When Tonya was born, her father was so upset that she wasn’t a boy that for the first time he drank himself to the point where he could hardly walk. He wanted nothing to do with the baby and ignored Tonya for 9 months. One day when he was ready to pick her up with his hands, she was so scared that she started screaming. She did not want him to come close to her. It took some time for him to earn Tonya’s trust and for her to accept him.

As Tonya grew, she became her father’s “boy.” She did all kinds of work outside with him, and he taught her many skills that usually only boys would learn. He taught her to be a survivor, and she tried her best to be who her father wanted her to be. It was total affection between her father and his daughters, and he lived and breathed for them.

When Tonya was ten years old and in the fourth grade, she first learned about the nearby school of music. One of her classmates was enrolled in the school, and he often talked about his experiences there. Being the curious child that she was, Tonya dreamed of attending herself. She begged her parents to let her enroll, but her dreams were soon dashed with her mother’s talks of money. Nevertheless, Tonya’s father, who always stood up for his daughter, won this battle, and she was allowed to audition. Her mother relented, thinking she would not be accepted and talk of the school would soon be forgotten.

The school of music was a small structure, housing only three practice rooms and a director’s office. Three talented musicians who were in exile during Stalin’s repression, all from the Moscow Conservatory, founded the school. Pianist Georgi Georgievich Struve and violinists Saryan Nicholas Kaprelovich and Anna Vasilevna Dizendor all played a role in the beginnings of the school. After serving time in labor camps under Stalin, they were not allowed to return to their original home regions, but were restricted to living in Siberia.

The school offered classes in piano, violin, and accordion, as well as classes in musical theory. The director’s office also doubled as a classroom for the violinists. Despite its small size, the school of music was exceptionally well regarded and extremely exclusive in its selection of students. Every year, over one hundred children applied, yet only eight to ten of the brightest students were accepted due to its small size.

In spite of these daunting prospects, Tonya was chosen along with seven other children who had been accepted. She was eleven years old at that time and had been accepted only for the accordion class. After completing two years of study, the students begin to learn piano; however, the lessons were only for twenty minutes a week as they were designed to only cover general knowledge.

One Sunday when Tonya was walking downtown, she heard the first movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata playing loudly over the radio. She was stunned by its beautiful melody, frozen in place as she listened. The music touched a deep part of her soul; at 14 years old, she didn’t know such joy even existed. She fell in love with the piano, and it became her purest source of happiness.

She often stopped on her way to the school of music in an office supply store where pianos were sold. She would wait for a customer to come and open the lid so she could catch a glimpse of its black and white keys. Her heart would leap to her throat, and she was thrilled as she watched their fingers dance over each note; she dreamed that the piano was her own.

Much to Tonya’s happiness, the school of music was moved to a new building in the center of downtown. It became one of the most significant buildings in the area due to its large size and striking architecture. There was plenty of room for instruments, so she would remain at the school in one of its many music rooms to continue practicing, even after formal lessons were finished. Every waking moment was spent sitting at a piano, and the school of music became her home.

The last year of high school, before Tonya’s 10^th grade graduation, her father talked her mother into renting a piano so she would be able to practice at home. Despite having such immediate access to the piano, her mother never let her practice more than two hours straight when she was more than willing to stay at the piano all day. It was never enough time. During a parent-teacher conference, the mathematics and physics teacher told Tonya’s parents that she was a candidate to graduate with a gold medal, and that she had good mathematics and physics abilities. After hearing this, Tonya’s mother wanted her to study in school and spend far less time on the piano.

However, Tonya was so enthralled with learning piano that she often tricked her mother, skipping her academic classes and going instead to the school of music. At times she would hide her schoolbooks behind her bed, replacing them with her sheet music in her book bag just before leaving for school. While her mother stood and watched her, she would head in the direction of school, but after one block, when she was certain that her mother could no longer see her, she would turn around and head in the direction of the school of music.

When some of the music teachers asked her, “How come you are not in school?” Tonya would smile and reply that the teachers did not show up. They would smile back at her. Everyone knew that her love of music far outweighed her love of academics, and they allowed her to stay and practice. Instead of graduating with an academic gold medal, she graduated the piano class in only two years instead of the seven years it took students on average.

Tonya never attempted to attend nighttime holiday celebrations and dances with her classmates because she preferred to go to the school to practice her piano. Tonya remembered one occasion when her mother had assumed that she and Ludmila were attending a dance together. Wishing as always for more time to rehearse, she did not attend the dance and instead traveled to the school to practice piano without informing her mother. She had assumed that the dance would end at approximately 9:00 p.m., so she planned accordingly to be home by that time. Unfortunately, the dance ended a half hour earlier than originally expected, and Ludmila returned home without her sister.

When Tonya finally reached her front door, her mother gave her the most severe beating she had ever experienced. Despite the pain, Tonya took this beating in silence and with pride, for she was willing to brave any punishment, accepting the fact that there might be consequences for devoting her life to only one passion.

Before leaving for college, Tonya had never been away from her home for more than a few days at a time. She enjoyed the rigor of her studies, but after just two months, she longed for her home, her parents and the many friends she had left behind. She missed the people she had known her whole life, starting from the first time she could remember, the very beginnings of her memory. The extensive train ride back to her home was costly; however, Tonya didn’t think that her mother would mind. When she saw the love and attention that the mothers of her classmates showered upon their children, she reasoned that surely she would be welcomed home with open arms. This did not come to pass: her mother proceeded to scold her for recklessly wasting money in making the trip.

Unwilling to remain in a home of such hostility, Tonya decided to take a brisk walk through her town in hopes that it would help calm her down. Everything around her was the same, the same narrow streets and sidewalks made of wood and embellishments of stone and brick. She liked walking down the street, meeting the familiar faces of people she walked past everyday. Even the “mayors” of the town were still at their duties! She was glad to see them. She thought back in her mind to the jokes she used to share with her girlfriends as they walked past these men while on their way to school. The “mayors” of the town were actually three mentally challenged men who would spend their time in the center of downtown. No matter the season or the hour, they would be there. Neither the scorching rays of the sun nor the blistering cold seemed to bother them.