The Woman at 1,000 Degrees

69 European Fields 1975

In the summer of 1975 I was in Florida and popped into the only bookshop in Orlando and, by a sheer twist of fate, I was sent to the toilets at the rear of the air-conditioned shop. On the way back I passed the history section and my eyes fell upon a book bearing the title: How I Beat the Russian Army to Berlin – The Incredible Journey of Yagina Ekhaterina Volonsky (by Gail Huddenshaw, A. Knopf, 1967). On the photo pages I saw a picture of an ecstatic Yagina under her son’s arm on a reception roof in Chicago, in a white evening dress with her hair done up. Wes Volonsky had become a famous businessman in the city.

Naturally I bought a copy and devoured it in two days, much to my boys’ dismay. Afterwards I wrote to the publisher and received a reply to say that the positive woman with the caved-in face had died at the beginning of 1969 at the age of seventy-five. The book ends in a flower shop on a busy corner in Windy City, which Yagina owned and ran, she had given it the beautiful name of ‘European Fields.’