“Then tell me, what do you want?” her mother asks. “I want you to leave me alone!” she yells. “Stop lecturing me. I’m not your student. I want you to stop waving flags for a minute and look around. I want you to stop pretending that everything is fine, stop making excuses for the mess we’re in.” She sharpens her voice like a knife. “This isn’t Ivanovo. We live in a country full of hypocrites and bandits, and of people like Grandpa and you, true believers, who have survived Stalin only because he was too busy murdering the other twenty million.” She pauses to take a breath, to ready herself for
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