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

dilated nostrils. Ordinarily, this statement would make me very happy, but there is something in Mom’s voice that does not feel right. Besides, she does not look at me, does not put her medicine-smelling hand on my forehead in a gesture of concern, and does not ask me if I feel any better.
    “Is something the matter?” I say, but Mom just glances at me—her face like a storm cloud about to erupt with lightning—and goes to the kitchen. Soon, I hear the loud staccato of a kitchen knife hitting the cutting board with the fury of a guillotine chopping. 
    Not until Dad comes home do I learn—overhear, really, for how can I not hear my parents whispering four yards away from my bed?—what has happened. Both Mom and Dad sit at the table—Dad eating his dinner and Mom, next to him, talking.
    “I left early today,” Mom starts, first slowly, visibly looking for words, but then faster and faster. “And I thought that before I picked up Tanya from Zoya Ivanovna’s, I’d go get some cabbage for shchi (soup made of green cabbage). So I go to the vegetable store on the corner, get in line, and look around. And who do you think I see?” Mom takes a deep breath, as if she is about to dive into unfamiliar waters. “I see Tanya! She’s standing at the counter next to a woman buying beets and potatoes, just as if she were that woman’s daughter.”
    Dad’s spoon freezes in mid-air, “What was Tanya doing there?” 
    “That’s what I want to tell you!” Mom bursts out, forgetting to whisper. Then she lowers her voice and continues. “Tanya’s standing there, but because she’s short, the saleswoman can’t see her on the other side of the counter. The woman customer is busy arguing with the saleswoman over spoiled potatoes and trying to take them off the scale, and everybody else, you know, is watching them.” 
    “Did you call Tanya?” 
    “Well, I opened my mouth to call her, but she suddenly stretched out her hand, grabbed a beetroot from a pile on the counter, and hid it under her coat!”
    Dad’s spoon swoops into his bowl and splashes the vinyl tablecloth with bits and pieces of his dinner. 
    “I thought I’d fall through the floor!” Mom whispers theatrically, leaning toward my father who looks as if he is about to follow her on her way through the scratched planks of our wooden floor to the core of the earth. 
    “And where was Zoya Ivanovna?” Dad says after a pause—his angular face distorted and his thick eyebrows knitted together.
    “That’s the thing!” Mom exclaims, throwing up her hands and, once again, forgetting to speak softly. “She was right there! Standing in the corner and waiting for Tanya to give her the beetroot and who knows what else!” 
    Here Mom looks around and notices me, half-thrust out from under my blankets with my ears pricked up. “And you’re supposed to sleep off your cold and not eavesdrop on the things that have nothing to do with you!” She says. Then she turns back and continues talking in a hushed voice, while the expression on her face speaks loudly of her feelings. 
    Insulted, I pull back. It’s not my fault that Tanya steals beets from the store, is it? Why is Mom angry with me? My parents keep whispering for some time, but all I can decipher is “just like an experienced thief!” which Mom accompanies with a jerky movement that, apparently, imitates Tanya’s grabbing the beetroot. I turn toward the wall, and soon heavy dreams transport me into a kaleidoscope of feverish scenes in which Tanya and I are running from an angry crowd headed by a saleswoman in soiled over-sleeves and a dirty apron. 
    My sister spends the next couple of weeks at the grandparents, and when she comes back, Mom tells me that Tanya’s long-awaited turn at the daycare center has finally come up. 
    I never see Zoya Ivanovna again. She disappears from our lives the way wilted autumn leaves disappear into the void, swept by the cold winds of the winter. For a while, I keep