Peter spoke in a voice that was raw with emotion. “I was sentenced to death by the troika and led out to a van thinking I was about to die. But instead of facing a firing squad, I was taken on a journey of several weeks to a gulag in Norilsk, in the Arctic Circle. I was there until recently.”

“But why didn’t you write? If I’d only known . . .” Maria still couldn’t believe it.

“None of us were allowed to contact our relatives. We were sentenced to twenty-five years without communication privileges. I tried many times to get a message to you, but . . .” A shadow passed across his eyes. “It was not possible.”

Maria looked at his face and saw a world of suffering there. She wondered what he saw in hers. There was time enough for all that. For now, she took his chin in her hands and pulled his mouth to hers, closing her eyes and sinking into the sensation of his kiss. Her heart was beating so hard she was sure he would feel it. His hands were on her back, holding her close, and she wanted time to stop so that she could savor this moment and live in it forever.

* * *

“Babushka, who is that man?” a little voice asked.

Maria broke away and smiled. “These are your grandchildren,” she told Peter. “Anna and Alexei.”

He seemed overwhelmed as he looked at their luminous faces, so full of possibility. “Hello,” he said in a croaky voice. They peered at him with curiosity.

“How long have you known?” Maria asked Irina.

“Not long,” she said. “He came to the apartment in Leningrad this morning and I brought him straight here. Isn’t it wonderful?”

Maria still felt stunned. All those conversations she’d had with Peter in the cemetery; the mushrooms she thought he had led her to; the times when she could swear he had answered her. It was too much to take in.

“I must sit down for a while,” she said. “I need to think.”

“Irina and I will take the children up to the palace,” Stepan offered. “You two need time alone.”

They sat on the bench, hand in hand, bodies curved toward each other. Maria traced the line of a new scar on Peter’s brow, touched the cowlick hair, cupped his chin in her hand. She felt unbelievably slow-witted.

“Why did they not execute you?” she asked.

“I think they made a mistake,” Peter told her. “I was simply bundled into the wrong van. If I’m right, it means someone who was intended for a gulag was executed in my place.”

Maria thought back to the typed list the Bolshoi Dom officer had held. “Did you get the package I sent you in jail? The blanket and the warm clothes?” She remembered the unattended pile of parcels on the floor.