It is a mild night in mid-May when they come for Yuri Kogan. The air is still, the sky brilliant with stars, the moon a delicate sliver. Two vehicles pull up in the street. The stutter and burr of the dying engines is loud in the tranquil night. In the kommunalka everyone hears, everyone fears, for in the tumultuous times of 1937 this is not the first time the NKVD has come. Once, the Kogans might have felt safe in the knowledge that those who were taken must have erred in some way, but that was before the census.

Yuri and Vera are not asleep, they hear the cars in the street. As doors slam, and rough voices rise through the calm night air, they leap out of bed. They pull on their shoes — they’re already dressed — and wake Lidiya. She requires no explanation and quickly dresses herself. They hear voices and the clatter of boots on the stairs. Misha is already dressed; he’s standing at attention in full view of anyone entering the room. The footsteps stop; they’ve reached the third floor. Vera takes Lidiya by the hand, and they stand together in front of the window in a direct line to the door. Yuri positions himself on her other side and calls to his son. Misha doesn’t move; he holds himself apart from the family. All four of them stare at the door. The steps draw closer. The boots stop. Fists strike the wood.

Lidiya has only just turned nine, but for the rest of her life she’ll remember every detail of that terrible night, lodged in her mind as a series of discrete snapshots. There are five men standing in a semicircle around the open door. Three take charge of her father, three huge men to escort her papochka to goodness knows where. The other two will remain to collect evidence.

Her father is protesting, his voice shaky. ‘I’m a member of the party, I work for the party. I believe in our great Motherland. The General Secretary has my loyalty. I love Comrade Stalin. I’ve done nothing wrong. There’s been a mistake.’

Lidiya wants to run to him, hold on to him, drag him away from these men. She believes her father, he never lies. But the men are unmoved. ‘The party doesn’t make mistakes,’ one of them says, using exactly the same words she’s heard from her father’s lips.

‘It’s a mistake,’ he says again, reaching for Vera’s hand. Her mother doesn’t need to be told. She knows, like Lidiya knows, but it makes no difference to the officers.