Instead, Misha feared, he would be "the quiet one who never got up."
He fumbled into a fresh shirt and fastened his belt too tightly in the rush. His fingers caught on the last button. It took him three tries.
The basin in the corner gave him a short blast of frigid water that slapped the sleep off his face. He didn't dry it—just let the droplets cool his neck as he stared at his own reflection in the spotted mirror. His hair was crooked. His eyes still puffy. He looked soft.
Misha stepped away from the basin, breathing once through his nose, as though that would help settle the knot in his chest. He had to do something.
His mother's voice, remembered more from tone than words, stirred gently in his memory: If you can't fix something with skill, fix it with kindness.
The tea.
He reached beneath his pillow, pulled out the wax-paper bundle, and held the sugar cubes like they were sacred.
The communal kitchen was two halls down, past the stairwell with its chipped Lenin quote and the fire extinguisher with no hose. The door stuck, he had to lean his bony shoulder into it until it gave with a reluctant groan.
Inside, the room was empty. A cracked window above the sink let in a draft, which pulled at the brittle floral curtain and knocked it softly against the wall. The floor tiles were uneven. The table was marked with scorch rings and old initials carved with pocket knives. The tap dripped, a steady rhythm to fill the silence.
It smelled like many meals layered atop one another—cabbage, oil, soap, tea, and something sharp and untraceable like old vinegar. A cutting board leaned against the sink. A rust-stained pot sat in the drying rack like it had given up mid-task. One of the cabinet doors hung loose on its hinge.
He crossed to the stove, eyeing the collection of kettles on the counter. The smallest one had a melted handle. The medium-sized one looked cleaner but was missing a lid. The third—large, squat, enameled steel with flecks of white paint clinging to its black body—had a dent in the spout but looked promising. Someone had scratched a name into its side: ZINAIDA.
He lifted it. Empty.
Misha carried it to the sink and filled it carefully, watching the stream grow cloudy, then run clear. The kettle was heavier than he expected once full. He balanced it on the stove's central burner, turned the gas knob, and struck a match.
Nothing.
He tried again, closer this time, and the flame caught with a hollow whoof, a bloom of blue dancing beneath the iron.
The kettle sat, humming faintly to itself.
He began assembling the rest.
From the drying rack: four mugs. None of them matched. One was a plain pink enamel, scratched and dull. Another was thick ceramic with painted sunflowers, chipped at the rim. A third was one of those oddly shaped German souvenir mugs with "DRESDEN" etched on it, though someone had crossed that out in pen and written "DR. ZHIVAGO." The fourth was plain white with a crackle in the glaze, stained at the bottom from old tea.
Misha lined them up on the counter like soldiers, side by side.
Next, the tea.
Someone had left a tin in the top cupboard—half-full, unlabelled, likely collective property. The leaves inside smelled strong and slightly musty. Good enough. He scooped a generous pinch into a mesh infuser, balancing it over the enamel mug like he'd seen his aunt do when there wasn't time for a proper pot.
The water hadn't boiled yet. The room was quiet except for the low, rising gurgle in the kettle, a domestic sort of music. Familiar. He could've been in his grandmother's flat on a market morning. If he closed his eyes, he could almost hear the scrape of chairs on wood, the clink of spoons in mismatched saucers, the soft murmurs before words took shape.
He didn't close his eyes.
Instead, he reached into his pocket, unwrapped the sugar cubes, and set one beside each mug.
He stood still.
The kettle began to hiss.
Misha straightened his collar, then reached for the handle.
The water was ready.
The kettle rattled faintly on the stove's coil, rocking like an impatient horse, then began to sing.
Misha moved with practiced quiet, not from stealth but rather the memory of kitchens where the floorboards squeaked and waking the baby was a punishable offense. He turned the knob, silencing the gas flame with a soft click, and wrapped a towel around the handle. The kettle was heavier than expected, but he managed.
Four mugs waited in a line like sentries. He poured with care, filling each to just below the rim. A few dark leaves escaped the strainer and swirled in lazy spirals like they had all the time in the world. The sugar cubes—his mother's small gift of rationed affection—were dropped in last, one each. He stirred gently with a spoon someone had bent years ago.
He inhaled.
The steam smelled of metal and dry leaves. The scent was slightly burned, a little wrong, but still familiar. It reminded him of evenings back home when his mother's voice had softened over a second cup and the kitchen took on that almost-silent hush. The act itself had a rhythm—fill, carry, serve.
