She looks back to check that Grandma’s face has disappeared from the window and waits for the streetcar with thrill and trepidation, as if it were a final test at the end of school in May. She and Marik both wait, ready and determined, glancing back at Grandma’s house, which Sasha has always known is full of secrets. Secrets that are stashed in letters tied with ribbons under Grandma’s bed, tucked away into the upper shelves of the armoire Sasha cannot reach, hidden in the dusty space of the storage loft above the front door. They are secrets from the old life, the life before Sasha and Marik were born: before the country shuddered and convulsed into a new social order, before her mother’s two younger brothers became engulfed by the war. They wait and wait for their defining moment, their hands sweaty, their stomachs growling in protest to the daring plan they have concocted. To shrink the waiting, they kick the dust, although they know they shouldn’t, because it will ruin their shoes, and getting new ones is an event almost as big as overthrowing the tsar.

And then, from around the corner, they hear the approaching rumble. The rattling of windows becomes louder as the streetcar turns and heaves in their direction and for a moment swallows them in its enormous wake. They let it pass and then run behind it on the track so that the driver can’t see them in his mirror. She sees Marik grab onto the iron tail and jump, straddling the metal bar, clutching its cold neck with both hands. She jumps, too, and the tracks begin to sail away from under her feet, just like she saw in a movie once, but she concentrates on holding on. Her hands are sweaty, and Marik’s must be, too, because she can see him grasp at the metal as his fingers keep slipping off. Is he as frightened as she is? Is his heart beating as fast as hers? To keep her own balance, she focuses on his tense back in front of her. Then the car lurches forward and slows to a crawl. Suddenly she can see Andrei from the corner of her eye, frozen against the fence. He glides past and disappears, but neither Marik nor she looks back because they can’t afford to lose their balance when the streetcar swings on another turn. Then, when the brown grass rolls into view and when they are both still on the back of the streetcar clattering past the lilac bushes, she knows that they have done it, that the two policemen didn’t win, that Andrei will never again gaze over their heads or spit out sunflower shells in their direction.