Maria felt slight reassurance at this, but only slight. When she got home that evening, Irina and Stepan had finished tidying the apartment but it felt different now. Peter’s absence was all around: the empty chair where he normally sat; the rumpled cover on his side of the bed. She tried not to think about what might be happening to him. You heard rumors of torture and beatings, but surely they wouldn’t dare with someone as well-thought-of as Peter?

She heard a whimpering noise from one of the bedrooms, as if a wounded animal were sheltering there. She pulled back the covers and found Katya huddled under her bedclothes, shaking with grief. Her daughter’s face was swollen and red with crying. “It’s my fault Papa has been arrested, isn’t it? I showed Galina the stones.”

Maria pulled her close, stroking her hair.

“You are a child,” she said, “and it was natural you would want to play with them. It is my fault for keeping them. I was being sentimental. Oh God!” She shook her head. “If only I could turn back the clock.”

That night she prayed in a way she had not prayed in years. She prayed for all the people she had lost in her life: her family, her baby son, Pavel, and then she prayed hardest of all for Peter. The bed was cold and it was the first night in nineteen years that she was not able to mold her body around him and let his heat warm her. She lay awake till the early hours wondering what kind of bed he was sleeping in. Should she have put a blanket in his bag? A sweater? More food? It felt as though a large oval rock had lodged in her gullet, just behind the ribs. She knew she would never forgive herself if they harmed so much as a hair on his precious head. It would be all her fault.

* * *

By the end of the following day, Stepan reported that half a dozen friends had been to Bolshoi Dom to testify on Peter’s behalf. Maria felt the tension ease a little, but his next words brought her spirits crashing down again.

“The Party leader thinks he will have to plead guilty to some charge. He did have the stones, after all.”

“But they were mine!” Maria insisted. “It’s not his fault. I wanted to keep them.”

Stepan shushed her, looking over his shoulder to check the others weren’t listening. “You mustn’t say that. Ever. It would only make things worse.” He paused. “Mama, this is going to be hard for you to hear, but we must—all of us—make statements saying that we should have noticed Papa’s errant behavior and reported it to the authorities. We must apologize for our lack of vigilance.”

Maria was adamant. “Absolutely not! I will not betray him by playing their evil games.”