I made a journey from Boston to St. Petersburgto visit my forebears at a Jewish graveyard.On the way we stopped at a little bake shopwith tired women selling day-old bread.

My father and I entered a rickety gatein front of the old synagogue.A stooped man with a wheelbarrow askedif we needed water to wash the graves.

Wash the graves once a year? I wondered.To connect with ancestors I’d never met?To speak to them, to hear their wisdom,to keep the memory awake?

On the way back, we crossed a long grey bridgeover railroad tracks and abandoned factories.I was thinking: would Russia be in my dreamsif my father hadn’t left forever?