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Back A Train to Moscow: A Novel Save as PDF
Chapters (59)
  1. TITLE PAGE
  2. COPYRIGHT PAGE
  3. DEDICATION
  4. CONTENTS
  5. ACT 1 IVANOVO
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. 10
  16. 11
  17. 12
  18. 13
  19. 14
  20. 15
  21. 16
  22. 17
  23. ACT 2 MOSCOW
  24. 18
  25. 19
  26. 20
  27. 21
  28. 22
  29. 23
  30. 24
  31. 25
  32. 26
  33. 27
  34. ACT 3 LENINGRAD
  35. 28
  36. 29
  37. 30
  38. 31
  39. 32
  40. 33
  41. 34
  42. 35
  43. 36
  44. 37
  45. ACT 4 IVANOVO-LENINGRAD
  46. 38
  47. 39
  48. 40
  49. 41
  50. 42
  51. 43
  52. 44
  53. 45
  54. 46
  55. 47
  56. 48
  57. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  58. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
  59. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“You’re still a child, and you think like a child.” She is stern, punctuating her phrase with a slam of the stove door after she flings a couple of logs into the flames. “This was an arrest Comrade Stalin didn’t know about.” She straightens and walks away from the stove. “Comrade Stalin would never have given the order to arrest an innocent man,” she says, a coda to her Uncle Volya story.

Maybe Comrade Stalin didn’t know about Marik’s father, either. Is it possible, Sasha wonders, that Ivanovo is too far from Moscow for Comrade Stalin to sort out who gets sent to labor camps from here? Too remote to see who does or doesn’t come back home?

Her mother lifts the pot with potatoes and lowers it onto the surface of the stove. Then she turns back to Sasha, pointing her finger at her daughter’s chest. “You should be careful what you say to others.”

She folds her hands on her stomach, pressing the notebook into her skin, and waits for her mother to make her usual trip to the shed for more wood when Sasha can quickly climb up to the storage loft and return the journal to its hiding place. She knows she did the right thing not to have told her mother about the discovery. She feels content. She now has her own secret.

Her mother stares into the pot, where the water is beginning to boil, the tendons in her neck tense, as if she were fighting an invisible fight.

“Uncle Volya never returned from the camps,” she says. “He was shot attempting to escape. At least that’s what they told Aunt Lilya.”

It is difficult to imagine that Uncle Volya, soft-jowled and asthmatic, tried to crawl under three rows of barbed wire. His daughter, Nina, nineteen when the war started, volunteered for the front to avenge her father and was killed during her first week of service. When the mailwoman brought a gray letter announcing her death to their door, Aunt Lilya collapsed and never recovered. She died from the heart, Sasha’s mother says. All Russian women, according to her mother, die from the heart.

8

8

Whenever no one can see her, Sasha climbs into the storage loft to read another page or two. She has chosen to believe that Grandma doesn’t know where her missing son’s journal has been hidden. No one who still startles at every creak of the gate, Sasha has decided, could have allowed this notebook to end up in such a dishonorable place.

January 15, 1942