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and splendor; it is one of the most gorgeous cities of the world, and I did not want to leave. “Papa, can we stay?” I pleaded to no avail. So after two short weeks, we bid our dear relatives a reluctant farewell, and sending a telegram ahead, we left Austria for Brno, Czechoslovakia, where my grandmother and Uncle Friedrich lived.
    No one met us when we arrived at the train station in Brno, so we took a taxi to my uncle’s home. It turned out to be a penthouse apartment with a wonderful wrought-iron balcony around all four sides of the building. The garden on the balcony was filled with plants, primarily cacti. Gardening was the hobby of my eighty-five-year-old grandmother. When we rang, a maid promptly opened the door and showed us inside. She explained that my uncle was not home yet but grandmother was here, alone in her room, playing cards. At the entrance to her room, my mother and I waited in the background, permitting Papa to approach his mother by himself.
    “Mama?” he called.
    She slowly turned from her game of solitaire. “Who’s there?” she asked.
    Then my father, in his extremely dramatic and animated fashion, crept up behind her and softly whispered in her ear, “Your ssson, Caaarrrl.” A most profound frozen silence filled the room.
    The old lady sat there motionless for what felt like an eternity, stunned, visibly overwhelmed, and noticeably shaking. The advance telegram had not yet been delivered. It finally arrived later that afternoon, after emotions began to settle. Now Papa’s mother had tears rolling down her wrinkled cheeks and could only say, “Oh, my son, my Carl. Where have you been so long?” It was an unforgettable reunion, and I was so happy to meet my only surviving grandparent! I wanted to stay there and live with her forever.
    Uncle Friedrich was the vice president of a very successful cosmetics factory. When he finally arrived home from work that day, he was speechless and deeply glad to see us. He was quite an emotional man, like my father. “Ahhh, and this is your beautiful little pumpkin, I guess,” he said to Papa, hugging me as if there were no tomorrow. I instantly fell in love with Uncle Friedrich! We spent a very close and loving two weeks with them in their home in Brno. Again, I did not want to leave; neither did Mama. “Papa, let’s stay here… Let’s stay, please.”
    “Carl,” Mama added, “we could stay, you know. Friedrich said there’s room for us. What do you think?” But despite my many pleadings and Mama’s hopeful eyes, despite Uncle Friedrich’s offer, Papa’s mind had long since been made up. He paused, with signs of serious consideration on his face, but after a long sigh, he shook his head slowly and said, “I’m sorry, but we must leave in the morning.”
    Perhaps it would have been difficult for us to return to the United States at this time because of Papa’s prison record—his 1917 refusal to be drafted during World War I. Perhaps not. We didn’t know. But we could have easily stayed in Czechoslovakia with family that loved us. I was sure Papa wanted to stay too. Why did he fight against his inner man, his spirit, which must have been warning him about returning to Russia? But we did not stay, and we never saw either of these dear ones again. My grandmother died in her sleep about five years later. Uncle Friedrich, I later learned, committed suicide when the Nazis occupied his beloved country. Fear of certain death by execution drove him to choose his own fate.

    We went back to Russia to stay. Returning to Gorky, we moved into a housing commune and were given two rooms, one directly across the hall from the other. It was far from comfortable, but still I felt satisfied to some degree, because once again I had a room all to myself. Mama joined the kitchen crew and did everything imaginable to improve the daily menu and to make the most of the food and supplements available to her. She had a God-given flair for making something out of