The teacher chuckled at such wisdom from one so young, but Maria got shivers down her spine. Those were the exact words Peter had uttered when she’d asked why he’d rescued her from the forest. Stepan was Peter’s son through and through, no matter what had happened before he was born.

* * *

Raisa stopped Maria on the stairs one day. “You remember I told you that Vladimir from apartment thirty-seven had gone missing and I heard his dog whining through the door?”

“Yes. Is he back yet?” Maria asked.

Raisa shook her head firmly. “He won’t be coming back. I heard from Luba, who heard it from her husband, who is in the police, that he was arrested trying to cross the border into Finland.”

“Really? I wonder why he wanted to go to Finland?”

“The reason hardly matters, does it? The law is the law and citizens are not allowed to travel overseas without the correct documentation. He has been sent to a labor camp, I hear. The Solovetsky camp in the White Sea.”

Maria hated Raisa’s self-righteous tone. “What happened to the dog?” she asked. Her children would love a dog, but their living space was too cramped and there were five mouths to feed.

“Someone broke down the door and cut its throat because the whining was stopping people getting any sleep.”

Raisa’s eyes were cold and she showed no emotion: the dog was making a noise, therefore its throat was cut; Vladimir tried to leave the country so had been sent to a labor camp. Her complete lack of empathy, and her conviction of her own moral rectitude, was chilling.

Chapter 27

Leningrad, 1928

MARIA WAS TERRIFIED WHEN SHE FOUND SHE WAS pregnant again. What if this one also had hemophilia? What if he died too? When a boy they called Mikhail was born in March 1928, she watched like a hawk for any signs of bleeding. Every day when she left him in the day care, she feared he would not be breathing when she returned, but he survived his first six months without incident and she began to relax.

She would have preferred to stop working and care for her baby herself, but they needed the money. Nine-year-old Stepan had a voracious appetite, and all the children outgrew their clothes each season, so when General Secretary Stalin asked citizens to volunteer to become “shock workers,” who labored longer and harder than everyone else, Peter decided he would apply.

Maria argued against it. “I don’t see how you can possibly work harder than you do already. You’ll run yourself into the ground.”

“My darling Maria, who is never happy unless she has something to worry about,” he teased. “Think of it as a promotion: I will have more responsibility and my family will enjoy a better standard of living.” He pinched her chin between his finger and thumb and kissed her.