Susanna may be mute, but not stupid. And although she is still a child she can draw wonderful pictures. But as it was in the Soviet Union behind the iron curtain in those days it was not easy to raise a deaf child that didn’t fit into the communist ideal, and the state would whisk her swiftly away into a home if they found her.
Her mother Antonia had a stroke of luck as she, although a lowly worker in a factory, became a room in a communal apartment that she would share with three older women. They were to take care of Susanna. One of them is religious and christens her secretly with the name of Sophia. Another whose roots were firmly planted in the old Russian aristocracy secretly taught her French, although she was well aware of the danger that Susanna could suddenly start talking one day. All the women lived constantly in the fear of knowing all to well what would happen if the state were ever to catch on.
During the long lonely evenings they told Susanna not only stories out of the bible and fairy tales, they also told of ‘Gulag’, the atrocities of the Leningrad blockade and the hardships of everyday life in the Soviet Union.
As Susannas mother fell ill to cancer and was certain to die, the old ladies devised a plan to ensure the safety of the little girl. They persuaded an admirer of Antonia to marry her and adopt the child, in return he became a room in the apartment.
Susanna grew and became a talented painter. But then one day as her lover and fellow artist Grisha decided to leave the country, after nearly being killed by the bulldozers that destroyed a secret open air display of their work, she decide to stay.
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