Daughters of the Night Sky

A smile tugged at my lips as I followed her to the kitchen sink, placed the back of my chair from the table against it, and tucked in my collar as Mama heated water on the stove. No matter how tired she was, how hard she worked, she always had time to wash my hair on Wednesdays and Saturdays—and long after I was old enough to do it for myself. She made a ritual of it, chatting and taking the time to massage my scalp and scrub gently. She scrimped to buy the good soap for the occasion. I always thought it was her way of apologizing for not being able to do the little motherly things she used to do before Papa was killed. But in those evenings, those long, soapy chats with Mama’s strong fingers relieving all my childish worries were worth more than all the homemade cookies and embroidered dresses that she could never provide.

“Do you mind at all, Mama?”

It was usually she who opened these conversations with a query about school or the goings-on with my friends. Given that I had stolen her chance of seeing my wedding, I figured opening the chat was my duty this time.

“Mind that you married an intelligent, handsome, talented young man of good family and solid prospects who also happens to worship the ground at your feet? Not in the least. That I wasn’t there to see it? Perhaps a little. That your father wasn’t there to give you a proper wedding breaks my heart.”

“So you approve of Vanya?” I asked, closing my eyes as she tilted my head and poured the warm water over my red tresses.

“My dear, who could not approve of such a young man for her daughter? And your father would have, too, which is the greatest compliment I can offer.”

“Thank you, Mama.”

“I must confess, I worried you’d never marry or have a life outside your studies. It seemed you’d spend your life shifting from having your nose in a book to having your head in the clouds—quite literally.”

“You always warned me that boys were the fastest course to a derailed dream. You saw it so many times on the stage in Moscow with the other dancers.”

“I worried I drove that message to heart a little too well at times,” Mama said with a chuckle, her long fingers easing months’ worth of tension from my scalp. “Your father cut short my dancing career by a few years—probably not even that much—but I never regretted it. A career, no matter how noble it is, can’t be the whole of your life, Katya. You need to have something to work for.”

“Vanya understands my need to fly,” I said, breathing in the deep notes of honey and herbs wafting from the soap. “I don’t think I would have been able to marry him if he didn’t. Not with the war on, especially.”

“He’s a remarkable young man, and I am so happy you found him. You deserve some happiness after your hard work in school. I’m just sorry this infernal war will cut it short.”

A pall had been cast over Mama’s voice. I could offer her platitudes. Tell her that we’d repel the Germans back to their borders by the new year, but I couldn’t lie to my mother. That hadn’t been the case in the last European War, and it wouldn’t be the case this time.

“There were times I wondered where you learned your tenacity,” she said. “You must have inherited it from your father. I wanted to be a good role model for you, but I didn’t know if a laundress could raise a pilot for a daughter. I’m glad you got that gift from him.” I heard a sniff and felt a hand disentangle itself from my mane to wipe away a tear.

“Mama, how can you say that? A less tenacious woman would never have been able to keep food on this table for the past ten years.”

“Thank you for saying so, Katinka. I just wanted to give you the best life I could. I couldn’t bear to see you at the washing tub next to mine.”

“I’m none too proud for that, Mama. But I am glad you urged me to further my studies. Do you remember coming to school to tell Comrade Dokorov I would be studying math and science with the boys?”

“Such a sniveling rat of a man. I heard the party finally gave him a talking-to about how he separated the girls from the boys in the ‘serious’ subjects. I expect he’s changed his curriculum—the party won’t ‘talk’ to him a second time.”

“You went in a laundress,” I said. “He saw your clothes and your red hands and dismissed you like a scullery maid in a great house. Then you opened your mouth and he saw you were no mere washerwoman. You spoke with eloquence and poise he hadn’t expected, and you demanded my education. You were a dragon. If I learned anything about tenacity, it was from you.”

Mama wrapped my hair in a towel and motioned for me to sit up. She wrapped her arms around me and kissed my cheeks. With her arms encircling me, I didn’t think of all the embraces I’d missed as a child, but of how grateful I was for this one.