MARIA’S WOUNDS HEALED WITHOUT BECOMING INFECTED and her body grew stronger, so that before long she was able to walk short distances using a walking stick Peter had fashioned. It was painful to lift anything or to turn at the waist, but she could wash herself and scrub the worst of the bloodstains from her gown in a freezing spring that gushed from the mountainside. Peter roasted rabbits and birds he had caught in homemade traps, and Maria gnawed the meat from the bones, suddenly ravenous. He made delicious tisanes from mountain herbs and soups from mushrooms he had foraged, and every day he brought bowlfuls of fruits of deep red, blue, and black hues: wild strawberries, cloudberries, and crowberries, he told her, as she devoured them.

While he spent his days gathering food, Maria wandered close to their camp engulfed in a thick fog of grief. She was becoming sick of the continuous crying that left her with no air to breathe, crying that came from a place deeper inside than she had imagined possible, but she couldn’t stop herself. The sight of a tiny bird pecking at the grass; a pretty flower nestled in the roots of an ancient tree; everything seemed to spark a memory of her family and set her off again. She tried to keep her tears from Peter now. It wasn’t fair for him to witness such misery, hour after hour. He had done his best by rescuing her and it wasn’t his fault that she wished she had died along with her sisters.

In the evenings, they talked. He told her he had learned his hunting skills from his gamekeeper father, and his knowledge of herbal medicines had been passed down from his mother’s grandmother.

“The estate where I grew up was a wonderful place to spend a childhood,” he said, “but I always knew my place. The children of the landowner would turn away when I passed because I was not of their class.”

Maria felt ashamed. Had she ever averted her eyes when she saw a child from a poor family? She didn’t think so. A memory flashed to mind of a time when they were traveling in their open-topped automobile through the countryside and saw a beggar girl by the roadside. Olga had been playing with a china-faced doll in a lace-trimmed gown but on a whim she threw it out the window to the poor bedraggled girl, who looked bemused as she picked it up. Maria remembered that look of puzzlement. Perhaps the child had never owned a doll before and did not know what to do with it. Perhaps she would have preferred food.

She asked Peter about his sister, and heard that she worked as a seamstress and had two children and a husband who, like Peter, had worked at the Makarov cloth factory.

“Why did you not remain on the estate and follow in your father’s footsteps?” she asked.