When Maria’s colleague at work received a letter from her children in home number 44, Maria swallowed her jealousy. Mikhail and Katya must be at a different home, a more distant one where it was harder to post letters. She got Stepan to check at Finland Station, since there were no house-to-house deliveries, but each time he reported there was nothing for her.

The wintry weather eased in March and the Ice Road began to melt, meaning that Mikhail and Katya would not have been able to get back to Leningrad even had they been well enough. It would also be more difficult to get letters through. Every couple of weeks Maria visited Yuri’s apartment, but there was still no sign of him. She told herself he must have been stationed elsewhere, but felt cross he had not written to let her know. He must realize she would worry. She sent Stepan to inquire at Bolshoi Dom, but he was told they did not give out information about the whereabouts of officers.

Not knowing what had happened to her children was a constant nagging pain. Maria tried to picture them sitting at a long refectory table with lots of other children, eating meat and potatoes, laughing and chatting, but she couldn’t hold the image in her mind for long before anxiety returned. She still laid out plates for them at dinnertime before remembering they weren’t there. Her family felt diminished. It was too quiet in the apartment. She missed the noise of everyone talking at once, the arguments over the bath, the smell of their hair when she hugged them. It was different from the way she missed Peter, but no less excruciating.

The bombing raids started again with the warmer weather, and still there was no sign of the Red Army coming to relieve them. One Sovinform bulletin said Hitler claimed he would take Leningrad by August and informed citizens that Jews were being rounded up in all the areas his troops had conquered. It seemed there was regular bad news, drip by depressing drip. Even Yuri Levitan couldn’t lighten the message.

At least it was easier to find food in the spring. Stepan caught rabbits out by the barricades, and Maria planted a vegetable patch in the courtyard with some seeds distributed as part of a gardening drive. She nurtured herbs there too: ones Peter had taught her had medicinal uses, such as elecampane and yarrow, comfrey and thyme. Irina got a boyfriend who worked at the Krupskaya sweet factory, and she brought home sugary candies and bars of powdery chocolate that had been made without cocoa. Maria could make a single sweet last all evening by holding it in the pouch of her cheek, the flavor oozing out and bringing a temporary contentment. But then the boyfriend slapped Irina, she told him she wouldn’t see him anymore, and their brief moments of bliss were over.