One of the women, a stern woman with a bump on the back of her head, pursed her lips and looked away. Alona looked at her mother and believed. How could she not believe when her mother’s eyes were so familiar, so loving, and she was clinging to her shoulder so desperately?
“You’ll be back soon,” her mother whispered. “I’ll take care of everything. Just wait a moment, darling.”
The dormitory was clean, well-fed, and unbearably lonely. There were other girls nearby, but Alena avoided them. She was used to solitude, and noisy companies, where everyone shared secrets and argued over sugar papers, were alien to her. At night she remembered her mother’s voice and waited. A month passed, then two, then a third.
Mom came only once. She was sober, thin, and pale. She brought Alena an orange and a cheap chocolate bar. They sat on a bench in the dormitory garden, and her mother smoked, nervously flicking the ash from her cigarette.
“Soon,” he repeated. “Just a moment.”
Alena thought.
Then it stopped. Two years passed.
When she was twelve, an older woman with puffy eyes came into the dormitory. It was Aunt Nina, her grandmother’s half-sister, whom Alona had only seen a few times in her life.
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