The Nesting Dolls by Alina Adams

Author:Alina Adams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-07-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

“You were there, weren’t you, Papa?” Natasha waited until her father was drunk enough to be gregarious, but not so drunk that his testimony couldn’t be trusted. “At the Twentieth Party Congress? When Khrushchev exposed Stalin?”

Papa was in their room, smelling of acetone, weaving as he pawed through the chifforobe looking for his coat. “No, kitten. Your papa wasn’t important enough to be at the congress. That’s for higher-ups. I was at work. They called us Party members together. This was before the congress. Weeks before. They told us what Comrade Khrushchev was going to say. So we’d be prepared. So we would support him. I was one of the trusted. I was among the first to know!”

“You knew Khrushchev was going to denounce Stalin? Expose the Gulags?”

“Expose Stalin’s cult of personality, yes.” Her father straightened up, saluted, and began to warble, “Long live beloved Stalin, long live dear Stalin.” Then he switched to a different song, somehow still managing to retain the melody, “The people sing a beautiful song of Stalin, wise and dear . . .”

“Sha!” Natasha’s mother materialized abruptly, slamming shut the door.

Papa explained, “Natashenka was asking me about our great Comrade Stalin.”

“She should read a book, the official story.”

“Which one?” Natasha demanded. “There’s a new one every few years!”

“Whichever one it is now—that’s the one you should read.”

“It’s all lies. Even Khrushchev’s speech, he blamed everything—mass arrests, torture, forced confessions, deportations, Gulags—on Stalin, when it was Lenin, Lenin who started it; they were his decrees. It’s what the USSR was based on!”

“Zatkniz! Shut up,” Mama growled, shoving her daughter’s shoulder hard enough so Natasha stumbled backward, plopping onto her bed, Mama towering above her. “You don’t know anything.”

“But you do.” With Mama this uncharacteristically angry, Natasha saw an opening to pry out some truths—and lay some truths on her, in return. “This happened in your time. How could you not have known? The Great Purge, the Doctors’ Plot, the millions deported to camps. You had to be aware of what was happening. People were disappearing right and left! And you still pinned that Lenin red star on my school uniform, and you made me stand on a chair and recite those ludicrous poems. Even the one by that idiot American, Langston Hughes. I didn’t know what I was saying!” Natasha assumed a little girl voice to chant in English, “Lenin walks around the world / Frontiers cannot bar him / Neither barracks nor barricades impede / Nor does barbed wire scar him.” She resumed a normal tone. “Lenin was to blame for how many barracks? How much barbed wire? You were there, you saw them, you tell me! He imprisoned his own people for disagreeing with him. I dare you to tell me I’m wrong!”

“You’re more than wrong. You’re foolish. Ignorant. Naive.” If Natasha thought fury would make Mama lose control, she’d miscalculated. Instead of flaming, Mama’s anger froze. “Do you not recognize how fortunate you are, with a name like Natalia Nahumovna Crystal, to

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