“No, we were friends.” She remembered how awkward he had been when she took his photograph at the top of the stairs. “We didn’t become lovers till the end of the summer, when my wounds had healed.”

Stepan paused. “But how is that possible when I was born on the third of April? Was I premature?”

Maria was dumbstruck. It hadn’t occurred to her he would work that out.

“You must have been lovers before,” Stepan persisted.

Maria was tempted to lie to him. The truth was too awful. But she felt sure she would not live through the night, and now was the time for truth. “Your father was another guard in the house, a man who raped me. His name was Anatoly Bolotov. I’m sorry, Stepan.”

He pulled his hand away from hers and cried, “No!”

Straightaway Maria hated herself for telling him. She should have lied. If only she’d been thinking straight, she would never have blurted it out. “It made no difference. You were Peter’s son in every sense. You are more like him in character than any of your siblings.”

Stepan stood up, the lamp swaying. “No!” he whispered again, horror in his voice, and strode toward the door.

“Don’t go!” Maria called after him, but he left the room and she heard his bedroom door slam behind him. She had done a terrible, unforgivable thing. Stepan would be devastated and there had been no need for him to know. A tiny lie was all it would have taken. She squeezed her eyes tight shut in shame.

* * *

She woke the next morning as Irina came into the room carrying a cup of comfrey infusion, its crisp cucumber scent cutting through the smell of woodsmoke and her own sweat.

“Where’s Stepan?” she asked straightaway.

“He’s gone to work,” Irina told her, sitting carefully on the edge of the bed, placing a hand on her mother’s forehead.

Maria turned her face away. She yearned to speak to him, to explain.

“I think your fever has broken, Mama,” Irina said. “Here. Try to drink.”

It was true. Maria felt better, as if she had emerged from a cocoon of fuzziness into the clear light of day. Perhaps sharing her secret had helped—but she had shared too much. Peter would be cross with her. There had been no need.

She heard Stepan return later and called for him. He appeared in the doorway, such a wounded expression on his face that she felt a stab of remorse.

“I just wanted to say that I’m sure you will have questions for me and you may ask me anytime.”

He nodded. “I need to think first. But thank you.”

Maria fought back tears. “You must understand that Peter was your father by any measure that counts. Your character, your morality, your strength, your humor—all are his.”