Moscow

Moscow is a pivotal place in Celeste Singer’s account of childhood: after the Chernobyl disaster, it became a refuge for her and her mother, then the setting of her mother’s murder and Celeste’s years of survival alone. The city marks the turn from a life shaped by family displacement to one shaped by loss and dependence on Benedict Singer.

Relocation and Refuge

After Celeste’s Russian nuclear-engineer father moved the family to Byelorussian for a position at Chernobyl, the disaster led to her and her mother being relocated. Benedict brought them to a small apartment in Moscow. He visited when business took him to the city, offering a measure of support after the loss of Celeste’s father.

Murder and Political Scandal

Moscow was also where Celeste came home from school to find her mother and her mother’s lover, a powerful Politburo member, shot dead in her bed. The two had been seeing each other discreetly; the man was married and had a family. Celeste remembered the killings as a major political scandal, though she could not identify who was responsible and had only suspicions.

Celeste’s Survival

After the murders, Celeste was left without family or money and tried to survive on Moscow’s streets. Benedict found her eight months later, when she was working as a prostitute, and sent her to a boarding school in America. Moscow therefore figures not simply as the place where her family’s refuge ended, but as the city where her vulnerability became acute and Benedict’s intervention redirected her life.