She’s named Dawn in the West, and Aurora in the East. Dawn is an American communist who is fluent in Russian at a time when speaking Russian is deeply frowned upon. Aurora is an American in Russia. It’s the early 1930’s, when America hovers on the verge of collapse, trapped in economic crisis, and the Soviet Union’s infamous purges and pogroms of the Stalinist era are in full swing. The threat of imprisonment or even death is pervasive in both her homes.