“Me too. Till then.” Maria opened the door and got out of the van. She didn’t trust Yuri, but as long as he thought she might find his wife and son, he could be useful. It was a dangerous strategy, like dicing with the devil, but she felt it was the right thing to do. Something Peter once said came back to her: “If you can help someone without harming anyone else, then why on earth wouldn’t you do it?”

* * *

Maria took the children to visit their father’s grave the following Sunday afternoon. It was a warm day for March. Lone birds were chirruping and the pistachio-green cones of still-furled leaves were sprouting on bare branches. They took bread with potted cheese and cold meats, fruit pastila, homemade kvass and cups to drink it from, as well as a bunch of colorful spring blooms to lay on the grave. The children were quiet when they arrived, upset to see the lack of respect for the men tossed into this muddy earth. Maria spread a blanket on the grass and laid out the food and drink, all the while talking to Peter in her head.

We’re here, she told him. I brought them so you can see they are all right. Look how Mikhail has grown. I think he will be tall one day. And Stepan is turning into a man. Do you see his whiskers? He did not shave this morning.

They sat down and began to eat, and soon they were talking about Peter, sharing memories of him.

“Do you remember the funny noise he made when he sneezed?” Irina asked. “It sounded like a-chi-chi-bo.”

Maria smiled at her imitation.

“He could never find his key in the morning,” Katya said. “I couldn’t understand why he didn’t just put it in the same place every evening when he came home.”

“He wasn’t organized that way,” Maria explained. “He came from the countryside where no one locks their doors.”

“I have never heard anyone whistle as well as he did,” Stepan said. “I tried to learn, but I could never produce a sound so pure and tuneful.”

Mikhail whistled a bar of “Slavianka,” a tune Peter used to whistle, and for a moment it almost sounded as if he was there with them.

Suddenly Maria realized that Peter hadn’t gone. He lived on in these five children, different bits in each. As long as they remembered and talked about him, they would keep his memory alive. It wasn’t the same as having him there, and never would be. But if she could come to his grave and talk to him, and keep his children around her, then she would find a way to carry on. She had no choice.

Chapter 39

Leningrad, April 1938

MARIA SAW THE WOMAN APPROACHING THROUGH THE dusk, and beckoned her over.

“Do you have news?” the woman asked without any greeting, desperate to learn her son’s fate.