Twelve-year-old Rifka is writing to her cousin Tovah on blank pages of a book of poetry by the 19th-century Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. Rifka tells Tovah how she and her Jewish family (her Mama, Papa, and brothers Nathan and Saul) are attempting to escape from their hometown of Berdichev, Ukraine (which in 1919 is still part of Russia). They will emigrate to the United States, where they will join Rifka’s three oldest brothers (Isaac, Reuben, and Asher), who moved there years before. There is an ongoing Russian Civil War, and Nathan has been in forced work with the Russian army but fled the night before to alert the family that the army was going to conscript Saul as well. Because Saul and Rifka bicker often, Rifka is at first glad to hear he may be taken (“Good riddance, I thought”)—but Papa tells the family to get ready to leave immediately, before the night is over (4).

The following morning, Rifka sits on the train platform, as the rest of the family hides in various boxcars. The family knows that soldiers will come looking to arrest Nathan for desertion and that the entire family is under threat of death if they are discovered.