My father released the deck of cards that he was holding throughout the telling of the story and let them fall on the table. He moved closer to Mother and comforted her. When she composed herself Father continued.
I peeked out again. My mother's eyes were flashing as the hanging table lamp left a clear view of her grieving heart.
"But that wouldn't have been the only reason to kill the b*tch," Father continued. "Do you remember those years, Basil? There were millions of reasons to kill someone. Betrayal, torture, death.... I felt I had to avenge everyone, but most of all our hearts, Ivanka's and mine. And yes, I did only have a pocket knife, but I was certain I would have killed them all, Gerlich and all the officers who allowed her to rule over death. I would have sold my soul to the Devil if he'd guarantee that I could."
"That's what I mean," said Aunt Helen, usually the first to break free, "I'm almost forty-six years old and I still don't understand the stupid things that change our lives, why they were even allowed to happen. Not just by God but by us as well. Stupid Ostap, if he'd been like all those Bolsheviks he wouldn't have even cared about the child."
"It's not the events, it's what happens after the fact, that is our sum," the professor offered. "We almost always change ourselves only after something forces us to act differently. In less clinical terms, it's what makes us grow into who we are, before we all turn to dust anyway."
"Come now, Basil," Aunt Hellen, countered. "You're not saying in order for us to grow we need all these tragic episodes in our lives just to fulfill our destiny."
"No it simply becomes your destiny as you shape it," he explained. "Just imagine if Ivan had seen Nurse Gerlich and confronted her, with only a pocket knife I believe ...Well, he's a smart fellow so I imagine he could have done it and gotten away with it, or he'd been shot. And I know that Ivan had killed his share of Nazis and Bolsheviks in that war but how much differently would this one have been, it was so personal."
Huh? Did I hear right.....killed? Who did he kill, was he a soldier? But I couldn't stop to think, I had to keep listening.
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