Daughters of the Night Sky, page 26
Klaus nodded and skittered back to the corner, where the delicate girl of five or six years still stood, eyeing us as she would an unreliably trained wolf.
“Please be as careful as you can,” I bade Heide. “I’ll do what I can to bring back some more provisions for you, but I can’t promise anything.”
Heide uncurled from herself and grabbed me in an embrace. I returned her squeeze and pulled back. “This is nothing,” I said. “I wish I could do more.”
“It is everything,” she contradicted. “If all the Soviet women are like you, there may be hope for the future. Go home and civilize your men.”
Renata and Polina gave her their promises for a speedy return as well, and the children even favored us with their sticky kisses before we departed.
Nearly at once I sought out Polkovnik Ozerov, the commanding officer who was my direct superior. I relayed to him Heide’s situation and the danger she and the children faced alone.
“She is one of millions in that situation, Major Soloneva. We cannot protect them all.”
“But we can order the men to act like gentlemen, can we not?” I countered, taking a step closer to his desk.
“We can order whatever we like. It doesn’t mean we will have any success,” he said, heaving a sigh that bordered on the dramatic.
“Are you or are you not their commanding officer?” I spat.
“Watch yourself, Major. This war is not over yet.” He sat up straight in his chair, his expression now hard. “These men have been fighting with barely enough food to survive. They have slept in tents and trenches for the better part of four years. Who am I to deny them some comforts?”
“Comforts? At what cost? The safety of innocent civilians?”
“Soldiers are never the only ones who suffer in war, and no civilian is eager to have one fought on his front porch. It’s a bad business, I’ll admit, but there is nothing to be done.”
I felt the blood pulsing in my face, the heat emanating from my pores. He suddenly became very concerned with the papers on his desk, but I did not allow him to escape my stare.
“If we cannot protect innocent women and children from our own troops, then what was the war for? Would you be so complacent if it were your wife? Your daughters? Your sons being manhandled by the Germans?”
“Complacent, no, Major. I would be enraged. Furious. But know these two things: First, if the Germans had won, make no mistake they would be doing the same to the women and children back at home. Second, I would be just as powerless to prevent it.”
“Coward,” I seethed, and walked out of the makeshift office and back to the barracks, where Polina and Renata awaited my report.
“Please tell me they’re sending the bastards to Siberia,” Renata greeted me. “It would be too good for them, but it would be gratifying all the same.”
“Nothing,” I said, throwing my uniform jacket on my bunk. “They’re doing nothing.”
“So what do we do?” Polina asked. “There must be something.”
“We can take them some rations if we can find enough to spare without raising suspicion. Any more than that and it looks like we’re aiding the enemy and stealing food from the mouths of Russians.”
“So we do nothing?” Polina asked. “Just leave her there for it to happen again?” Her arms were folded tight over her chest, her lips white with anger.
“We can’t exactly stand guard outside her house.” I flopped on my bunk and cast my eyes up at the barracks ceiling. “I’ve taken it up the chain of command. They won’t be bothered keeping their men in line.”
“We can’t just leave Heide like that,” Renata said. “She needs help.”
“So do millions of other women,” I said. “It sounds heartless, but if the commanders don’t keep the men in line, all we can do is keep the men under our influence in check. I won’t be surprised if they send us home in the next few weeks. They don’t need pilots for sentry duty.”
“If our soldiers are acting like pigs, what was the point of saving the civilized world from Germany?” Renata asked no one in particular.
“We can’t go down that road,” I said. “We’ve sacrificed too much to think this was all for nothing. We need to get home and get back to our lives. The sooner we bring our troops home, the sooner this horror will be over.”
“Any news of Vanya?” Polina asked after a moment. “I know it’s been some time.”
“More than three months,” I said. “It’s been chaos, though. I’m sure the post isn’t able to keep up. And Andrei?”
