“Remember the Rio Rita?” Lara asks. The popular song wailed from the record player, and Oleg, as one of the two men in the room, extended his hand to Lara’s mother and ceremoniously dragged her onto the dance floor. The rest of the women danced with one another, stumbling into the sultry rhythm, shuffling their tipsy feet on the linoleum, shouting over the music and laughing. Lara’s brother grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her into the gyrating flux of bodies, into the delirious heat. His arms locked around her waist, and his face, hot and damp, pressed to her cheek. It was an important birthday, after all, and everyone was getting drunk. The women from the cafeteria were now in a circle, telling lurid jokes in loud, uncontrolled voices, bursting into fits of intoxicated laughter. Oleg, having tried to dance with every woman, was now propped against the wall by his wife, who gave him fierce looks, holding in check his inclination to yell and fling glasses at the guests.

“My brother poured me another glass of wine and spilled half of it on the floor. I don’t remember how I got into my mother’s bedroom.” All she remembers is the walls spinning and the ceiling pulsing above her head. All she remembers is her brother’s weight pressing her into the cover of her mother’s bed, his vodka breath smearing her face, his unyielding grip that left black marks pressed into her shoulders. All she remembers is the shame.

“I never told my mother,” Lara whispers. “I never told anyone.” She stares at her clenched hands and begins to pull at the skin around her fingernails. “After that, home was poisoned. I stayed late at school; I found every pretext to sleep over at my friends’. I flunked my classes, almost every one of them, except music.” She smiles faintly, still staring down. “That’s why I am here, in Moscow. I couldn’t stay, despite my mother’s pleas. I had to leave, even though I knew that no college would accept me. I wasn’t good at anything. The only place where I stood a chance, I thought, was drama school.” She shifts on the blanket, straightening her back. “It’s still raw, like an abscess I’ve tried to squeeze out of my mind. I knew it was my fault. I was drunk. I am the one to blame.”

Sasha wraps her arms around Lara to hold her, but Lara stiffens, resisting her embrace. She has been trying to erase that from her memory, as if it had never happened. She thinks that if she empties her mind of that day, the event will disappear. She believes that pity will only cement it into her memory.