This sewing machine was the only treasure of my Grandma’s sister, Aunt Vera. I remember how carefully she handled it — she regularly greased it and kept it covered with a special lid. Aunt Vera sewed beautifully.

Aunt Vera’s fate is so sad that it is difficult for me to talk about her. During the Great Patriotic War, she was in Stalingrad, survived the siege, and after the war, she lost her only child — she had a miscarriage when she was dismantling with the residents of the city the heavy debris left after the bombing of the city. Her aunt had no other children. When the war ended, she got a room and, after she started to live alone, she became ill — she started to hear sounds and voices.

I remember her already quite old. My aunt lived with us in a small windowless room, the kind of room usually reserved for household utensils. There was a small bed, an old closet, and a table — I think it was just made up of suitcases lying on top of each other.

My aunt never left the house at all and spent almost all her time in her room. She only came out to help Grandma with the chores — cooking, washing dishes.

She was on medication all the time, taking pills, but they didn’t help much. When I was fifteen, she killed herself. She left a note in which she apologized for the fact that we “nourished a viper in our bosom”