“Fine. It sounds like his division will be sent home soon. They’ve been in so long,” she said, unable to keep the relief from her voice.
“Wonderful news,” I said. “Let’s hope we beat them home.”
They knew I’d spent the last few weeks trying to track down Vanya’s regiment and I’d had no success. The battle for Berlin had been so wrought with chaos that I allowed myself to blame the silence on the breakdowns in communication as units were reassigned and others deployed home.
We all craved our missing luxuries more acutely now that the war wasn’t there to demand our attentions day and night. Some longed for proper foods. Others, the comfort of their warm beds. I would have traded every jewel in the old tsar’s vault for a solitary postcard.
CHAPTER 25
July 1945, Moscow, Russia
The throng of family members and loved ones assembled on the runway made a roar to put our little engines to shame. We exited the planes and dashed to find our husbands, children, parents, and siblings, who all clamored to welcome us home after nearly four years of separation from the families we fought for. I saw Polina kissing a tall man with a bulbous nose—her Andrei. Renata was in the firm embrace of her parents, who seemed set to keep her there for the rest of her days.
Mama rushed to me, eyes streaming, and flung herself into my arms.
“My darling girl!” She sobbed into my neck. “I am so glad you’re back with us!”
“Oh, Mama” was all I could say for my ragged breathing. After a long moment I pulled back to take her in. She’d gained a few kilos back and reminded me much more of the mama I remembered from my youth. She wore a dress that was by no means elegant, but made of good fabric and clearly new. The dark circles under her eyes had been replaced by a few graceful lines of experience and worry for her daughter on the front.
“This is Grigory.” She gestured to a tall man with a ruddy face and broad chest. His walrus mustache reminded me greatly of Karlov, which did not speak in his favor, but his sky-blue eyes twinkled with joy and kindness. He was exactly what I would have chosen for her.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, my daughter,” he said grandly. “I thank you, most humbly, for your courage and your service. Your mama read much of your letters to me, and I like to think the pride I felt for you was on your father’s behalf.”
I kissed his cheek and patted his shoulder in appreciation. He was a decorated soldier but looked as nervous to be meeting his adult stepdaughter as he would have felt at greeting the business end of a bayonet in the last war.
“Enough of the flattery. I haven’t seen my mother this fit in years. You have earned my approval, Comrade Yelchin.”
“Grigory, please, my dear. I hope I might presume to call you Ekaterina?”
“Katya,” I corrected. “And of course.”
“Let’s go home,” Mama said, smiling broadly at the warmth of our exchange as she proffered me her arm. I felt my stomach drop with disappointment as I realized Vanya’s regiment wouldn’t be among those arriving back today. It had been a long shot, but I’d still been hopeful. I held Mama close to my side as Grigory wrestled with my duffel. I looked back at Polina and Renata, clutched tight to the bosom of their families, and knew I could not spoil their homecomings with a tearful goodbye. We would still have business together until the regiment was formally disbanded.
Mama and Grigory had relocated to Moscow from Chelyabinsk as the war began to turn in our favor. Grigory had been able to oversee the supplies sent to the western cities that had been leveled during the war instead of spending his time managing the construction of tanks. It was good to think of Mama in a city that was slowly coming back to life, and not alone in her little cabin near the village that would always be sleepy.
Their apartment was the size of a shoebox, but comfortable, given that every essential of survival was scarce as the nation sought to heal its wounds. Even before I’d taken in my surroundings, the smell of tea and freshly baked spice cake assaulted my nostrils and awakened in me a hunger I hadn’t known was there. There was good furniture, if a bit careworn, and because of Grigory’s position, they did not have to share the minuscule spare bedroom with another family. The windows were open to allow the July breeze to flow through the living room.
