Ask me…You have to ask how these things coexisted: our happiness and the fact that they came for some people at night and took them away. Some people disappeared, while others cried behind the door. For some reason, I don’t remember any of that. I don’t! I remember how the lilacs blossomed in the spring, and everyone outside, strolling; the wooden walkways warmed by the sun. The smell of the sun. The blinding mass demonstrations: athletes, the names of Lenin and Stalin woven from human bodies and flowers on Red Square. I would ask my mother this question, too…
