Maria could not sleep that night, but lay awake thinking about her life. She had been married to Peter for almost fourteen years and they had five children. Leningrad was where they had made their home, for better or for worse. Maybe it was time for her to stop dreaming of her Romanov past and start appreciating all she had in the present. She lived with a man with whom she never tired of conversing because she always found his views interesting, whose physical presence still gave her a tingle of desire; a man who was tender and loving to her and to all of their children; a man who could always tease her out of her anxiety and make her smile. Her life was here, with him.

After making this decision, she continued to write to Olga, sending greetings at Christmas and Easter, and Olga reciprocated, but as the months went by the gaps between their letters grew longer. Their arrival no longer sparked the thrill Maria had felt when she first made contact with her long-lost aunt.

The fact that Tatiana had not been in touch with Olga persuaded Maria that she must still be in the Soviet Union. One day she must come to Leningrad, and when she did, Maria prayed their paths would cross. Every time she managed to reunite family members who had not seen each other for years, she made a secret wish: please let it be my turn next.

Something strange was happening to their society, though. One day a woman in the factory canteen asked Maria, “Please take my card out of your file and destroy it. I am no longer looking for my father.” She would not explain why. Then another woman in the bread line asked that her card be destroyed too.

“They think you are an informer,” Annushka whispered. “But don’t worry. I know you’re not.”

“Me!” Maria stuttered in disbelief. “An informer? Who could think that?”

“You would be surprised how many are,” Annushka confided, her eyes alighting on a woman three places ahead of them.

“What would I inform about? Their addresses? It’s madness,” Maria told Peter later.

“It’s certainly odd,” he agreed with a frown.

Perhaps word had leaked out that she had shown her file to the Party boss and that was why people were nervous. She asked Peter if he thought that could be the case.

“I suppose it could,” he said slowly.

She got a sense there was something he was holding back because he didn’t want to worry her, but decided not to press him. Sometimes it was better not to know.

Chapter 29

Pacific Ocean, May 1974