I took a step back as I realized my own mother-in-law, Natalia Soloneva, sat on my mother’s sofa. Grigory excused himself to the kitchen, as did Mama once she’d placed two cups of tea on the small parlor table. Mother Soloneva patted the cushion next to her, and I took my seat next to her. I felt myself shake, knowing she would not have come all this way merely to take tea with me. She had news of Vanya. I tried to sip Mama’s good tea, but my shaking hands made the task impossible.
A delay. Some sort of bureaucratic hassle. Anything but the worst.
“I’m so glad you’ve returned safely, my dear,” she said, her tone flat as she stared past the cups of tea toward some nonexistent fascination on the parlor rug.
“Thank you, Mother Soloneva. And I’m glad to see you’re well. I hope Father Solonev is just the same.”
“He’s as well as one can expect in such hard times.”
I nodded in agreement. “Do you have word when Vanya will be released from the front? I wasn’t able to find his regiment near Berlin.”
“His regiment didn’t get quite that far. They ended service farther east.”
“Ah,” I said, comprehending. “Then I am surprised he didn’t make it home before I did. Is he on some sort of patrol assignment?”
“Darling.” Her thin resolve cracked, and she dissolved into a pool of tears. “He . . . he was killed in the final push for Seelow Heights.”
Air expelled from me in a torrent as I tried to make sense of her words. My brain seemed unwilling to process why this woman was breaking down before me. All I was able to do was hold out my arms to her and allow her grief to escape into great pools on my uniform jacket. I embraced her, still trying to understand that Vanya would never again do this for me. No more midnight embraces. No stolen kisses between practical lessons. No more tender words. Had we escaped, we might be already planning our return home.
“We received word just a few weeks ago,” Natalia explained. “We didn’t know if it would get to you before you came home. We expected it would be easier for you to hear in person, so we didn’t try to get word to you.”
Easier. The word thudded around in my brain, but no meaning registered.
He had survived so much of the war, only to be taken in the last weeks.
I had survived, only to be abandoned.
Mama served a dinner unlike anything I’d seen since before the war. Roasted-chicken stew with roasted potatoes and a sturdy, dry white wine to pair with it. Restorative, nourishing. A meal a mother would prepare for a child in need of feeding, but nothing to suggest a celebration. It was a meal prepared with grief in mind. I moved to the table with everyone else. They’d had weeks to process their grief, and mine was not yet real. From the outside we might have appeared like a normal family.
“Where is the vodka, Mama?” I asked, taking a small glass from the cupboard.
“I hope you haven’t developed that habit, Katinka,” Mama said.
“It’s not for me,” I said. Grigory, taking my meaning, fetched a good bottle from his small stash, presenting it to me without ceremony. I poured a small measure into the glass and handed the bottle back to Grigory, then placed the glass by my side at the small table and set a slice of bread on top. The portion for the dead.
Vanya’s mother swallowed hard at the gesture and caressed my elbow. “My dear girl, I know we didn’t get off to the best of starts. My husband is of the old sort, you understand. He had great plans for Vanya, and he didn’t understand that as a father he must put his vision aside and let Vanya make his own life. Antonin loved him very much, though he wasn’t much at showing it.” Natalia looked as out of place at my mother’s kitchen table as a crystal vase in a trench. She held my hand, her body turned completely in my direction.
“I’m not the sort of girl he would have chosen for his son. I understand.”
“He knows Vanya loved you—loves you, I like to think. Antonin has said as much. He’s embarrassed for the way he acted when we met.”
“Why did Comrade Solonev not come with you?” Grigory asked. “It’s not a good time for women to travel alone.”
I stifled a growl at my new stepfather’s assertion that a woman needed caring for. It was merely gallantry, I reminded myself. I would have to adjust to the notion again. What was more, Natalia was the kind of woman who was very much used to male protection.
“He would not want me to say this,” Natalia replied, “but he is far too heartbroken by his grief to be seen. I trust you won’t speak of such things outside the family, but he blames himself for Vanya enlisting.”
