Daughters of the Night Sky

There had been victory parades before now, but more soldiers and pilots were home to be recognized for their service. There wasn’t the pomp of the rain-sodden parade several weeks prior, where our soldiers tossed fallen German standards at Comrade Stalin’s feet. This was a true celebration of the people and the soldiers who had defended them.

Mama and Grigory joined me in Red Square to take part in the revelry. Both seemed happy to see me out among the living. I was spending less and less time in the apartment, and I let them think it was because I was faring well enough to be out among people. The truth is that I spent most of my time trying to find some escape. I’d taken the initiative to inquire about a university course. I’d spent hours in libraries, even in the neighborhood church, to see if I might find some comfort in Renata’s faith. I’d rather have been nearly anywhere else than the pulsing square that crackled with the energy of a people too long denied a reason to celebrate, but I knew Mama, and especially Grigory, were anxious to join in the excitement.

Even after darkness fell, the lights strobed over the square so brightly it might have been day. I trembled, trying not to think of the German searchlights that had so often spelled our doom.

Do not cower. They’re fireworks. Amusement fit for children. Do not cower.

“You look pale, Katinka.” Concern was etched upon Mama’s brow. “Do we need to go home?”

I shook my head and forced my attention to the podium, where party leaders shouted and congratulated themselves on the victory, as though it had been done at their hands alone. As though millions of soldiers hadn’t paid their pound of flesh to defeat the German army.

“You need only say the word, my dear, and we can find our way out of this mob.” Grigory smiled at me over my mother’s head. He was a soldier, too, and knew something of what I was experiencing.

“I’ll be fine,” I assured them, taking Mama’s free hand in my own. Grigory had long since claimed the other.

The red, gold, and green flashes of light scarred the night sky. Today we celebrated our victory with the naive certainty that such horror would never be seen again. We’d thought the same thing a generation before when we closed the chapter on the last atrocity that had ripped the world apart. The war in the Pacific was boiling to its conclusion. The Americans had destroyed two Japanese cities to end it, and I remembered Oksana’s similar justification for her tactics: the longer the war dragged on, the longer the innocent would suffer.

We were disbanded officially in October. My commanding officer gathered us all in a great assembly room in the Kremlin to present us with the medals we had earned since the last time they had been able to attend to such matters. A gold star dangling from a red ribbon was attached to my jacket. Hero of the Soviet Union. There were twenty-four of us granted this highest honor. It was conferred upon both Oksana and Taisiya posthumously, and I accepted on their behalf as the commanding officer and their navigator. I would take Taisiya’s medals back to her family, perhaps taking the time to honor my promise and see Vanya’s parents, and to see Chelyabinsk and the academy one more time. I couldn’t imagine there being many more occasions to travel that far east again.

“You will take care of yourselves,” I said to Renata and Polina, who wore their medals on chests puffed with well-deserved pride. “It’s my last order to you as your commanding officer.”

“Of course, Major,” Renata said with a crisp salute. “So long as you promise to do the same.”

“I’ll do my best,” I answered softly, not knowing what that might look like after the months of putting their well-being before my own. “And you take care of your Andrei, too, Polina.”

“I will,” she said with a smile. She was married already, just as I had predicted, but enrolling at the university, too. Andrei had secured a job in Moscow, and they would make their lives there. A life in the capital suited them both.

“The quiet is strange, isn’t it?” Renata said. “I didn’t expect it.”

“Deafening,” I agreed. “Unless I’m out on the streets at the busiest time of day, everything seems too quiet. Too slow.” No artillery fire. No roar of the Polikarpov. No din of chatter at every meal. I was glad to not be alone with this thought.

“We’ll adjust,” Polina said in an unusual show of optimism. “It’s what we do best.”

I embraced these dear women, confident in the knowledge that Polina spoke the truth.

The image of Oksana fading in my arms loomed in my mind, her skin growing ashen and cold. “Can you take word to my family in Aix? I want them to remember me.”