Nonetheless, late in the evenings, smoking and gazing through the flowers of ice at the starlit sky, she gets carried away in her thoughts. She remembers – even though they were always fed and clothed, they lived their childhood and school years very frugally, bordering on poverty. But the factory people were likeone large family. Sincere, generous people without hidden agendas. Simple like her every day. On Saturdays and Sundays, in that same one room relatives gathered from everywhere. They ate, drank, sang. And they felt good, because they had survived the war and deportation. Once her father brought very refined city people to their home. They offered as a gift coffee beans for her mother and said that they would very much like to drink some. Mamma had never seen such beans. She boiled water in the large kettle on the wood stove, threw in a handful of the beans and, in tasting her concoction, did not understand what possessed these people to drink such a thing. Probably they were totally mad – she decided.

After work in the factory, papa used to write poetry in the evenings. In those instances when he went on a bender and played a card game called zolīte with the neighbours, mamma placed herself in the doorway and told him once and for all to stop living in a dream world. His poems rhymed and were very sincere, and he was particularly good at dedications.

Once a very famous artist came to the factory. He was looking for working people to paint. But he saw the teen-aged Ada in the factory yard. He asked for permission from mamma and papa to paint Ada. They didn’t object. The artist stayed for a whole month. Mamma made simple meals for him, which he very much enjoyed. Apparently he had had a great deal of success with his city exhibition of Ada’s portraits. One Saturday he arrived together with his wife in his black Volga car. He had brought along all sorts of housewarming gifts they had never seen before. Drinks, food and clothes for the children. Mamma got very flustered and told them that they had enough themselves. Then the children were shooed outside, because it wastime for adult talk. When they were finished, mamma, flushed red from anger, stood on the doorstep and repeated: “I, ne pasacīsi, I ne pasacīsi” – meaning “It’s unspeakable!” This is what she always said, when she couldn’t find what to say. The artist and his wife left immediately afterwards. When Ada was older, mamma told her that the very fine couple had wanted to take Ada to live with them. That here she was living in poverty and that they promised to lay the world at Ada’s feet. When mamma told this story, she always broke into uncontrollable tears and repeated: “I ne pasacīsi, I ne pasacīsi …”