The winter came and covered up all the paths that might have led to us. We had mushrooms, berries (dried and boiled), potatoes from my father’s plot, a whole attic filled with hay, pickled apples from abandoned gardens in the forest, even a few cans of pickled cucumbers and tomatoes. On the little field, under the snow, grew our winter crop of bread. We had our goats. We had a boy and a girl, for the continuation of the race, and a cat, who brought us mice from the forest, and a dog, Red, who didn’t want to eat these mice, but whom my father would soon count on for hunting rabbits. My father was afraid to hunt with his rifle. He was even afraid to chop wood because someone might hear us. He chopped wood only during the howling snowstorms. We had a grandmother-the storehouse of the people’s wisdom and knowledge.

Cold desolate space spread out around us on all sides.

One time my father turned on the radio and tried for a while to hear what was out there. Everything was silent. Either the batteries had died, or we really were the last ones left. My father’s eyes shone: He’d escaped again!

If in fact we’re not alone, then they’ll come for us. That much is clear. But, first of all, my father has a rifle, and we have skis and a smart dog. Second of all, they won’t come for a while yet. We’re living and waiting, and out there, we know, someone is also living, and waiting, until our grain grows and our bread grows, and our potatoes, and our new goats-and that’s when they’ll come. And take everything, including me. Until then they’re being fed by our plot, and Anisya’s plot, and Tanya’s household. Tanya is long gone, but Marfutka is still there. When we’re like Marfutka, they won’t touch us either.

But there’s a long way to go until then. And in the meantime, of course, we’re not just sitting here. My father and I have commenced work on our next refuge.

The Miracle

THERE ONCE LIVED A WOMAN WHOSE SON HANGED HIMSELF.

Which is to say, when she returned home from the night shift one morning, her boy was lying on the floor next to an overturned stool underneath a length of thin synthetic rope.

He was unconscious, but his heart still beat faintly, and so the paramedic who came with the ambulance suggested that the son wasn’t really trying to hang himself.

Even though there was a note on the table: “Mom, I’m sorry. I love you.”

And it was only when she’d returned home from the hospital, having held her son’s hand as they rode in the ambulance, and then with him into the hospital as he lay on a stretcher, right up to the doors of the intensive care unit, where she finally had to let him go-only upon returning home did she discover that the wool sock in which she kept her savings was empty.

She kept the sock at the bottom of an old suitcase. It had contained two wedding rings, all her money, and her gold earrings set with rubies.

The poor woman then saw that the tape player-the one valuable thing she’d ever bought, because it was the only way she could get her son to return to school-was also gone.

Looking around some more, she found a number of empty bottles under the bed and in the kitchen, a mound of dirty plates in the sink, and traces of vomit in the filthy bathroom.

She knew the minute she walked in the door that there had been a party-her son was being drafted into the army and had wanted to invite his friends over, but the mother kept objecting.

And yet when she stood at the entrance to their studio apartment that morning and took in the crooked lamp, the table that had been moved, the overturned stool, and, above all, the rope and the body on the floor, all her angry thoughts left her.

Only now did she move the fallen chair aside and pull the old suitcase from underneath her bed.

It wasn’t locked properly; one of the two small locks was broken.

That loose lock told her a great deal, and she opened the suitcase hopelessly, with unfeeling hands.

The wool sock was in its place, under all the clothing, but it was empty.

That sock was her last hope. She had made all sorts of plans, whether to buy a television, or to bribe someone to allow her son to take his high school exams (he’d dropped out in the middle of his senior year).

Other times she dreamed of moving to a bigger apartment, with two rooms. She’d have to scrimp and save, but she could do it, and her boy could have his own room. It wasn’t easy living with him, it was true, but he was her only remaining family. The others had died, all her relatives-her parents, aunts, uncles, and husband had died young; an evil fate seemed to trail them all.

And now her boy wanted to leave her, too.

In truth he’d been talking about this for a long time. His army service was approaching inexorably, and he’d always been a quiet, gentle boy. He didn’t like fighting-he always said he couldn’t hurt another human being, and because of this he was often beaten up at school. There were three boys in particular who liked to pick on him. They’d laugh and say he never fought back, and they’d take everything he had in his pockets, right down to his handkerchief.

Which, incidentally, didn’t mean he was above threatening his own mother when he was drunk. In fact he’d changed a great deal since he’d started hanging out with some older kids who lived in their building.

They’d taken him under their protection. He told his mother so himself, he came home one day and said, That’s it, no one’s going to bother me anymore. And from then on he would walk around strangely exhilarated.

That was a few years ago, when he was fourteen. That’s when he began asking his mother for a tape player. The other boys would give him tapes to copy, and he couldn’t admit to them that he didn’t have a tape recorder of his own, so he just sat there miserably, staring at the tapes.

He’d bragged to his friends-apparently-about his tape player and now couldn’t take it back. He knew his mother had some money-she was always working several jobs, saving, scrimping-but she told him pocket money would spoil him, he might even, she said, start drinking and smoking, as if they didn’t already have enough problems.

He did in fact start drinking and smoking-the older kids must have paid. He also knew his mother’s hiding places and would steal from her a little at a time. She was disorganized and never remembered exactly how much money she had in her stash.

One time he wouldn’t stop screaming about how much he needed a tape recorder. He kept at it until he actually became ill-he had a fever, and he refused medication. He said he wanted to die.

His fever grew worse, he refused all food, and finally his mother broke down-she went out and bought him a tape recorder, the cheapest one, though it still cost a fortune.

Her son woke up right away, and he looked wide-eyed at the tape recorder. The mother was crying tears of joy, seeing how shocked he was, but then just as suddenly he lay down again, turned his back to her, and said it was the wrong model. It wasn’t what he needed at all.

The next morning they crawled together to the cheap little kiosk to exchange the tape recorder for a better one. They had to pay a ton of money, again, for the upgrade-and clearly the people at the kiosk tricked them, seeing the condition the mother was in, that she was ready for anything.

After that he truly went out of control. He listened to the tape recorder day and night without a break, dubbed cassettes (which also cost money), and then soon there was the problem of a new leather jacket, designer jeans, and American sneakers.

Here the mother finally said no. After all, where would it end?

Since you’re not going to school anymore, she told him, why don’t you go to work like me? I’m ready for any kind of work for your sake.