From then on my life changed abruptly. Before, I had lived knowing and feeling that by my side stood a man close and dear to me, to whom I could always turn for support. I had grown used to the calm heartening courage he gave me, and could not even imagine how it could be otherwise. And suddenly I was left all alone, with the responsibility for the fate of our two children, for their life resting completely on my shoulders.
Shura was, of course, too little to be fully aware of the calamity which had befallen us. It must have seemed to him that his father had simply gone a long way off, as had happened before, and that sometime he would come back again. But Zoya sorrowed as acutely as a grownup.
She hardly ever spoke about Father. She would come up to me—when my thoughts would wander to Father—look into my eyes and quietly suggest, "Would you like me to read to you?"
Or she would ask, "Tell us something! About when you were little…"
Or, without saying anything, she would simply sit down beside me, her knees pressed against mine.
She did her best to make me forget my sad thoughts.
But sometimes at night I would hear her sobbing. I would go over to her and stroke her hair and ask quietly, "Is it about Father?"
And she would unfailingly answer, "No, I must have been dreaming."
Even before it happened, we had often said to Zoya: "You are older, look after Shura, help Mother." Now these words had taken on a new meaning: Zoya had really become my friend and helper.
I began teaching at two schools at once, and was able to spend even less time at home than before. I used to prepare the dinner overnight. Zoya would heat it up, feed Shura, tidy up the room and, when she was a little older, she even began to light the stove herself.
"Zoya will burn our house down!" the neighbours would exclaim. "After all she's only a child!"
But I knew that Zoya was more reliable than many a grownup. She did everything at the right time, never forgot anything, and was not a bit careless about the most trivial job. I knew that Zoya would not drop a lighted match, would close the flue in time, and would notice any coals that dropped out of the fire.
One day I came home very late with a headache and so tired that I had not the strength to start cooking. "I will prepare the dinner tomorrow," I thought, "I'll get up earlier…"
I went to sleep almost before my head 'touched the pillow, and woke up next day later than usual. I had to leave the house in about half an hour in order not to be late for work.
"What a nuisance!" I said, very upset. "How could I have overslept! You will have to go without a cooked meal today, children!"
When I returned in the evening, I asked the children even before I was inside the room, "Well, are you starving?"
"We're not starving, we're bursting!" shouted Shura triumphantly, dancing up and down in front of me.
"Sit down and have dinner quickly, Mummy. We've got fried fish today!" announced Zoya proudly.
"Fish? What fish?… There actually was fish sizzling temptingly in the frying pan! Where had it come from?
The more I wondered, the more delighted were the children.
Shura went on hopping about and shouting, and Zoya, very pleased with herself, at last explained:
"You see, when we were going to school past the pond, we looked through a hole in the ice, and there was a fish there. Shura wanted to catch it with his hand, but it was very slippery. Our nanny at school gave us a tin, and we put it into the bag for the galoshes. And on the way home we stopped for an hour by the pond and caught some fish…"
"We could have caught more, but a man chased us away from the pond," Shura put in. "He said, 'You'll drown yourselves or freeze your hands.' But we didn't!"
"We caught a lot," went on Zoya. "Then we came home, fried them, ate some ourselves and left some for you. Tasty, isn't it?"
That evening Zoya and I prepared the dinner together: she peeled the potatoes carefully, washed the groats, and watched closely how much of everything I put into the saucepan.
Later, when I recalled those first months after the death of Anatoly Petrovich, I often thought that it was then that there developed in Zoya's character that early seriousness which was apparent to anyone who came in contact with her.
Next: The New School