Under a Red Sky by Haya Leah Molnar

this?”
    We listen in silence, still seated, until Comrade Popescu raises her voice and repeats, “Are all forty of you deaf and dumb? Do you not understand? Answer me, ‘Yes, Comrade Popescu, we understand, ’ and stand up immediately!”
    We shout, “Yes, Comrade Popescu, we understand!” Then we stand and march toward the door. Comrade Popescu is waiting as we walk past her single file into the yard. I’m close to the door when I notice a notebook on one of the desks nearby, its white pages turning with the breeze from the yard. I place my hand on the page to caress its smooth whiteness and quickly close the notebook when I feel the sting of Comrade Popescu’s ruler on my knuckles. “I didn’t tell you to touch anything,” she says in a calm voice. I nod and step into the blinding light of the courtyard, where my eyes well up and my head swims backward.

WHAT THE COMMUNIST PARTY MEANS TO ME
    COMRADE POPESCU is droning on. “Religion and superstition are one and the same thing.” This makes me uncomfortable because it reminds me of Tata, who sneers whenever the subject of religion comes up. “The Communist Party”—Comrade Popescu’s voice sounds as if she’s speaking from the bottom of a wooden barrel—“is our savior because it defines our economic existence and our ideological reality. All comrades can participate in the decision-making process because each and every one of us is a Romanian and a member of the Proletariat. We are all workers, united and equal in the eyes of the Party. Your homework for tomorrow is to write a short composition entitled ‘What the Communist Party Means to Me.’”
    I’ve been waiting for the recess bell, but instead the church bells down the street start to peal, making the windows and wooden desks vibrate.
    â€œPlease remember that you will be graded on your penmanship as much as on the content of your composition,” Comrade Popescu continues as she crosses herself automatically at the ringing of the
church bells. If religion is just superstition, I wonder, why does the Party allow the church bells to ring? I decide at that moment that when it comes to religion and the Communist Party, nothing makes sense.
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    AT RECESS EVERYONE IS JUMPING around in the yard. A bunch of girls are playing hopscotch on the chalk squares drawn on the gray asphalt. Another group of kids are jumping rope and singing a tune I know, but I don’t hum along. Instead I stand alone, leaning against the cool bricks of the building, and watch everyone else play. There are lots of questions in my head, questions I know I cannot ask because the answers may lead to trouble for me and my parents, the way Mama warned me on my first day of school. But I really do want to know why Comrade Popescu crosses herself when the church bells ring. What does the Party have against religion, and why does Tata believe in math and science instead of God?
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    SCHOOL TURNS OUT to be a lot more demanding than I expected. When Mama comes home from work, she spends at least two hours every night going over homework assignments with me. I dread doing this, not because the homework is so difficult, but there’s so much of it, I have no time left for any reading—and that’s the best part about going to bed at night.
    â€œDon’t complain, Eva. You started first grade after you turned seven, so you got to play for an extra year. When I was growing up, first grade started when we were six.” I roll my eyes, but Mama ignores me as she continues to check each answer in my math assignment.

    Everyone in the class is terrified of Comrade Popescu, yet despite my fear of her, I find her lectures interesting. I love listening to her stories about Romania’s past, about how we were once ruled by the greatest civilizations on earth—the Greeks, the Romans, and the Ottomans. Throughout our history, Comrade Popescu