The electricity became intermittent, then in November the water supply failed after bombs ripped open the pipelines. Now they had to fetch buckets of water from a fire hydrant at the end of the street, and use a kerosene lamp for light in the evening. Maria gave each child his or her own job: Yelena and Mikhail got the water and Katya collected firewood; Irina brought home the canteen food, and Maria went for the bread and any other food she could forage.

At night, when the planes flew overhead, they sang songs in the shelter to drown out the noise. “The Little Blue Scarf,” in which a soldier pined for the girl he loved, was a particular favorite.

It can’t last much longer, Maria told herself. Where was the Red Army? Stalin called himself “father of the nation”; now was the time for him to prove it.

* * *

“My tummy hurts,” Mikhail complained one night in November as he slumped over the dinner table. He was thirteen years old and tall for his age. Maria touched the back of her hand to his forehead and noticed that his skin was gray, his eyes dull, and he had a sore at the corner of his lips. She put her arms around him and felt his ribs sticking out. They were all getting thinner, but his weight loss seemed more severe than the others’.

“Have some soup,” she told him, ladling a generous portion into a bowl; then she dissolved a teaspoon of vitamin powder in water and told him to swallow it.

“Eat slowly,” she cautioned. “Don’t make yourself sick. Tomorrow I will try to find extra.”

When she picked up her bread the next day, counting out the precious coupons carefully, she asked, “Is there any way to get more for my son? He is unwell.”

“Marry a Party boss?” the woman suggested, with a cynical look. “I notice they aren’t suffering any hardships.”

“Besides that?” Maria shuddered at the thought. She would never marry again. Peter had been the only man for her.

“I hear you get extra rations if you donate blood,” the woman said. “But be careful not to weaken yourself. Personally speaking, I need all the blood I’ve got.”