Still, it must be light outside by now. The day’s begun, the endless summer day of the high northern latitudes. Somewhere outside these walls, a sun burns white and clear in a perfectly blue sky, and a briny wind rushes off the Baltic Sea to clean the air. Not far away, a fishing boat plies the waves, to and fro, waiting for a signal from shore that will never come. A man stands in the bow right now, a man who has been up all night with his binoculars, searching the shore until his eyes ache. His face will be knit with anxiety. Someone will bring him a sympathetic cup of black coffee, which he’ll sip as he leans against the railing and clings to hope. ASCOT. She’s known him by that name for so long, she’s almost forgotten the real one.

The children are still asleep, she thinks. They haven’t made a sound since the ruckus a few hours ago, when Sasha appeared out of nowhere looking like a straw-haired cadaver. Poor Sasha! Does he know the truth? Does he suspect, at least? He must. That expression as he looked at her—terror and betrayal—devastated blue eyes—Sasha never could keep his emotions from invading the muscles and nerves of his face. It was the expression of a man who has turned the pages of his own personal Book of Revelation and read the judgment written there. Iris’s heart mourns for him. She looks down at the crook of her right arm, where Gregory lies heavily, lips parted, a tiny trickle of contented milk at the corner of his mouth. He looks shockingly like Sasha—at least, how Sasha would look as an old man, red face compressed into permanent grumpiness. His limbs are already long, his eyes are already blue.

But the action of gazing at her baby has already exhausted Iris. She feels a little better now. The doctor changed her dressing and tut-tutted and made her take aspirin and water. He said she needs penicillin. He doesn’t have any. Penicillin is scarce and rationed mostly to party officials and their families. But he will see what he can do.

You’ve got to fight this, Iris tells herself. You’ve got to get better. Gregory needs you. The children need you.

Ruth needs you.