Daughters of the Night Sky(2)
I knew that if I had one of these machines for myself, I would never settle in one place for the rest of my days. I would hop from the pyramids of Egypt to the Amazon to the streets of New York and wherever else my fancy flew me. I looked at the pilot and tried not to let my jealousy consume me. He had earned his wings, his freedom. Someday I could earn mine, too. I would take Mama on my adventures, and she could leave the laundry behind her. She’d never do so much as rinse a blouse out in a sink ever again. She would smile again. Sing again. We would eat like queens and hire people to see to the less pleasant tasks of daily life. I would never speak that aloud in front of my teacher, Comrade Dokorov. He’d chastise me for setting a bad example of capitalist greed.
In an unprecedented gesture of generosity, Mama’s boss allowed her to come home early that day without docking her pay, owing to my presence in town. The plane must have bewitched him as it had me. The entire way home and all throughout preparations of dinner, I spoke of nothing but the pilot and his airplane. Mama listened patiently, but her cornflower eyes began to grow hazy.
“I’m sorry, Mama. I’m boring you,” I said, adding the potatoes to the stewpot.
“No, darling. I’m simply tired, as usual.” She wiped her brow with the back of her hand as she stirred.
“I’m going to learn how to fly a plane of my own someday, Mama. I’m going to get us out of here.” I looked down at the simmering stew and added a pinch of salt. It was not a hearty stew, or a very flavorful one. I wanted to do more for Mama.
“I don’t think they license many lady pilots,” she said, taking a seat at the wobbly kitchen table as we waited for the flavors of the stew to meld together as the chunks of tough meat—not more than a fistful—softened with the potatoes and vegetables. “You ought to consider becoming a schoolteacher. It’s regular work and decent pay.”
I blanched at the thought. Helping the village children learn to read and add their sums seemed as interesting as watching the paint dry on the neighbor’s barn. “I don’t want to teach, Mama. You said they don’t license ‘many’ lady pilots, Mama. Many doesn’t mean none. I can be one of the few.” I tried to summon the confidence of the visiting pilot. I placed her bowl in front of her and tore off a large chunk of the black bread I had made that morning and placed it by her spoon.
Mama looked up from the stew, the dark creases under her eyes so deep I was sure she’d never be completely rid of them if she slept twelve hours a day for the rest of her life. “You’re right, Katinka. If you want to fly, go earn your wings. Just don’t let them stop you. And make no mistake, they will try.”
I blinked in surprise, expecting Mama would continue to dissuade me. “I won’t give them the choice, Mama. I’ll be so good they won’t be able to turn me away.”
She smiled weakly at me and sighed as her eyes scanned, taking stock of our small cabin. It had belonged to my babushka Olga, and when she passed away it came to Mama. Which was fortunate for us, because we had no means to stay on in Moscow, which I think broke Mama’s heart almost as badly as losing Papa. Mama had told me Miass had been a nice enough place to grow up, but that she had yearned for life in the city when she was a girl. She studied dance and became skilled enough to garner the attention of the right people.
She earned her ticket to the capital when she was eighteen and then danced on the great stages of Moscow until Papa, a well-respected professor of history, coaxed her down from the limelight and into domestic life. They had lived happily together for nine years before Papa was taken by a stray bullet during one of the little uprisings against the new regime. Papa, who had done nothing to anger either side, was simply collateral damage to them. A tragic but ultimately inevitable loss in troubled times.
If Mama missed dancing, she’d never once said. The city? Yes. Papa? Like she would miss one of her lungs. Dancing, though, she rarely mentioned.
“You’ll have to work twice as hard as the boys, Katinka,” she mused as I ladled stew from the steaming pot into her bowl. She lifted her spoon and blew gently on the steaming broth. “And avoid distractions, no matter how pleasant they might be.”
I nodded solemnly, knowing that she spoke from her own experience. She had danced for five years, which was a long run according to Mama. The girls got distracted by boys, city life, or other mischief. And they were in a career deemed suitable for women. I would not have that advantage.
“If this is what you want, you will need excellent marks. Especially in science and mathematics.” Mama’s tired eyes appeared to look past me and out the window over my left shoulder as she tore the black bread into tiny morsels and popped them into her mouth.
“I don’t think Comrade Dokorov much cares for teaching the girls,” I said quietly into my bowl. “Especially ‘serious’ subjects like mathematics and philosophy.”
“And I don’t give one whit about what he ‘cares for.’ He’s paid the same to teach you as he is the boys.” Mama’s eyes flashed from cornflower to cobalt, as they tended to do when she was truly angry. It was beautiful to see when her fury wasn’t directed at me. “The party wants to see you educated. But we’ll see how serious you are in time, Katinka. There are many years yet.”
Mama, I was sure, had no particular affection for Stalin, speaking of him with more reluctance and fear than admiration, but she found no fault with his stance on women’s rights. More than once, she predicted he would declare us equal citizens to men. “Then you will see change, Katinka. Then things will start to set themselves right.”