“We are Jews,” said my mother, “How Could you ever, how dared you forget?” Margarita is not sure what she means. She does have her Motherland, after all, one she loves all the more because “you don’t get to choose it.” Yes, I dared! Can’t you see, I dared! There was so much else I could love. Why would I—why should I have cared, When so blue was the sky above? Is Motherland—is nationality—not about “Pushkin’s golden tales,” “Gogol’s enchanting voice,” “Lenin’s expansive gesture,” and “the unsparing love of a wild Russian man”? Not entirely, as it turns out. Our freedom’s firstborn generation, Raised in blissful ignorance of Hell, We forgot about our ancient nation, But the Nazis—they remembered well. We all knew that war demanded valor, Not that it required one final choice; We all knew that human blood had color, Not that it might also have a voice. When the scythes of Death began to mow, We found out that Hell had several rungs; When the time came for the blood to flow, It cried out in many different tongues. As I listen to the mortal moaning, I discern one voice I can recall. And each day gets louder, more imploring, Blood’s insistent, subterranean call. 108 The Nazis classified people, particularly the Jews, according to the voice of their blood. Most people, and particularly the Jews, responded by hearing their blood’s call. Nowhere did it make more sense than in the Soviet Union, where all