Daughters of the Night Sky

“I’m grateful for it,” I said, stroking the stubble of his chin. “It was even worth this to have you close.” I pointed to my side with a wink.

“What a world where a wife must take a side full of shrapnel to spend a few measly days with her husband in a crumbling hospital.” Vanya shook his head, looking out over the grounds instead of at me.

“It’s the world we’ve got. Don’t disparage it.” I gestured to the white bricks and once-stately staircase into the main entrance. “And how dare you call our honeymoon castle a ‘crumbling hospital’? It’s sheer ingratitude.”

Vanya chuckled and wrapped his arm around me as we enjoyed our few hours in the early-August sun.

When it was time for dinner, the cooks begrudgingly served a ration to Vanya, though he was clearly well enough to be at the front. As we sat at the long tables, Vanya made conversation with a young lieutenant who had a badly broken leg but who bore his injury with remarkable cheer. As long as his leg was in plaster, he was safely ensconced here with palatable food and kilometers away from artillery fire.

The post came around as we ate. A courier—a young soldier with a missing foot who hobbled admirably on his crutch and took visible pride in his proficiency—placed a telegraph beside my plate. While Vanya was deep in conversation on the Russian progress westward, I opened the folded missive:

Hoping for your quick recovery and return to your post. Your position as my deputy commander awaits you.

~Major O. Tymoshenko

Oksana had assumed her position and was already going about the business of making the regiment her own. Sofia had groomed her for the job for over a year, and I was confident, from a tactical standpoint, she was the best choice to lead the women into battle. Whether she could bolster their morale in hard times, whether she could light a fire in their souls in the gloom of winter, was less certain in my mind.

I glanced over at my husband, who cast a sideways smile and squeezed my knee as he continued his chatter about Crimea and Poland. The telegraph shook in my hands, the waxy paper rattling, all but screaming its contents to the bustling room. I shoved it hastily in my pocket to silence it. I took Vanya’s hand for one second and brushed my lips against the warm skin of the back of his hand.

To wake up in Vanya’s arms seemed a luxury that ought to be denied in the midst of a terrible war. My sisters in arms sweltered in their tents and fought clouds of mosquitos, aching for a few precious moments of rest. His perfume, an earnest musk he could never quite scrub off that was tinged with the motor oil of his aircraft, seemed too decadent for a world torn in two.

Lie still and enjoy your husband. Lie still.

The mantra repeated over and over in my head, but the urge to get up and find an occupation of some kind gnawed at me. Oksana’s telegram was tucked in my notebook in the nightstand drawer and seemed to taunt me, resentful of being hidden away.

She needs you. They need you. Don’t run away, coward.

“You’re not resting,” Vanya mumbled as he entered consciousness.

“Sorry, my love,” I whispered. “It’s not exactly my strong suit anymore.”

“I know.” He heaved a short, weary sigh. “It’s not mine, either.”

I sat up, vertebra by vertebra, respecting my tender side. Our little stroll was enough to show me how much healing was left to do.

“Tell me about after the war,” he whispered, still lying prone and rubbing my back.

I hung my head. Guilt and fear tangled in my gut like serpents in a pit. I took in a breath, hoping to quell the slithering. “We’ll find a little house south of Chelyabinsk. Maybe not too far from your parents in Korkino?”

“You would want that? After everything?”

“They gave me you. I want to give them a chance to know me.”

“You’re a gracious soul, dear wife. Kinder than I am.”

“If I lose my kindness, I’ve lost the war, no matter what the outcome is.”

Vanya traced designs on my back with the tips of his fingers, causing the hairs to rise on my flesh. “Tell me more, my love.”

“Maybe Mama can move into town. We can have a family dinner once a week. I’ll teach young, arrogant pilots some humility while you cover the world in beauty. No children for a couple of years. Just us for a time.”

“I thought you might want to live in Moscow. To be in the bustle of the city,” he mused as his fingers danced on my skin.

“I might have once, but Moscow will need to be rebuilt. The whole western part of the country. I’ll do my part to save Russia from the Germans, but others will have to put her back together.”

“More than fair.” He slid down and kissed the flesh on my back, just before the swell of my buttocks, then returned to his fingertip-dancing.