True Story of Her Life

Many years ago, an artist applied the final brush stroke to the portrait of a beautiful woman. The woman was very young, newly married, and as close to happiness as she would ever be again. Somewhere in the Soviet Union, the portrait still exists, hanging perhaps in a museum. The image belongs to another time. After it was painted, the world the young woman knew was irrevocably altered by revolution, war, and bloody struggles for power.