She shook her head. “He didn’t hurt me that day. I hurt him. But it was still ugly and horrible.” She shuddered. “I was only eleven years old and it was the day I was supposed to go to Moscow for the competition. I was scared and excited and I was just praying I wouldn’t do anything that would disappoint Maria. She’d arranged to have Maxim take me to Moscow that day. My father never let Maria and me go anywhere alone together. I was to have my usual lesson with Maxim, but it was to be in the village at his house instead of ours. She said I was supposed to go directly to Moscow instead of coming home afterward. I didn’t know why Maria had made the change, but I never asked questions. I knew Anton was out of town, but I thought he might have come back. Maria tried to make sure that I was never around when he came to her. She’d send me to my room or out into the woods and tell me not to come back until she came for me. But after my lesson with Maxim I found I’d not brought a piece of sheet music I needed to take to Moscow, so I had to go home to get it. I thought I could go in the back door and straight to my room and get the music and then slip out again.” She drew a deep breath. “But it didn’t work out like that. When I got to the house, I saw Volkov’s car in the driveway. Volkov had just moved into the area from St. Petersburg, but I didn’t really think anything about him being there. He’d been dropping in and playing cards with my father for the last few months. I thought my father must have come home and that Volkov was just visiting. So I went in the back way as I’d planned, grabbed the music, and started back down the hall.” She swallowed. “But then I heard Maria cry out and Volkov laughing. He kept telling her to scream for him. I ran toward her bedroom. He had her naked on the floor and he was inside her, doing what my father always did to her. But he had a candle and he was burning her breasts. She saw me in the doorway, and she started to shake her head and tried to tell me to go away. But how could I do that? I ran to the fireplace and grabbed a poker and then I flew back across the room and I hit him with all my strength, and I hit him, and I hit him, and I hit him again. I took him completely by surprise. He was cursing me as he scrambled to get away from the poker instead of coming after me. But then I struck him on the head, and he collapsed, unconscious.”