“I was hoping I could talk to him for two minutes. Ask his advice. See if there’s anything he can do. Please, I’m begging you.” Tears were not far away, but she held them back. “Is he due home soon? I don’t need to come inside. Please put yourself in my position.”

Annushka hesitated, then pulled the door wide. “Of course you must come in and wait. You did so much for me. Please, be my guest.”

They sat on a gray wool sofa and Annushka offered tea, which Maria refused. She barely ate or drank these days because the tightness in her chest made it impossible to swallow. Besides, it wasn’t fair that she should eat when Peter might be surviving on prison slops. It didn’t bear thinking about. In her positive moments, she planned that she would cook his favorite dishes and make a fuss of him once he was home again. She would make love to him, so tenderly, worshipping every bit of the body she knew as well as her own. In her worst moments, she pictured him being transported to a gulag, forced to haul timber and dig trenches in the bitter cold. She didn’t know how she would stand that.

The door opened and Annushka’s husband came in, hanging his coat on the rack and looking across with a question in his expression. He was an exceedingly tall, very thin man, and as he came closer, Maria saw that he had a dramatic scar zigzagging down one cheek.

“This is Maria, the woman who found my brother. Remember I told you about her?” Annushka’s voice trembled as she spoke. She seemed nervous of him. “Maria, this is my husband, Yuri.”

He nodded curtly and said, “Good evening.”

Annushka continued. “Maria’s husband has found himself in trouble with the NKVD and she begged me to let her ask your advice.”

He glowered at her, but came to stand in front of Maria, just a couple of steps away. “Tell me what he is accused of,” he ordered.

She told the story about finding the rocks in the mountains and keeping them without thinking any more of it. “They were a souvenir of a happy time. We had just gotten married and were enjoying a hiking holiday. When we moved to Leningrad, they got lost among our possessions and, to be honest, I’d completely forgotten they were there.”

“And they are real jewels?” he asked.

She nodded. “It seems so. We had no idea.”

“It is hard to believe you did not realize.” His tone was not particularly friendly. “I imagine that’s what your husband’s interrogators are saying.”

She clasped her hands, pleading with him. “We are simple people. Neither of us knows anything of jewels.”

“And yet you are articulate. You are not a stupid woman.”