She was born on a wintery night in 1928 as an effort to save her parents failing marriage. a marriage that had suffered through the poverty stricken Stalin era as both her parents struggled to make ends meet working in the local factory. Her mother spent her lunch break trying to breastfeed her whilst her father covered for his wife's absence. It was hard but they worked hard to make it work for the first few months of 'nemnogo Natal'ya' life. But as an infant, Natasha fought against her mother's comfort, to her this woman was a stranger, she had spent most of her time being cared for by the woman across the hall in their apartment complex. Feeling like a failure, her mother descended into a depression and as a result stopped working, stopped talking and stopped responding to her friends and family. It was left to her father to desperately patch the cracks in their lives, trying to cover for his wife's absences from work all the while knowing that the day would come when she would be taken from him. It was three days later when his wife was arrested for avoiding work and another day later when news came of her suicide. And so he was left to survive for his daughter's sake, his precious tuft of deep red curls, so much like her mother.
He got a raise and a few more pennies added to his salary. It wasn't enough. He could no longer afford to pay Mrs Burkov for her childcare services and she was no longer in the position of giving him free child care. He could do nothing else but ask her to check on Natalia every few hours whilst she was left sitting alone in her fourth hand cot with the dingy used mattress as comfort and the peeling yellow walls as company. They made it work for two years, two long years. He made sure she had clothes on her back and a roof over her head. The clothes were too small, the rent was always late and what little he had left went towards his ever growing need for cheap vodka.
He was a good and loving father.
Their small apartment community saw this and tried to help out as much as possible but everybody was going through similar hard times. Stalin's soldiers were cruel like surly mongrels desperate to attack at any poor soul that tripped up in front of them. The amount of arrests went up as did the brutality of the beatings. There was no such thing as free speech, no concept of light hearted criticism of government. Everybody was on edge, suspicious of their spying neighbours, who could be trusted in a world where informing was the currency which bought you safety?
Natalia was four years old when her father's alcoholic tendencies became a problem. He had no filter anymore, no common sense, no sense of mortality. He openly mocked his superiors and the regime. His neighbours and co-workers waited for the day he too would be taken, they pitied the fate of his pretty daughter, but not one person intervened. Nobody wanted to be gifted with the same fate.
On February 16th the smell of smoke drifted through the halls. Natalia stood in the cot and watched her father's collapsed body on the filth covered carpet, his ever present bottle still clutched in his unconscious hands. She watched the flames dance in the door frame. She didn't cry, didn't whimper. Her bony fingers clutched at the silver locket hanging from her neck. Her neighbours watched as the flames engulfed the Romanov apartment and accepted the view of the flames moving towards their homes and possessions. If they saw the tall man with his arms wrapped around a red headed child in a tatty green night gown, they said nothing.
Natalia's arms hung limply around this stranger's thick neck, her chin resting on his shoulder she watched as her home began to collapse into itself, she turned away, focusing her attention on the strange man's face, her index finger stroked the scar on the front of his face, he offered her half a smile, she blinked at him before turning back to her lost home.
It was the first and only time that Natalia had ever failed in her purpose.