“Vanya wanted to fight,” I assured her, seething at the idea of Antonin Solonev cheapening my husband’s sacrifice by insinuating he had been anything less than willing to do his part. “He was proud to do his duty to his country.”
“Of course, my dear. Antonin just feels like his own military service may have compelled Vanya to take more risks than he might otherwise have done.”
“I flew as your son’s navigator for months. I can assure you there was not a more conscientious pilot in the whole of the Red Army. He had a crew to think about, and he would never have risked their lives, no matter the glory of your husband’s reputation.” I sat ramrod straight in my chair, picking halfheartedly at the perfectly golden-brown crust on the potatoes. I did not look up, for my mother-in-law had done nothing to deserve the glare I knew would lance her if lifted from the safety of my plate.
“Come home with me, and tell my Antonin this,” Natalia implored me. “It would ease his breaking heart to hear these words.”
I took a bite of the potato to give myself an excuse not to speak. I immediately regretted it. The food was unpalatable, but I could not insult my mother’s good cooking or my upbringing to spit it out. I labored to swallow, my throat as raw as the day when I was six years old and the doctor had pulled my tonsils in his shining white office.
“He asked me to bring you home,” she continued. “We have no children of our own now. He would like to do for you what we can no longer do for our Vanya. We would welcome you in our home as our own daughter.”
I looked up, my skin tingling at the suggestion. Shouldn’t you already consider me this?
“She has a family,” my mother interjected, viciously piercing a piece of chicken with her fork. Grigory placed a hand on her shoulder, and I could see her breathing even out.
My hand involuntarily lighted over my heart, massaging as though the ache that loomed there were physical. “I appreciate your offer, Natalia. I really do. But I am only just back home.”
“Naturally. You need some time with your mother and new stepfather.” I blanched at the title but forced a tight smile for Grigory. It would take some getting used to. “But know that you will always have a home with us.”
“You are unspeakably generous, Natalia. Please pass my thanks on to Father Solonev as well.”
“Say nothing of it, my dear. It’s our pleasure. I’m only sorry it’s under such circumstances. And far too late in coming.”
I nodded, pushing my food aside, a momentary pang of guilt piercing my stomach at the sight of the uneaten food, but I could no more bring myself to finish the meal than move the Ural Mountains to the sea.
The apartment was small, and it was clear which room was intended for me. There was a single bed with a starched white sheet and a welcoming quilt. There was little in the way of furnishings, but my mother had done her best to make the room cheerful. Grigory had placed my duffel against the wall, but I didn’t want to see any of the clothes I’d been wearing for the past four years. I’d save most of them for the wood stove on the first frosty morning that fall.
I checked in the small bureau and was pleased to find the candy-pink pajamas from my days at the academy. Something from the sunny days of spring that I spent with Vanya and Taisiya. I cocooned myself in the frothy pink flannel and sunk into the feather mattress. I curled up under the warm covers and shut my eyes against the world. I waited for the tears to come, but the sting of my anguish never made it as far as my eyes. I tried to will the tears to fall. I wanted to feel the release I’d felt when I’d cried for Taisiya and Oksana. For all the other fallen sisters.
If I cried, it would mean I wasn’t empty.
But that night I found neither the catharsis of tears nor the respite of sleep.
Vanya’s face came to me as soon as I fell to the abyss of sleep, and it warned me. It warned me that the war would break me.
I stared at the wall. It had to be two or three in the morning. I gripped my quilt like the stick of my plane when I was trying to pull out of a spiraling dive. As though these layers of fabric and ticking could help me regain control of a life that no longer resembled anything I’d ever planned for.
Years of military training and discipline. I was prepared to approach every situation, equipped for various outcomes—both positive and negative. Logically I had known that one of us might not survive the war, but there was nothing almost two decades of schooling and service could have done to prepare me for this.
The specters in my dreams were the only thing crueler than the reality of my waking hours:
“War will break you, Katyushka. Don’t make me see the light in your eyes grow dim.”
