Presumption of Guilt

Anna Babina is a young prose writer, finalist of the "Lyceum" prize (2022), winner of the publishing program of the "Tavrida" art cluster (2021). Her bibliography is still small, but it is completely obvious that she is a talented author... with her own view of the world. The novel "Presumption of Guilt" is the best proof of this. Is it possible to live with the burden of guilt? To constantly suffer from the fact that a loved one died because of you? Grandmother Lida lived like that. During the Great Patriotic War, her sister Zoya was connected with partisans and was shot by the Nazis. Lida was sure that she was to blame — for her stubbornness, she did not listen to her sister, acted her own way, inadvertently revealing Zoya. Grandmother Lida lived her whole life with this stone around her neck. It did not let her live, and she could not throw it off. Over time, she learned to measure everything by Zoya's standards and to see everything through Zoya's eyes, as if living not her own life, but Zoya's life. Lidia's granddaughters, although they did not know the whole truth, also seemed to be paying for this guilt — all three of their lives were somehow senseless. If grandmother knew she had the right to lift this stone from her soul, would her life and the lives of her granddaughters have turned out differently? And can we talk about this in the subjunctive mood?