Daughters of the Night Sky

“War will break you, Katyushka. Don’t make me see the light in your eyes grow dim.”

“It won’t, my Vanya. I promise.”

I felt the warmth of his arms around me, but when I moved to return the embrace he vanished, reappearing just out of my grasp.

“If you love me, you will come with me. You will stay safe with me.”

I took a step in his direction. “Vanya, I can’t. I can’t leave the girls behind. Could you really have crossed the border into Turkey? Could I have let us?”

Poof. He was now directly behind me. I spun to see him.

“This is killing me, Katyushka. What is a man if he can’t keep the woman he loves from peril?”

“The best kind. It means you trust me to stay alive. I trust you to do the same.”

“You’re a fool, Katyushka. I didn’t think you were. There are no happy endings in war.”

The words he never said ripped at me like fangs. I took a step closer to him. Poof.

He didn’t reappear.

I fought sleep, resented wakefulness.

I longed for the darkness to carry me to oblivion, until at last the dawn came again.

CHAPTER 26

Natalia left the next morning, not wanting to leave Antonin alone too long with his grief. I hugged her tenderly and promised that if nothing else, I would come visit to pay my respects to my father-in-law. No matter the animosity Vanya had felt toward his father, no matter how badly he had yearned for another life, he had inherited a good measure of his father’s pragmatism. Vanya would have loved nothing more than to spend his days studying art and devoting his life to his craft, but we were not born into a time where many people had the luxury of pursuing their passions.

His father had been wise to see his son trained in aviation. It had nearly saved his life.

Vanya could have gone to a conservatory and studied painting under masters. And he would have been plucked from school to die under a pile of rubble during the siege on Stalingrad or Leningrad. His training had given him at least a fighting chance to survive the war. He fell several weeks short of the mark, but Vanya had done more for his country before his death than a poor foot soldier who only survived service for a few weeks.

His death had not been in vain, and it was this thought alone that kept me sane.

On the dark days I remembered the time in the convalescent center with Vanya by my side. Him whispering in my ear. Imploring me to run away. To let him buy the papers that would allow us to escape safely to Sweden, Switzerland, or Portugal—anywhere neutral. If the truck hadn’t crashed, had my body not betrayed me, he would still be alive. It was almost two years since he’d implored me to leave. Simultaneously a lifetime and a handful of moments ago. Maybe Vanya could have coaxed me over the border. We would have been well settled somewhere safe, clamoring for news of the war in any newspaper we could scrounge up. Celebrating the end of the war we’d started but hadn’t the courage to finish. We would both see guilt glinting in each other’s eyes at every mention of the war. With the news of each fallen friend.

But it would have faded in time as we built our lives together. Vanya would have found scraps of time to paint when he wasn’t working to support us. I would have taught young pilots or found some other way to stretch my wings.

There might have been a child by now. A scamp of a boy with Vanya’s black hair that curled when it was overlong. My blue eyes and porcelain skin. Perhaps a girl with my red hair and her father’s mischievous coal-black eyes. Every time I tried to sleep, if it wasn’t the vision of Vanya’s face swirling in my mind, it was some variation of the child-that-never-was. The child-that-would-never-be. Or Taisiya. Oksana. Sofia. All the others we lost in three years.

That first week I spent most of my days curled up in the comfort of those pink, lavender, and periwinkle flannel pajamas and buried myself under Mama’s quilt. I only ate when she forced the issue. I could neither read nor write. My hands didn’t seem equal to mending or any menial task. I found myself staring at the patterns on the quilt to the point where the little white flowers began to dance on the inky-blue backdrop.

Oksana’s snowdrops.

I clutched the quilt to my chest and found, inexplicably, that I envied her. She was with her Yana now. Matvei had fallen in Stalingrad and had gone off to join his Taisiya. Even if heaven didn’t exist, I had to believe they were no longer lonely for one another.