Deborah Treisman

Boris is like, I'll be going in a half hour and seems fully prepared.

He takes his favorite little pillow and, you know, Natasha's mother is saying, no, no, no, don't do something silly like burn them.

I've got this under control, tucking it under the linoleum.

It's as though they've planned a course of action and it's just going accordingly.

Boris doesn't seem to feel any fear.

He has a destination.

He knows where he's going.

And we get that first hint of sort of moral goodness with the old woman who takes him home to sleep in her barn and then doesn't report, you know, doesn't snitch.

So, yeah, it's almost as though everything was preordained for Boris.

And then he gets there and Nikolai groans, but he doesn't say, no, you can't stay.

I suppose because he goes back and forth between city and country, he's kind of prepared for both eventualities.

Because even in the country house later when the policeman comes to the door, he's instantly cleared the glass and the plate and shoved Boris with them behind the stove.

He knows exactly what to do.

Yeah.

But then he gets to this place where it's not that it's untouched by Soviet authoritarianism, but it is, as Baba Nora says, it is free.

They have their freedom.

They've been liberated from so many things, including their families.

But it describes her as free as a cloud.

You know, they are free because there's nothing left to take from them.

And they're living a life which really isn't under surveillance.