Oh please, dear Lord, he prayed. Let it be so, and I will never cheat on my taxes again. Or gamble, or drink vodka in the mornings. Grant me this one wish. Let my daughter marry!

“Yes,” Natasha said. She smiled brightly, but there was a false note in her voice. Sven wondered what was wrong with his sister. Alas, ever since her return from behind the Iron Curtain she had been acting strangely. Going for long walks in the cold, or spending entire days shut upstairs in her room; Alfred had moved into Katrinka’s room when the old woman died in the spring. Sven was afraid that Tasha’s brain was addled.

“She looks very pretty,” she said, in her flat monotone.

“Indeed she does. You are a princess, Aud, my darling,” Sven cried. He clapped Pyotr on the back. “And you, my boy—you are a lucky dog, to be stealing away my daughter.”

“I know.” Pyotr smiled back. “I can never repay you for this gift, Sven.”

There was a lump in his throat and his eyes misted over. It was the other way around—completely, Sven thought guiltily. It was he who owed Pyotr, for the incredible, unexpected joy of seeing his daughter like this. About to be married. And transformed by joy and love.

Secretly, her father admitted to himself that “princess” and “beautiful” were overdoing it. But Aud had changed. During the winter that Pyotr had moved in, she had bloomed under his interest. She had lost her appetite, and gained an interest in dresses and makeup. She had struggled to join conversations, and talked with wild enthusiasm about travelling the world. Sometimes her lack of knowledge made Sven wince, like when she spoke of how Russia had joined the Nazis in the war. But Pyotr never made fun of her, even if his own sister could not resist the odd cruel remark.

He made excuses for Tasha. She had been through a lot. And she had brought him Pyotr, pale and skinny and without a cent to his name, but he had been as good as Prince Charming to Sven.

Aud had lost weight. She was lively, talkative, and full of laughter. It was as though a stone had rolled from Sven’s back. He caught some local boys whistling after her once, in the spring, as she stepped out in a new dress Marianne had imported from France. He scolded them, but he had exulted in his heart. His daughter wasn’t made magically bright, or beautiful, but she was normal.

Normal was all he had ever asked for.