The Education of a Traitor: A Memoir of Growing Up in Cold War Russia by Svetlana Grobman

members of the Communist Party.
    My parents have waited for their new apartment since I was born, and, if not for Tanya’s arrival, they would have been waiting still. Yet, here we are, in a place that, to me, is as grand as the castle where Cinderella met her prince and as desirable as the prince himself.
    Of course, unlike the royal couple, we occupy only half of a two-room apartment on the fourth floor without an elevator. The other half belongs to our new neighbors with whom we share a kitchen and a bathroom. Still, everything here is new, with no signs of mold or smell of kerosene. In fact, we now have a gas stove, a toilet, running water, a heavy metal bathtub, and only two strangers to share this luxury!
    Our new neighbors are a middle-aged couple: Klavdia Petrovna and her husband Naúm Vasilievich. Klavdia Petrovna is large, with flabby cheeks, cascading double chins, and a skinny gray braid coiled on top of her head. Naúm Vasilievich is also large, with a wisp of light baby-thin hair and the cheeks of a drinker, red enough to strike matches on their burning surface.
    Klavdia Petrovna and Naúm Vasilievich do not have children. At first, I expected this to change any day, since, in my limited experience, women as big as Klavdia Petrovna were about to give birth. Yet four months later, Klavdia Petrovna’s size remains constant and, in fact, the number of people in our apartment diminishes. Tosja, our old nanny, finally leaves us for good.
    Whether Klavdia Petrovna has anything to do with it, I cannot say. I did notice, though, that Tosja and Klavdia Petrovna became very friendly, and I once overheard Klavdia Petrovna telling Tosja that “it is a shame for a young Russian woman to wipe Jewish asses.” Whatever the reason, one day, Tosja packs her cardboard suitcase, tells my parents—in the old-fashioned Russian way—“Forgive me if I did something wrong,” and walks out, leaving Mom in a quandary over my sister’s childcare.
     
    “I found a new nanny for Tanya,” Mom announces after dinner, while collecting dirty soup bowls and plates to take to the kitchen. “Her name is Zoya Ivanovna. She’ll come here in the morning and stay with Tanya until you come home from school.” 
    “Fine,” I say indifferently, pulling my textbooks and writing pads out of my briefcase and settling down to do my homework.
    After Tosja’s departure, Tanya had gone through two babysitters. The first one agreed to look after Tanya together with three of her own grandchildren. Unfortunately, the woman was so overwhelmed with four children to mind that, on her first day, Tanya slipped out of the woman’s third-floor apartment and, being her usual over-energetic self, tumbled down a steep staircase. When Mom came to pick her up that night, Tanya’s knees, elbows, and forehead were bandaged sloppily, and her face was scratched and bruised.
    The second babysitter, a reticent childless woman of uncertain age, was taken to the hospital at the end of Tanya’s second week with her. Not being there myself, I cannot say for certain that there was a connection between my sister’s unpredictable behavior and the poor woman’s stroke, but the thought definitely crossed my mind. 
    Zoya Ivanovna, then, is Mom’s third attempt to keep Tanya at home until her turn at a daycare center comes up. The wait was not supposed to be long—the daycare is run by Mom’s factory, and her boss, the head of the factory’s medical clinic with whom Mom is on good terms, promised to zamolvit za neio slovechko (put a word in for her). However, two years later the daycare still has no space for her. 
    The next morning, two sharp rings announce the arrival of Tanya’s new babysitter, and I rush to open the door for her. A gaunt woman in black walks in. She is tall and flat, with no hint of a bosom or other features of female anatomy. She is also the oldest woman I have ever seen. Her narrow lips reveal a toothless gaping mouth. Her thin white hair