Sashenka

Sashenka looked down at her fingers with terrible foreboding. This was it.

She sensed, through her peripheral vision, a wizened figure hesitating in the doorway.

“Sit down, prisoner,” said Rodos, pointing at the chair facing Sashenka on the T-shaped conference table. “There!”

A skinny old man in blue prison overalls hesitated again, pointing at himself. “Yes, you! Sit there, prisoner. Hurry!”

A bolt of expectation hit her. Was it her father? She gulped. Was he alive? Had he testified against her? It did not matter: if he was alive, she would be jubilant.

Love welled up in her for her father, her mother, her grandparents, all of them.

Papa! Whatever they’d done to him, whatever he’d done to her, she just wanted to hug him. Would they let her kiss him?

“Accused Zeitlin-Palitsyn!” barked Rodos. “Face the prisoner.”

40