She let Peter choose the name, and he decided on Pavel, which meant “small and humble.” Unlike her other babies, this one was difficult to settle and often cried for hours on end, despite her best efforts to soothe him. The midwife prescribed gripe water, but that made no difference. When she massaged his little belly with her fingertips, he screamed as if in agony. At last they decided to call the doctor, and he examined Pavel, checking his vital signs.

“The cord is not yet healed,” he said. “And he has a nasty bruise on his hip. Did he have a fall?”

“Definitely not,” Maria said. “I would know because he hasn’t been out of my sight since he was born.”

The bruise seemed to have formed where the sling she used to carry him pressed against him, so she tied it differently. When a new dark purple bruise sprang up straightaway, she guessed the truth.

In the back of her mind she had suspected it from the moment Pavel was born: he had the bleeding disorder that had marred the life of her little brother, Alexei. Known as hemophilia, it had been passed on from German relations on her mother’s side. As soon as she realized this, she knew that his cries were cries of pain, just as Alexei used to utter. His blood would not clot and the slightest bump could cause agonizing internal bleeding, but there was nothing that could be done except pray.

Her parents had believed in the powers of a spiritual healer called Rasputin, who they thought had brought Alexei back from the brink of death on at least two occasions. Maria knew no such healer—none would have been allowed to practice in this new Bolshevik society—but she prayed for her little boy to be spared suffering.

Peter was ashen when she told him. He had seen how ill Alexei was in the house in Ekaterinburg, and it was heartbreaking to imagine the same fate for their son.

“We will do our best to protect him,” he said. “Perhaps the specialists have some new medicines that were not available twenty years ago. I will ask our doctor to find out.”

But it was not to be. At the age of just six weeks, Pavel’s health deteriorated fast. He could no longer keep milk down, there was blood in his urine, and dark drops trickled from his nose. Maria tended him day and night, speaking in gentle tones, kissing his little face, trying anything she could to distract him from the incessant pain. He no longer had the strength to cry, but whimpered softly and gazed up at her, his eyes begging for help.

One gray morning she woke to find that he had died in the night and was lying beside her, cold and pale, and she knew her prayers had been answered. He would suffer no more.