her mother did not want her to have children. Alexandra herself had raised two children; why would she not want the same gifts for her own? She finally connected it with what her mother had once mentioned was the biggest mistake of her life: given the opportunity to leave Russia once and for all, she had stayed in the country. One can only guess why she did not leave, although she never fully offered an explanation. Perhaps she did not want to leave her homeland, or maybe deep down she believed that the war would work out in favor of her social class. She took her secrets to her grave, and now no one can know for sure. She was not a proud woman; however, she did her best to save her children and brought them through shameful poverty and famine.
Frola rarely spoke openly of their poverty. Tonya could only recall one occasion when she had not wanted to eat something that her mother had cooked.
Frola burst out, “You do not like it? If you had ever tried to dig through frozen winter soil to find some mistakenly left grain, potato or some vegetables, you would like everything that is edible.”
Whenever Tonya did not like a food, she recalled her mother’s words: “It’s edible.” In general Tonya developed a good appetite and enjoyed most foods. She grew up a very healthy child compared to Ludmila, who was always in poor health and easily became sick.
Tonya was in the 7th grade when she overheard the story about her grandmother from a conversation between her mother and her closest girlfriend. She was shocked to find out about her heritage and that she had a grandfather who was affiliated with the enemy, the White Army. It was a heavy load on her shoulders, and it seemed impossible to carry on normally. She had to keep it a secret for the rest of her life. Would she be able to do that?
The secret was out just before she was to become a member of the Komsomol Party.2 To pass the test necessary to join, she needed to be a good and honest student, have respect for teachers and elders, be helpful to people who were less fortunate and defend those who were younger. Each student was called upon to do everything that was asked of them by the elder members of the Komsomol Party and its central community. In short, they only wanted the best of the best.
Tonya fit all of these qualities, but she could never be truly honest because she could never expose her deepest secret. She was afraid. She had to pretend she didn’t know about her heritage, at least so her mother would be satisfied in thinking that she didn’t know. She became a member of the Komsomol Party like most of her classmates, but she always felt the contradiction between her conscience and her secret. It was too much for her and began to eat away at her inside.
However, during the summer after Tonya finished the 7th grade, she had an experience that changed her feelings about her family secret. The children from her neighborhood would often go to the river to swim together. Her mother only allowed her to go if she took a safety flotation device, which just happened to be the inner tube from a car tire. A group of children from her neighborhood walked together for more than an hour to reach the river. The portion of the river in which the children swam was not dangerous; it was a slow-flowing, calm river which then entered the much more dangerous mountain river, with its hazardous frigid temperatures, fast flow, and dangerous undercurrents beneath the surface.
Every summer there were always a few tragic accidents where someone drowned. The idea came spontaneously to Tonya that she should attempt to cross the mountain river as a test. She knew an approximate place that was slightly safer, where a few adults had managed to swim across. If she survived, she would forget about her secret. If not, she would take it to her grave, but either way she would not suffer anymore.
She began boasting to her girlfriends about how she would try to cross the mountain river.
She asked, “Who will go with me?”
The girls starting yelling at her, “Are you crazy? Do you want us to bury you?”
She became worried they would never let her try, so she replied; “Don’t worry, if I lose my strength, I will turn back.”
She walked confidently to the fork where the calm river rushed into the mountain river. It was Sunday, one of the hottest days in the middle of July. Tonya looked at the groups of people along the river and felt a little bit jealous of all of them. They lived their lives without secrets; how good that must feel for them. Everywhere people were joking and laughing; some were singing or playing cards or chess, and some were playing with balls. There were groups of drunken people. Most important, she told herself, was not to hesitate, but to be confident.
The cold water crippled Tonya for a few seconds. She had to move fast and not let the cold water paralyze her muscles. In one or two minutes she felt better, and she worked fast with her hands, peacefully breathing in and out to prevent herself from tiring and to keep her breathing in balance. Tonya got a few feet from the riverbank when she heard, “Where is that stupid girl going?”
She was still far away from the middle of the river. Tonya worked hard with her hands to fight the flow of the water. She tried her best to keep herself on a safe path through the current. When she glanced back at the riverbank, she realized that the current had swept her farther down the river, away from the calm area where she would have been able to safely cross. She wanted to survive, but obviously it was not possible: she was losing her strength very quickly. She dove in and out of the water in order to get a few quick breaths of air.
In her mind she continued to hear the words, “stupid girl, stupid girl.” She immediately regretted this idea. She wanted to live, but it was now too late. Tonya struggled to keep her head out of the water for air. It was her last breath.
She had no strength to fight anymore when she felt a strong hand grab onto her and pull her out of the water. She could not hear what the man was screaming. She was choking heavily and coughing up water. The man was behind her, and he kept her head above the water by grabbing onto her hair. When Tonya was finally pulled out of the water, the man screamed and swore at her worse than she had ever heard before.
The man spit out the water that had filled his mouth and told her, “If you had gotten even a few feet farther, I would not have bothered to go after you. You have to thank God that you are lucky. God caught you by the palm of His hand.”
Tonya was still coughing heavily, trying to rid her system of the water. Her girlfriend and another woman ran to her asking, “Are you all right?”
With no strength left, she fell on the ground and started to cry hysterically. Someone tried to comfort her, but she did not know what she was crying about. Whether it was her happiness or relief over still being alive she couldn’t be sure, but she knew that she would never suffer from her secret anymore. Yes, she was reborn and she was a different Tonya now. Her girlfriend continued to scold her for such a stupid act, but Tonya was relieved that never again would she have to walk down that painful road. She shook her shoulders and left behind the heavy weight that she had carried for months. She would no longer return in her thoughts to the fact that her family had kept from her the secret of their history.
Tonya’s father, Stepan, worked all the time and saw little of his precious girls, but it was always the happiest time when he was home. He was a soft, quiet man who worked hard to provide for his family but never hid his love toward his daughters. He always stood up for them, no matter what the circumstances. Tonya thought that there was no one in the whole world kinder than her father. He not only showed kindness to his own family, but everyone around Stepan at one point or another experienced his kind and giving heart. Any neighbors who needed help were immediately assisted without hesitation and without thought of reimbursement.
Very often after a hard day’s work Stepan would take his daughters and bring them with him to drop off his pick-up truck at work, after which they would take the bus home. One of these times when they were driving, a man flagged down her father and asked which way he was headed. Stepan avoided the man’s question, instead asking him, “Where do you need to go?” After the man answered, Stepan laughed and said, “Well that’s in the