“Premature babies have trouble feeding,” the doctor continued, “and they often have breathing difficulties.”

“No, he wasn’t like that . . .” Maria faltered.

“Then I doubt he was premature.” The doctor began to pack his bag, reiterating his earlier advice about water and dry biscuits. Maria’s ears were ringing so loudly she could not take any of it in.

As soon as he left, she lay on her bed, face to the wall, and tried to think. If Stepan was not conceived with Peter in the mountains, the only other possibility—unbearable, repulsive to consider—was that Bolotov had raped her during his attack in the Ekaterinburg bathroom. Her memories of it were hazy. She knew she had been very sore afterward but could only remember him putting his fingers there. They were standing up throughout, so how could he have inserted his seed in her? It was unthinkable.

She had wiped Bolotov’s image from her mind, but now she remembered his dark hair and thought of her dark little boy. She and Peter were both light-haired. “No. Please no,” she moaned. Katya and Irina resembled members of her or Peter’s family, but she could think of no one whom Stepan resembled, no other individual so dark. This was awful.

And then another thought occurred to her. Peter knew the ways of nature; he was aware of the normal length of a pregnancy and must have realized that Stepan had been born two months too soon. She remembered him saying that he came early because she needed him, but that was clearly nonsense. What did Peter believe? She thought back to the scandal after she kissed Ivan Skorokhodov in the hall at the Ekaterinburg house. Perhaps Peter believed Ivan was the father. Perhaps he knew the boy he was raising was not his own son. If so, in five years, he had not once mentioned it. His bond with their eldest was close and unshakable.

What kind of a man could raise another man’s son as his own and never once let it show in word, look, or gesture? Maria knew that if anyone could, it was Peter. She determined that she would never mention the topic herself, because poor innocent little Stepan must never know.

Chapter 26

Leningrad, February 1927

ON FEBRUARY 24, EXACTLY AS THE DOCTOR HAD PREDICTED, Maria felt the labor pains begin. Peter fetched the midwife and took the three younger children out for a walk in the snowy dawn. The baby came easily, after just a couple of hours, but he was quiet and the midwife had to hold him upside down and smack him till he breathed. When Maria held him in her arms and gazed down, she saw a face that looked like that of an old man, and got goose bumps on her arms.

“Hello, little one,” she whispered. “It’s good to meet you.”