Daughters of the Night Sky

After luncheon Natalia showed me the press clippings she’d collected of Vanya’s accomplishments in the war. She’d even gathered a few of mine, though each entry for me was put in as E. Solonev. The reader would read of what I’d done and imagine an Erik or Eduard Solonev, fighting bravely for the Red Army. Any mention of Ekaterina Soloneva was relegated to the few articles in women’s magazines they’d used to drum up patriotic fervor among the idle peasant women in the east. Surely if this woman can fly a plane, you can work in a factory for the glory of the motherland.

I never wanted to be a show pony for the army, but it was clear the opposite was the case. I didn’t need to see my face in all the papers or my name on every page, but they minimized all we’d done. As I read my mother-in-law’s papers, it seemed the contribution of the women in mixed regiments was almost entirely ignored. My own regiment had a few mentions, but nothing like the male regiments, who had achieved half as much. When the women were released from duty, we were expelled from the military altogether in most cases. They wanted to pretend they’d never needed us. How I wished that had been true. Fine thanks for our sacrifice from a grateful nation.

Perhaps Oksana was more noble than I was. She had wanted to do her part to rebuild the country and see it thrive again. I felt no guilt in leaving that task to others who had not already paid the same price we had. It seemed just.

Later I wandered about the house, looking idly at the impressive collection of books, wishing any one of them held the answer to what path I ought to take. I removed a dusty tome from the shelf. An antique atlas. Some of the countries pictured in it no longer existed; others were yet to be formed when the maps were printed. Even now borders were being erased and redrawn. Men like Hitler and Stalin had great plans to conquer the world and divide it up for their own purposes. The rest of us merely longed for our place in it.

CHAPTER 28

May 1946, Aix-en-Provence, France

Over the course of a week, I saw what remained of Europe. Western Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine were starved and gray, but rebuilding. Poland, Germany, and Austria were attempting to emerge from the cinders. When we descended into what had been the “free zone” in France, we seemed to be entering a different world. There were patches of damage from Allied bombs, but the cities remained mostly intact. The vibrant blue of the sky seemed something from an artist’s palette instead of something born of nature.

The train rattled into the station in Aix-en-Provence. Before it came to a complete stop, I had gathered my worn suitcase and was standing by the exit, waiting for the conductor to open the door to the platform. Though the chill of spring had yet to give way to summer in Moscow, I was warm as the southern French sun caressed my bare arms. I wore the simple turquoise dress that had belonged to Mama, remembering the day in the lush meadow when Vanya had painted my likeness. The ache in my heart reassured me he was still there.

In addition to travel papers, Antonin had verified the address of Oksana’s family and that they had, in fact, survived the war. I would have gone to find them even without the information, but now that the long journey was behind me, I was glad I would not have long days—possibly even weeks—ahead of me to track them down, nor did I have to worry that the trek had been in vain.

I clutched the paper with the directions to their home, a small villa on the outskirts of town. I’d been told I would be able to hire a car to take me as far as their house, but I’d spent too much time cooped up in trains to be able to contemplate entering another vehicle. A few kilometers by foot in shoes that weren’t four sizes too large and on a road that wouldn’t have me ankle-deep in mud seemed as close to paradise as I could dream.

As I strolled down the streets, some of the shops shuttered and cafés nearly empty, I could still easily imagine the city in its prewar glory. The residents glanced sideways at me with downcast eyes, suspicious of those they didn’t know. I considered smiling at them to ease their disquiet but wondered if the gesture might make me seem even more suspicious in their eyes. I decided to let them find their trust in their own time.