Daughters of the Night Sky

Oksana rounded on her. “Do you think you’ll get an afternoon off if we lose a crew in battle?” There was no countering this logic. “If Eva is shot out from behind you on a sortie, you will come back to base, land your plane, and be given another navigator before you miss a spot on the rotation. You’d all better get used to flying with heavy hearts.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence,” Eva shot from her bunk, her wry tone cutting the ice in the air. Even Oksana chuckled.

The silence settled over our heads once more, but this time it was Oksana who broke it.

“They’re lucky,” she breathed quietly.

“How dare you?” Darya spat, casting her stockings aside. I saw the flash of temper in her eyes and let my blanket fall to my sides. The last thing we needed on top of two fallen sisters was two more in the brig for fighting. “We all know you have no feeling heart in you, but how can you say such a thing about our own sisters in arms?”

“You’re from the east, aren’t you, Darya?” Oksana asked, the usual rancor missing from her voice.

“What does that have to do with anything?” she replied, shaking her head.

“You didn’t see the massacres in Kiev. The Germans slaughtered men, women, and children by the hundreds. Anyone with the least trace of Jewish blood. Anyone who got in their way. When they died, there wasn’t a roomful of women sitting about mourning their loss. There was no one to remember them. Lada and Irina at least have us.”

Oksana’s blue eyes shone with a haunted light I hadn’t noticed before.

“I would hardly call them lucky all the same,” I said, and cast a glance over to Darya—a warning for her not to press further.

Sofia padded into the barracks, her expression stony as she scanned our faces, several of them tear stained.

“To the mess hall, ladies. Katya, bring your violin.” I raised my brows at the order but voiced no surprise.

Sofia took her place at the tinny piano that usually sat ignored in the corner of the hall and lifted her voice, clear and true, to the exposed metal beams in the ceiling. I removed my violin from its case and followed along with the familiar folk tune. A few of the women chimed in; some had sweet, lilting voices, others richer altos. Though none of us would find careers on the great stages of Moscow, Paris, or New York, we were worth listening to.

Sofia chose familiar tunes, none too gay nor too morose. She wasn’t of the traditional Russian stock, who liked to bathe in her grief like one might luxuriate in perfumed bathwater, and I felt grateful for it. Darya hung to the back of the group and did not sing, arms crossed over her chest. Perhaps she thought the attempt to liven our spirits was disloyal, but I remembered Lada and Irina too well to believe they would think so. Irina had been quick to laugh, and Lada had a biting wit. Neither would have wanted us to stew in our sadness.

They were also soldiers in the Red Army, and staunchly pragmatic women. They knew we would have to press on.

While we sang, the cook had brewed a huge pot of tea and put together sandwiches and little spice cakes as fine as we’d seen before the war broke out.

“We’ll be light on flour rations for a few days, but I thought we needed an extravagance,” Sofia declared.

We appreciated the bounty, though none of us ate with much enthusiasm.

“Irina loved to bake,” Darya reminisced as she took a bite of her dessert.

“And Lada was fond of eating,” Sofia remembered, “though she said she was no great hand in the kitchen.” We shared the few memories we had of these women who had been in our lives for such a short while. They were sweet girls, and it seemed fitting to take an hour to honor their memory. I stood to the back of the crowd, not wanting them to see the tears that threatened at the corners of my eyes. We would never have the chance to honor our fallen sisters in such a fashion again. Oksana was right. To know that my own death could be passed over with nothing more than a letter to my mother and Vanya—perhaps months after the fact—chilled me worse than flying into the miserable deluge.

I didn’t allow myself to brood in my tea. I plastered a smile on my lips and pretended to enjoy the gathering. I used my violin like a shield and hid behind it until Sofia sent us to our bunks.

“Thank you,” Sofia said as we retired. She patted the case of Papa’s violin as we walked. “We needed music tonight.”

“My papa always said that music is a balm for a weary soul. He said the same of food, so I think you did as much for us as you could.”

“Thank you for saying so, Katya. I confess sometimes I worry that when things really matter most, I won’t have the answer for you ladies.”

“Your doubt makes you human, Sofia,” I said. “And it’s your humanity that we respond to.”

Sofia turned and embraced me, so quickly I might have thought I imagined it had it not been for the warmth her arms had left behind.

CHAPTER 12

May 23, 1942