After that day she hoped Yevgeny would go back to being the old Yevgeny. He didn’t. He stopped smiling and waving at her…even though he rarely took his eyes off her. She became afraid of him, and afraid of being alone in the orphanage, yet sometimes the latter couldn’t be helped. Twice, Yevgeny caught her on her own, exiting the bathroom. The first time she managed to dash past him to safety, but the second time he blocked her escape. He tried to give her the matryoshka doll again. She refused to accept it. He slapped her across the cheek, knocking her over. He slid his hand up her dress, between her legs. She screamed, which scared him off—but not before he threatened to kill her if she told anyone what happened.

Elizaveta didn’t tell anyone. She believed his threat. Nevertheless, a few days later the headmistress, Irina Igorevna, summoned Elizaveta to her office and asked her why she hadn’t been eating anything at mealtimes. Elizaveta broke down and confessed what occurred outside the bathroom. Irina Igorevna listened stoically, asked a few specific questions, then told Elizaveta a story she would never forget. It was about an Auschwitz survivor, a young Jewish woman who Elizaveta would many years later come to suspect had been Irina Igorevna herself. Although imprisoned under inhuman conditions, the young woman was the only one in her ward to wash her stockings each day, as she had done each day before the war. The other inmates shrugged their shoulders at her routine, having abandoned any attempt at hygiene to conserve energy. Yet when a typhoid epidemic struck the camp, the young woman was the only person to survive and to eventually find freedom at the hands of American soldiers.

“The world you enter after your time at the orphanage will be a very challenging place, Elizaveta,” the headmistress concluded. “You will encounter others like Yevgeny Popov, men who would take advantage of you or worse. You can bow to their superior strength and hope they grow tired of you and leave you alone, or you can stand up for your core dignities, remain true to yourself, even if this means making difficult choices. You stood up for yourself today by confiding in me what happened, and it will be up to you whether you continue to stand up for yourself in the future, whether you choose to merely survive, or refuse to survive and live.”

The next morning at breakfast the children learned that Yevgeny died in his sleep. No explanation was given, though over the following days rumors swirled he had taken his own life.

Elizaveta didn’t believe this, but she never spoke of her suspicions to anyone.

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