The Impossible Journey Read Online Free PDF

everything in our apartment for keepingus. Of course, if you don’t keep us, we must sell everything to help us pay for somewhere to stay.”
    Mrs. Zotov’s face took on a greedy look, as if someone had just handed her a box of chocolates.
    â€œWhere can two children stay?” she asked. “It would be very difficult for you to find such a place. It’s a great deal of responsibility for us, and cost as well, but I can’t find it in my heart to send you away. Only promise me that you will have nothing more to do with the NKVD or with prisons. You can do your parents no good, and you will do yourselves and us great harm.”
    â€œI promise,” I said, though I had no intention of keeping the promise. After that Georgi and I helped carry all our possessions into the Zotovs’ apartment. The pots and pans were jumbled together with those of the Zotovs. The chair Papa settled into each night to read his books and the table Mama carefully polished each week were dragged into the Zotovs’ apartment and wedged into the vacant spaces. Our quiltswere heaped onto the Zotovs’ bed. Our curtains took the place of the worn and ragged ones that had hung over the Zotovs’ windows. All I took for myself were my clothes and my paint set.
    As we left the apartment, I longed to reach down for the books, which lay on the floor like wounded birds, their pages torn, their covers ripped. Mrs. Zotov stepped over them. “Let the books be,” she said. “I am sure they are dangerous. Just see how the police took them apart.”
    But I could not leave all the books, and when Mrs. Zotov was not looking, I snatched up a few of the ones that Mama and Papa had read to us.
    In the Zotovs’ apartment Georgi watched as Mrs. Zotov made up beds for me and for him in a space no larger than a closet. All our things were stuffed into a small chest.
    â€œWhere will Mama and Papa sleep when they come back from Siberia?” Georgi asked.
    At that the greedy look that had been on Mrs.Zotov’s face all the while she was filling her apartment with our things was replaced by a look of true pity.
    â€œIt will be a long time before they return, Georgi,” she said. “You must not worry about such things. Come, have something to eat. There was some jam in your kitchen, and you shall have it spread thickly on a big piece of bread.”
    There was a piece of bread for me as well, but the jam on mine was spread very thinly. I was sure Mrs. Zotov did not trust me, for she watched all that I did; certainly I did not trust her.
    That evening when Mr. Zotov returned home with his bear cub, he looked about with pleasure at the new furnishings and with disapproval at the two of us sitting on the sofa. “Well, well,” he said, in what I was sure he meant to be a cheerful voice, “so our little guests are still here. You are most welcome.” Seeing the miserable expressions on our faces, he added, “Come, your mama and papa will be with you soon.”
    Even Georgi did not believe him. “No they won’t,”he said. “Mrs. Zotov says they will be gone a long while.” But in no time at all Georgi was so taken up with Russ, reaching his hand into the cage where the bear was kept and petting the fat cub, that he said nothing more about Mama and Papa.
    All through dinner Mr. Zotov was kind to us, hunting about in the borscht for the best bits of beet and potato to ladle into our bowls. Later, though, after he thought we were asleep, I peeked into the sitting room and saw him try out Papa’s chair, grinning with satisfaction at how comfortable it was.
    In the morning Georgi and I set off for school. The moment Georgi was settled into his classroom, I vanished into the hallway and out the door. It took me a half hour of brisk walking to reach the Kresti Prison. I stood for many minutes at the entrance to the great gray building with its barred windows, trying to get up my