Maria didn’t have to be told twice. On her way to work, she stopped at the Hôtel de l’Europe on Nevsky Prospekt, which was being used as a military hospital. Her reward for a pint of blood was coupons for an extra two days’ family ration of bread, along with a bag of root vegetables. “Can I come back next week?” she asked, and was disappointed to be told that she could not donate again for another month. At least they ate well that night—a stew of potatoes, onions, carrot, and turnip, with fresh parsley sprinkled on top—and she made sure Mikhail got a bigger portion than his sisters. This deprivation seemed to be harder for men than for women, so she was relieved when Stepan told her that he was receiving army rations at his post on the antiaircraft battery.

* * *

When the snow came and the rivers iced over, the sense of claustrophobia intensified. There were bombs dropping most nights, gunfire by day, and a cold that felt crueler than in any winter Maria could remember. When Katya couldn’t find firewood for their burzhuika stove, Maria began to break up items of furniture and rip the baseboards from the walls. It was only December, with at least three more months of winter stretching in front of them. How would they survive? When would the city be relieved? She was beginning to think Stalin had abandoned them. Did he know of their plight? How could he let them starve?

On December 15, a Monday, Maria and Irina were walking to work through the snow. No one had cleared the pavement, so they walked in single file along a track worn by the footsteps of those who had gone before, dodging the rubble from bomb-damaged buildings. At the corner of Ulitsa Pestelya, there was a man lying on his side in the snow. Maria’s first thought was that he must have slipped, and she crouched to grasp his elbow and help him up.

“Sir? Are you all right?” she asked. It was then she saw that his eyes were wide open and staring out of a face tinged blue and sparkling with frost.

“He’s dead, Mom,” Irina said, a sob in her throat. “What should we do?”

Maria had seen dead people before—her family in the basement in Ekaterinburg; her baby Pavel lying in the bed beside her—and she knew straightaway that Irina was right. His body was here, but this man’s spirit was long gone. She closed his eyes then searched through his coat pockets until she found a ration card with an address on it. His name was Pavel, like her son, and his apartment block was just around the corner.

“You go ahead to the factory. Tell them I will be half an hour late,” she instructed Irina. “I’ll see if any family members are at home.”