That's how it happens.

Today at dinner I asked Ivan whether he remembers his childhood. He said no. And I am interested! If only I could learn something. He says he remembers nothing. And why then do I remember everything? Probably because I live in another world, a very different one, which I am unlikely to come to know.

I was about five when, being in Bolshevo at grandmother and grandfather’s, I once asked my grandfather a question. I would ask all sorts of questions when he smoked on the little terrace. He smoked strong cheap papirosy called “Dymok” (the name is inexact). Horribly poisonous. But this smoke did not bother me at all. Simply grandfather had a free minute and one could talk with him “about life.”

So the question was this: “Grandfather, do you want to die?” Answer: “Of course not.” And I: “Want to or not, you’ll die anyway!” (I was a “kind” little girl.) How did such a thing come into my head? And at that time my grandfather was younger than I am now!

Time passed. I grew up, got married, we came with my husband on a visit to Bolshevo for a few days (I have already written that in Soviet times we went to Moscow as if by tram, very often). Grandfather had gone into hospital, and we visited him. We sat down by the hospital bed on stools. We sit in silence. Grandfather sat up on his bed and says: “Do you remember, when you were little, you asked me whether I wanted to die…”

I “froze,” shrank all over. And he continued: “You said then: ‘want to or not, you’ll die anyway. And now my time has come… Want to or not…’” A month later he was gone…