He started buttoning his shirt, so she leaped up and clasped her arms around him. Her head was pounding. Please let this not be happening. Please.

The hammering at the door was getting more insistent. Stepan called from the other room. “Shall I answer it, Papa?”

“Maria, please. The bag.” Peter gave her a quick kiss, then disengaged himself and bent to pull on his socks and boots.

She busied herself putting a spare shirt and some socks into a brown leather bag. She added his toothbrush, then a tin of lepeshki biscuits. Her brain wasn’t working properly. How long might he be gone? What else might he need?

She heard Peter open the door and the sound of men’s voices: harsh, unfriendly. Peter’s tone was measured and polite. He fetched the cloth bag with the remaining gemstones—of course, that was what they had come about—and took it to them.

“We must search your rooms,” barked a thin-faced man in a blue officer’s cap. “All the family come here. Stand together.”

They huddled in their nightclothes, Maria and Peter in front, the little ones behind, yawning and rubbing their eyes. There were four men. One stood guard while the others searched a room each. Maria heard the crash of her pots being thrown to the floor, drawers being yanked out, mattresses turned over, her card index scattered. They wouldn’t find anything else incriminating, she was sure of that, but it felt like a violation that they could see her most personal possessions: her undergarments, the sheets on her bed. She kept her eyes fixed on the ground, gripping Peter’s arm and Yelena’s hand, sick with fear.

“You must come with us,” the officer said to Peter once they had finished. “We have a warrant for your arrest.” He pulled a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket.

Peter glanced at it and agreed. “Of course I will.”

“No!” Maria screamed, and clung to his arm. “Don’t take him. He is a good man. We need him.”

Peter turned to Stepan. “Take care of your mother,” he said. “You know what to do.”

Maria saw Stepan nod and bow his head, grim-faced.

As the officers led Peter away, she had a horrible premonition of disaster and tried to run after him, to drag him back, but Stepan wrapped his arms tightly around her. He was taller than her and much stronger.

“Let me go. Please,” she begged, struggling. “They might hurt him.” But it was only when they heard the street door slam that Stepan relaxed his grip. Instantly, Maria sprang out of their apartment, still in her nightgown, and hurtled down the stairs, two at a time. She yanked the street door open in time to see the black windowless van roll off.

“No!” she screamed. “Come back!” She started running, barefoot, trying to catch up with it, and got halfway to the main road before Stepan stopped her.