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It is useless. She doesn’t hear me, or she pretends not to hear; there is no reaction. She lights a cigarette. She takes Krugman’s poem that she is preparing for the next issue, reads two lines, and without finishing it, tears up the paper and throws it into the wastebasket. Before she finishes her cigarette, she puts it out in the ashtray, paces around the room nervously, and starts smoking again. She grabs the „Student Literary Organization“ package from the table that contains poems by Gorkin and Soldatov, and without opening it, throws it into the wastebasket. I begin to choke and cough, and don’t remember anything after that. My memory fails me.

* * *

We are at home, and I am back to my senses. I hear the voice of Olga, and I am immediately on my guard, realizing that the conversation is about me.

„What are you thinking of doing?“

„An abortion,“ Mama says dryly.

I roll myself into a ball and instinctively grasp for the umbilical cord, pulling on it carelessly. Mama cries out, feeling a sharp pain, and put her hand on her stomach.