The house, in the dilapidated center of town, was old and wooden and had no bathtub or shower, only a toilet. The family made do—they heated water on the stove and washed over a basin, or showered at friends’ houses—and anyway, they were not so Western that they had to shower every day. They were, however, so Western as to play tennis, a rarefied sport that landed the family a photo spread in the city paper when Zhanna was a toddler.
