“I don’t know,” Maria ventured. She didn’t dare tell him that the answer might be never. “Maybe she needs some time away. All marriages go through difficult patches.” She glanced at his face. Was she being too presumptuous? He didn’t seem to mind.

“I don’t understand what she wants,” he complained. “She has a decent home, food, money for clothes, she doesn’t have to work . . . What more can I give her?”

Maria never for one moment forgot she was in an NKVD van, talking to an NKVD officer. A single wrong word and she could be summarily arrested. But she decided to tell him part of the truth. “Maybe she wanted to feel loved.”

He turned his face away, inhaled deeply on his cigarette. “She never understood the pressure I am under. This is not an easy job.”

“I’m sure it’s not.”

“I see things that . . . well, they haunt you.”

Maria dared not ask what. She did not want to imagine. All she wanted was to get out of his van and walk away, back home to her children. She gathered her shopping bag handles, as if to leave.

“Who told you Annushka had gone to her cousin’s?” he demanded suddenly.

Maria had been hoping he wouldn’t ask. Now she would have to lie. “I asked the women in the baker’s shop and they put the word around and news came back. I don’t know who found out.”

“Who told you?” he asked.

“I don’t know her name. A blond woman. In a brown coat.”

He nodded. “You could point her out to me if we went to the baker’s shop together, could you?”

Maria hesitated. “I’m not sure. Possibly not. I’ve only seen her once.”

“But I hear you are very good at remembering faces. That’s why you are able to reunite families. Surely you would remember this woman?”

It had turned into an interrogation. Maria was flustered and could feel her cheeks burning.

“Don’t ever lie,” he said, watching her through narrowed eyes. “You will get found out every time. Your face gives you away.”

Maria looked at her lap, clutched her shopping bag closer. What could she say? How could she get out of this?

Before she could answer, he continued, “If you have any other friends who want information, you know where I live.”

Maria was astonished. “But you—”

“I have to go now.” He flicked his cigarette out the window. “Goodbye, Maria.”

She jumped out of the van, slammed the door behind her, and walked quickly down the road. When it rolled past, she did not dare turn around to look.

Chapter 40

Sydney, September 1975