Daughters of the Night Sky

“Your husband is quite the artist,” Oksana observed, peering over my shoulder.

I cleared my throat, grateful that her intrusion had interrupted the torrent of tears that would have erupted. “Yes,” I said once I’d collected myself. “A fine one.”

“He managed to capture the shade of your hair. That’s quite a feat. It really is lovely.” She took one of my tendrils between her thumb and forefinger and dropped it, as though the red locks were as hot as the flames they resembled.

“Thank you,” I said, pretending I hadn’t noticed her gesture. “I hated it as a girl and was annoyed by it when I was at the academy. I hated anything that called attention to me. I envied Taisiya her mousy hair.” The mention of Taisiya still caused my voice to crack slightly. I still started when I saw one of Oksana’s blond locks fall loose from her helmet instead of Taisiya’s mousy brown when I was in the rear cockpit.

“My friend Yana enjoyed drawing. She never had money for paints. Or lessons. She made do with pencils or charcoals and her own imagination. She hasn’t your Vanya’s skill, but I think she has talent.”

She fished a large volume from her trunk and removed a loose paper. On the front was a skillfully drawn portrait of Oksana. She was in a field of white-and-blue striped snowdrops, just as Oksana had painted around our cockpits months ago. Oksana’s face was soft, kinder than I saw it, but then Yana had the privilege of knowing Oksana before the war had claimed her to service. There were no lines of worry around her eyes, and her lips turned upward in a graceful smile.

“She does. She should go to art school after the war. I’m sure there would be a good conservatory for her in Moscow, once things settle down. I have a feeling there will be a great demand for beautiful things to help us all forget the vile ones we’ve endured.” I had created a fantasy life for myself in the past few months: Whisking Vanya away to the cabin in Miass and spending six months cooking all his favorite foods while he sat in the fields and painted. Wildflowers in summer. Leaves in autumn. Even the austere, spindly branches weighted down with snow as winter took hold. I might even allow him to paint me en déshabillé, as he’d mentioned on our wedding night. I could see every wall covered with his landscapes, masking the scarred wood with his beautiful creations. We would take months to heal, to be ensconced in one another, before setting about rebuilding our lives.

“I want to take her to Aix-en-Provence,” Oksana said in a low voice. “I have family there, and they sent my father the fare for our train tickets once as a special treat. Three weeks there and I’ve never been able to tolerate the cold like a proper northerner ever since. The light there is remarkable. Painters flock to it. It would be bliss for her.”

“That does sound lovely,” I said, studying Oksana’s face. She looked far away, wistful. She looked in my direction, but I felt her gaze glance past my face and to the barracks beyond me.

“It’s not too far from Aix to the ocean. We stayed a few days at Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer. My aunt said we couldn’t come all that way without putting our feet in the Mediterranean.” She folded a uniform shirt and placed it in her trunk, smoothing her blanket before sitting and looking at Yana’s drawing once again.

“She was right,” I said, placing the tube with Vanya’s painting in my duffel. “Mama always dreamed of the Riviera. And Italy. Spain. She always wanted to travel, at least before Papa was killed. It’s why I decided to fly. I wanted to take her to see all those places since Papa never did.”

“How sweet of you,” Oksana said. “I’ve always wanted to go back to Aix. I cried for three weeks when we left. But heaven knows there will be enough work putting the country back together once this is all over. There won’t be any time for holidays by the sea for years yet.”

It was the first time Oksana had mentioned life after the war, the first glimmer of optimism I’d ever seen from her. I hid my smile, not wanting to stifle the ray of sunshine when they were so rare. The signs of hope were springing up in more than one quarter. The army was even willing to let us carry parachutes, sacrificing a few kilos that could have been used for bombs. They expected some of us would live.

“Take her there,” I said. “When the cease-fire sounds, we will have done our part. We can leave the rebuilding up to others. Those with more energy left than us.”

Oksana shoved the drawing back in her book and placed it back in her footlocker, forcefully but carefully.

“Dreams are for later, Katya.”