Sofia Petrovna

A year passes, during which Sofia hears nothing from Kolya. With her age she has to start using a cane. She finds typing work at a library, where she has no interaction with her coworkers. She spends her meager salary on stockpiling Kolya’s favorite provisions in case he finally writes and asks for food. Sofia eats little herself and stops regularly heating and cleaning her apartment. The only things she keeps clean are Kolya’s books, radio, and cogwheel prototype.

Sofia writes three letters to Stalin asking for any information about her son. She receives no reply. Periodically, she goes to the legal advice bureau to speak to the friendly defense attorneys about Kolya—they’re unable to do anything to help.

One day Mrs. Kiparisova surprises Sofia at her apartment. (Mrs. Kiparisova has avoided Sofia for fear that the NKVD will connect Kolya’s case to her husband’s.) Some prisoners have been released. Sofia must inquire about Kolya at the prosecutor’s office.

After Mrs. Kiparisova leaves, the nurse and the house manager barge into Sofia’s apartment. The nurse has reported her to the house manager for cooking in her room: “She’s scorned us ever since we found her systematically stealing the kerosene. Her son’s in a camp, exposed as an enemy of the people, she herself has no fixed occupation, in short, an unreli­able element” (98).