Sofia Petrovna

There’s nothing in the newspapers the following day about the arrests. Sofia wants to visit Mrs. Kiparisova to check in on her, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t have time. Plus, she hasn’t seen Mrs. Kiparisova in three years, anyway, so it would be odd to show up out of nowhere.

That month, Sofia starts actually reading the newspapers and tracking current events. She and Natasha read every day about fascists infiltrating the Soviet Union and how it’s necessary to arrest anyone engaged in “terrorist” activities. These are the people, Sofia learns, who apparently murdered Sergei Kirov, and now they want to kill Joseph Stalin and threaten the soviet way of life. Everyone around Sofia talks about how even the most unsuspecting people might be working against the Soviet Union. 

The publishing house holds a mandatory meeting to talk about the current situation in the Soviet Union. Comrade Timofeyev—the party secretary—talks about how enemies to the Communist Party are lurking everywhere, which is why everyone at the publishing house has to redouble their efforts to maintain “political vigilance.” After he speaks, he hands the floor over to the chairman of the Mestkom, Anna Grigorievna, who declares that the publishing house itself has been infiltrated by enemies of the state. Everyone is shocked. She explains that the supervisor of the printshop was arrested the previous night for being an “enemy of the people.” She then chides the company for allowing this to go undetected for so long, which is why everyone must be extra diligent.

Anna Grigorievna says that the supervisor of the print shop was identified as an “enemy of the people” because his uncle had been arrested for the same thing. When Natasha asks what, exactly, the supervisor did, Anna Grigorievna indignantly reiterates that he was the nephew of a known dissident. She adds that he was in contact with his uncle, and then she makes a few vague allegations about how he interfered with the Communist Party’s goals on his uncle’s orders, though she doesn’t say how.

In the coming days, everyone is on edge at the publishing house. The director visits the party headquarters in Leningrad, and Comrade Timofeyev makes frequent visits to the typing pool and takes Erna Semyonovna into a private room to handle secret business. Sofia, for her part, writes to Kolya and tells him to remain on the alert for dissidents and enemies of the Soviet Union. She herself learns at work that Anna Grigorievna blames Comrade Timofeyev for the situation in the printshop, and Comrade Timofeyev, in turn, blames the director.

On her way home one day, Sofia runs into Mrs. Kiparisova. She’s astonished by the way her old friend looks. Mrs. Kiparisova is wearing felt boots and galoshes, a scarf and a hat, and is using a cane. Sofia thinks the old woman has “let herself go,” but she still treats her with kindness, asking if her husband has been accused of anything serious. He was always such a respected doctor, Sofia notes, saying that her own husband always thought of him as an esteemed colleague. Mrs. Kiparisova insists that her husband didn’t do anything, which greatly pleases Sofia, who says she never even believed the accusations. She’s sure Mrs. Kiparisova’s husband will be let out very soon, insisting that the Soviet Union doesn’t keep innocent people in jail.