Katerina Suvorova, a former tour guide at the local art museum and a parishioner of the so-called Paper Church, an underground Christian group, lives in a communal apartment in the fictional Soviet city of Tukhachevsk. Having endured the rigors of punitive psychiatry, Katerina fears persecution and writes a secret diary intended for her son. In these notes, the heroine teaches him how to properly wash windows and pray, talks with him about Robinson Crusoe and the veneration of saints, and also shares fragments of her own tragic biography.
Her notebook is a testimony of great maternal love, which, upon closer inspection, turns out to be a testimony of an entirely different kind: about the salvation of the soul through faith and through compassion, which has no place in an inhumane system.

Linor Goralik is a prose writer, poet, and journalist, author of the books 'Named by Such and Such' and 'Valery' published by NLO, as well as the study 'Hollow Woman. Barbie's World from the Inside and Outside.'