He gathered the mugs, three in one hand, the pink one cradled in the other. Each step was deliberate. The hallway outside had emptied, the dormitory afternoon lull having set in early. The building breathed like something alive: distant typewriter clacks from the administrative wing, a dripping pipe behind the wall, Kolya's record player faintly sqeaking.
The door to the common lounge was ajar.
Through the crack, Misha saw a scene that belonged more to a theater stage than a school: students draped over chairs and cushions in configurations that defied ergonomics, a newspaper laid out like a chessboard with a half-played game, and a haze of mid-afternoon boredom softened by a cloudy light from the courtyard window.
Vitya sat by the radiator, a fresh cigarette tucked behind his ear, his usual perch in place. Danya was curled in a stiff-backed chair, legs crossed, holding a book at eye level, posture straight as if the author might test him at any moment. Kolya—of course—was sprawled across the floor on his back, engaged in a passionate argument with a blond student over something involving the phrase "Zoshchenko's rehabilitation"
Misha hesitated.
He had intended to start with just the four mugs—for his own roommates, as a small gesture of apology for sleeping in—but something in the moment shifted. The quiet, the stillness, the air thick with half-finished sentences and the scent of afternoon—it reminded him of something just on the edge of memory. His hands, moving on instinct, adjusted their grip.
He stepped inside.
Nobody noticed him at first. That was ideal.
He walked slowly, carefully, balancing the mugs like precious cargo. He offered no explanation, no preamble. He simply placed the first mug beside Vitya, who accepted it with a glance and a tiny nod—like the whole thing had been arranged weeks ago.
The next went to Danya. Misha waited for him to look up, but he never did. He just took the cup, held it under his nose for a moment as if evaluating its purity, and sipped without comment.
Kolya, mid-argument and gesturing dramatically with one socked foot, paused only when the mug appeared next to him.
He stared at it.
"Did I die?" he asked the room. "Am I in heaven?"
The blond student raised an eyebrow. "If you are, this is a bleak paradise."
Misha did not answer. He continued, methodically, back to the kitchen, and returned with another four mugs—each one different, each one steaming. One by one, he offered them to whoever was there. A student sketching a diagram of a spine on the back of his handout blinked in surprise. A girl with a braid to her waist graciously accepted hers like a piece of communion bread.
Misha did not speak. He poured.
By the third round, the room had quieted, a kind of half-silence that hung over shared rituals. Kolya, always quickest to seize a tone shift, sat up properly.
"My God," he said reverently, holding his mug aloft. "The samovar walks among us."
A few chuckles.
"No," he said, with the authority of someone giving an address, "this—this is no ordinary man. This is a sacred vessel. A hero of the domestic front. A kettle with a soul."
He stood, struck a theatrical pose, and proclaimed: "Comrade Teapot!"
The room erupted into laughter.
Misha blinked.
His ears flushed, but the heat felt good.
He opened his mouth to object—but too slowly.
"Comrade Teapot," Kolya said again, already pacing like a lecturer. "He does not speak. He pours. He does not demand. He steeps."
"He does not own a shirt without tea stains," Vitya added, straight-faced.
Danya, sipping calmly, added, "And yet, in his silence, he dismantles class hierarchies. Everyone gets a mug. Even Kolya."
Someone clapped.
Kolya bowed to imaginary applause. "Long live Comrade Teapot. May his water never go tepid!"
The room turned raucous with laughter.
Misha felt his chest loosen in a way he hadn't since boarding the train. He was still blushing, still holding a mug, still unsure what to do with his hands.
He smiled.
No longer the small, polite smile he wore when trying to disappear, but fuller, closer to the one he used back home when his cousin told a stupid joke and everyone tried not to laugh and failed. It was involuntary.
Kolya saw it and grinned.
"There he is!" he shouted. "The Teapot smiles!"
Misha finally spoke, quiet but clear. "I didn't mean—"
"No!" Kolya cut in. "No disclaimers. That is exactly how a Comrade Teapot should protest. With tragic humility and strong wrists."
Another wave of laughter. This one more personal.
It wasn't cruel, Misha hoped.
He stood there for another minute, unsure whether to bow, sit, or vanish. Someone offered him a seat. Another passed back one of the empty mugs, murmuring thanks.
He took it. Sat.
And for the first time since arriving in Leningrad, nineteen-year-old Misha Petrov of Bolotny, who did not have the best marks but knew how to pour tea with quiet precision, felt the door of the city ease open by a crack. Just enough.
Enough to begin.