Dancing Under the Red Star by Karl Tobien

flirting certainly went on at every opportunity. I already belonged to Nikolai, at least in my heart. But we were truly just one big healthy group of kids trying hard to make the best of less-than-favorable circumstances.
    Those snapshots of my early years in Gorky were pleasant fragments of life as we adapted to living in this place where we did not really belong. It all seemed surreal, because we were caught between two different worlds, consciously and not.
    The idyllic aspects of Russia ended for me when Papa was arrested. The harsh and fearful aspects of life in Gorky loomed ahead.

Five

    CONSEQUENCES
    B arely one month after Papa’s arrest, Mama and I were evicted from our home. The only space available to us was a single room that looked and felt more like a closet—a tiny living area only five feet by twelve feet. This room had been used as a small storage facility in the basement of a building where we lived when we first arrived in Gorky. It was right next door to the public toilet and washroom, which was used by all of the building’s residents.
    This was our new home. We were barely able to squeeze in two mini-cots, a small bookcase-desk that my father had built for my room, and two stools. I could reach out and touch the opposite walls with my fingers. In these cramped, sardinelike conditions, we also had to tolerate the nauseating stench and noise from the facilities next door.
    My mother eventually found a job as a janitor in a metal shop, sweeping up the metal shavings from the floor. She came home every day with her hands cut up and bleeding from the shavings, until she was able to make herself some sturdy canvas gloves for better protection. I hated watching her suffer, day after day after dreadful day, and I hated everything about my own life. But the worst part was not our squalid living arrangements, the horrible stench, our dreadful poverty, or even the uncertainty. These hardships would’ve been bearable if we’d only had Papa with us. His absence was a permanent pain of the worst kind.
    My constant thought was, Where is my papa? We had no idea where to turn or what to do next, but Mama told me more than once, “God will see us through this.” I didn’t know, but I sure hoped she was right!
    She didn’t sound very convincing, because a part of Mama died on the day they took her husband away. She was still emotionally strong but only a splinter of her former self. Only God knew what was happening to Papa. Was he still alive? They didn’t take just him on that horrible day in June; they also took our peace. We had no hint of where he was, how he was, or what was happening with him. I thought of ways to find my papa, but we were not allowed to have any contact with him due to his status as a vrag naroda (enemy of the state). And unlike in America, here we could not demand our rights. We had none.
    During Stalin’s Great Terror of 1938-39, there were no outside avenues of help. We could not present our case to the American Embassy in the Soviet Union; if there was one at this time, it was only a ploy. All foreign mail was inspected and filtered. Nothing insinuating the horrors of Soviet life to the outside world would be tolerated by the NKVD; instead, it would be harshly dealt with. The worst thing Mama and I could have done would have been to draw attention to our situation.
    So we forged ahead as best we could. We had little money and no material resources, so we struggled for everything. I tried to help Mama stretch the measly wages she earned, but we lacked even the bare essentials. Gradually we became accustomed to having just enough food to survive. Some days were better than others. A few potatoes and an occasional loaf of stale black bread was our usual portion; it was day-to-day survival. And despite Mama’s strong appearance, she was not the same woman she had been before they stole from the bank of our family’s future memories, before they took my future children’s grandfather