Maria marveled that Peter seemed so calm about this, as if it were an everyday occurrence to change names. “If you’re sure,” she said. She selected a small diamond from her cloth bag.

Later that night, when she was dressed in the stolen clothes, with a peasant woman’s scarf on her head, Peter burned her old ripped gown. It was far too grand for “Citizen Dubova,” a farm worker’s wife, and the bayonet slash on the bodice would arouse suspicion. She wasn’t sorry to see the last of it; it held too many nightmarish memories within its expensive threads.

* * *

“Have you traveled a long way?” the farmer’s wife asked Maria, looking her up and down. “You seem worn out, and your lapti are so battered there is scarcely anything left. My name’s Svetlana. Here—take some bread. Your baby needs you to eat for two. When is he due, by the way?”

Maria made a quick calculation in her head. “June, I think.”

“A June baby is lucky,” Svetlana continued. “He will look after you in your old age, or so the saying goes.”

“It might be a girl . . .”

Svetlana shook her head. “I can tell it’s a boy from the shape of your belly. I’m never wrong about that. You’ve come to the right place; I can help you through the labor.”

Maria paled. She had not given much thought to childbirth and found the prospect terrifying. Her bump was so big already she could not imagine how its contents would ever emerge.

“Don’t worry.” Svetlana smiled. “I’ve delivered four of my neighbors’ babies, as well as umpteen calves.”

That was vaguely reassuring, although Maria wondered if calves were born the same way as humans. She couldn’t see how, given that they had four legs not two.

“Do you have children?” she asked, but Svetlana shook her head.

“It never happened for us, sadly. It wasn’t God’s will.”

All the same, she looked as though she had given birth, with a huge sagging bosom and ample hips. Maria guessed her age to be around forty.

Svetlana continued. “I hope you will be able to help me with the tasks the men leave to us women—you know, weaving, milking, feeding the animals, pickling, baking, and so forth. We’ll be company for each other.”

Maria paled. She had no knowledge of the tasks Svetlana would expect the wife of an itinerant farm worker to be familiar with.

Her ignorance was soon revealed when they went to the shed to do the afternoon milking and she did not know which part of the cow to grab hold of. She tried to copy Svetlana, but no milk came out. The farmer’s wife regarded her thoughtfully.

“You’re a kulak, aren’t you? Makes sense. I had my suspicions from your accent and the fancy way you sit on a chair.”