“Perhaps Stalin is not doing such a bad job here,” Maria said. Their lifestyle had improved dramatically since he became Party leader.

Peter looked around again to check no one was eavesdropping. “Economic stability isn’t everything,” he said, pulling a comical face. It was heresy: he was contradicting all the posters that waxed lyrical about industrialization and the Five Year Plan and the shiny Communist utopia.

Maria chuckled. “Will you ask Matthias if he has heard any news of my family?” she asked. The Romanovs were never mentioned in the Russian papers, but she was eager to hear what was reported in the outside world.

“I’ll try,” he said, his tone wary. She guessed he’d have to do it out of earshot of the foot-stamping secret police.

A few days later, Peter told her that he had broached the subject by asking whether the Danish king, Christian X, was popular among his subjects. “Matthias said his influence has been much reduced and that he is now a symbolic head of state without power. I replied, ‘If only our Tsar, Nicholas II, had accepted such a situation, he might be alive today,’ then added, ‘I don’t suppose you read anything about the Romanovs in your newspapers?’”

Maria held her breath as she waited for the answer.

Peter put a hand on her knee. “He told me there is a woman in Berlin who claims to be Anastasia.”

Maria gave a little scream and clapped a hand to her mouth.

“But don’t get your hopes up,” Peter cautioned. “He said the relatives who have visited her think she is an impostor. She doesn’t speak any Russian.”

“Which relatives have visited? Has my grandmother been?” She would know for sure.

“He mentioned your aunt Olga and aunt Irene.” They were her father’s and her mother’s sisters respectively.

“Olga is Anastasia’s godmother. She would definitely know if it is her.” Maria shook her head. “But why would anyone pretend to be Anastasia if they are not? I don’t understand.”

“Perhaps the impostor thinks she can claim the family fortune? I don’t know.”

Maria was silent for a moment, remembering her lively little sister, the mischievous one of her siblings. “If only we could go to Berlin, I would know in an instant,” she said in a voice full of longing. But she might as well have wished to go to the moon.

* * *

Maria had dozens of questions she wanted Peter to ask Matthias, but he left it several weeks before raising the subject again, so as not to arouse suspicion. This time he returned with some bad news for Maria. “Matthias tells me that your grandmother, Maria Feodorovna, passed away four years ago. I’m sorry. After escaping Russia she lived for a while in London—as we knew—then traveled back to Denmark, where he says she became the figurehead of the Russian émigré community.”