...of acceptance

His aunt listened to him in silence, let him talk for a long time, repeating himself. She sensed that this was how he would get used to his new life. His uncle returned from the town about midday and was equally taciturn. Weeks later Alexei would guess that behind this silent acceptance of his coming, and the danger of his coming, there doubtless lay an unspoken desire to make him understand: 'Now look, we're plain country folk. We welcome you with open arms. We've got no grudges against our own kin, who forgot all about us.' But at the time all he needed was to be able to tell them his story, to win approval, to be reassured that, in any event, even if he had stayed in Moscow, he could not have done anything for his parents. He also realised that, in a few swift moves, they were already preparing for his clandestine existence in that house. Their economy with words and actions reminded him that the epidemic of fear his own family had known in '37 had made its assault on these people much earlier. At the end of the twenties, from the time when collectivisation began in that part of the world. They had lost their two children in the famine that followed it, and had hidden fugitives before.

[A Life's Music, Makine, A.]