“I will go to Moscow and I will become an actress!” she screams. “I’m not you and I won’t live like you’ve lived. I won’t spend my life in this house being ordered around by him.” She thrusts her finger in Grandpa’s direction.

Grandpa scrapes his chair back and stands up. “I’ve had enough. I’ll tell you what you will do,” he rumbles. “You will listen to me, that’s what you will do. You’ll go to school right here in Ivanovo. You’ll learn something useful. How to build a house or treat a disease, like your mother did when she was your age.” Sasha sees that Grandpa’s hands are shaking, as if he is about to hit her. “You will respect your family!” he shouts. “You will be like your uncle Sima, who died right here, in this house. He was a hero who made me proud. You make me sick. Your mother is right: you’re nothing but a clown. A disgrace.”

Then Grandma gets up and whispers something into his ear. She strokes his arm, hoping that his rage will dissipate. She is the only one who hasn’t condemned acting. From her abbreviated experience singing opera, she knows what it feels like to escape and have another life, even if only in her imagination. “Vsyo budet khorosho,” she says, her favorite saying. “All will be well.”

But all is not well.

“No one in this house is going to Moscow,” declares Grandpa and takes a step toward the door. He walks out into the yard, where the neighbors’ sheets fluttering on a line quickly hide him from their view. A few minutes later, he is back, a bunch of nettles clutched in his right fist. With his left hand, he grabs Sasha by the back of her neck, like he grabs blind kittens to be drowned in a ditch, and drags her onto the porch. There he locks her waist in the vise of his elbow and whips her bare calves until they become swollen and red, until blood begins to rise to the surface of her skin.

The nettles’ sting makes her clench her teeth, but she doesn’t wail, as she did when she was younger. Never again will she reveal her pain in front of him. She will remain silent, just as his dictum demands, deaf and mute.