YURI HAD SAID HE WOULD RETURN THE FOLLOWING weekend and Maria counted the hours. Had he meant Saturday? The day passed without him appearing. Or Sunday? Still no sign. On Sunday evening, she trudged all the way to the Bolshaya Apartments and persuaded a neighbor to let her into the block, then hammered on his door until her knuckles were bruised. Perhaps he had been delayed by work. That must be it.

“How long does it take for a letter to arrive from the other side of the lake?” she quizzed Stepan next morning, after a sleepless night.

He put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “Personal letters are very low priority. The trucks coming back this way are loaded with ammunition and essential supplies. We must have faith that they are fine, and that they will soon be cured. Anything could have happened to Yuri. Maybe he has been arrested. From what you say, he was breaking more than a few rules.”

That thought did not comfort Maria. She was desperate for news. If only she knew where to write to Mikhail and Katya; if only they had a telephone. Her family used to have telephones at the Alexander Palace back in 1917; the technology had been available for decades, but most Russians did not have a home telephone, even in 1942. She supposed that if they had, the Germans would have cut the lines.

Worry gnawed at her insides, making it hard to sleep at night, and her work suffered. She knew she was being less efficient in her duties at the factory, but no one complained. All were growing weaker; all had their personal worries.

* * *

In late February, Galina came to knock on Maria’s door, looking like a ghost.

“My mother is sick,” she said. “Please will you come?”

Maria hesitated, but her anger with Galina and Raisa for having Peter arrested had long since faded, now that the struggle for survival was paramount. “All right,” she said, and followed the girl to their apartment.

All those years they had lived in the same block, Maria had never been inside Raisa’s rooms. They were similar to hers, but more sparse. There were holes in the floor where she guessed they had torn up strips of floorboard to burn for heat. Galina led her to the bed, where Raisa lay on her back, eyes closed, mouth wide, skin a ghastly white. Maria knelt to touch her forehead and knew straightaway that she had been dead for some time. All the same, she checked for a pulse and listened with her ear to Raisa’s mouth in case she could detect a hint of breath, but there was nothing. Galina was shifting her weight from foot to foot, looking petrified.

“I’m so sorry,” Maria said, and the girl wailed a drawn-out “Noooo!”

“Where is your father?” she asked.