Daughters of the Night Sky(30)
We nodded our assent, not that we had much option to do otherwise.
We assembled an hour later for our evening briefing. She offered her praise for the day’s performance and a few notes of censure and advice.
“The last act of the day, ladies, is to report to the post barber.” Fretful whispers broke what had until then been a respectful silence. The blue of Orlova’s eyes looked bright as she scanned the crowd. More than a few women patted their manes, most of which dipped well past their shoulders. Orlova’s blond locks were already cut to just below her ears in a bob, giving her a tidy appearance that Stalin himself would have applauded in one of his warriors.
We walked with all the cheer of pallbearers in a funeral procession to the building that housed the post barber. Two or three women cried openly at the sight of the team of barbers waiting grim faced for the first of us to claim the six open seats. We all hung back as though the seats were torture devices. Sofia waited with another officer in the corner, their eyes scanning the throng of nervous pilots.
This is simply the first test. The first of the sacrifices we will be asked to make.
Military discipline. This is what she’d meant. I took a step forward, inhaled deeply, and took my place with the sternest looking of the men. I freed my wavy auburn hair from its chignon and closed my eyes. I tried not to think of the stolen hours with Vanya as he ran his fingers through the long tresses. Fiery, he’d called them.
I fought to keep from cringing as I heard the slow metallic scrape of the scissor blades as the barber severed the locks from my head. I opened my eyes and focused on the women who looked at me. They dreaded having to follow my lead, but it was the price of service.
Snip. Snip. Scrape.
I could not look at the pool of red at my feet as the barber snipped, but I would not let my anguish travel from my heart to my eyes. Taisiya took the seat next to mine and released her hair from her pins with a curt order to the gangly young barber she’d selected to get on with his business. My eyes flitted over to her seat, where she kept her own grimace at bay. Well done, Taisiyushka. We’ll be ugly together.
The barber made short work of my mane, and I escaped the chair the moment he tapped my shoulder to signal that he’d finished with me. Sofia shot me a shallow smile, appreciative I’d been the first to fall in line. Once free of the barbers’ quarters, I sought out my bunk, glad at least that the sting of tears didn’t threaten.
I groaned as I heard Oksana’s footsteps echo through the otherwise empty barracks. Her hair was already cropped fairly short, but she had allowed the barber to shape her bob to a crisp angle that set off the severe lines in her high cheeks and long, shapely nose. Her hair wasn’t the lustrous golden blond that Sofia had been graced with, but a shade or two closer to silver or platinum. A bit more down to earth. I might have found her less intimidating than Sofia if every word from her lips, every movement she made, wasn’t calculated to keep the world at a distance.
“It will grow back,” she said, opening her duffel to recover a book.
“I’m not that worried about it,” I said, realizing it was true. I could have my length back in a few years. It wasn’t as though there would be anyone at the front lines with the time to worry about our haircuts. “I came in here because I just wanted some peace while the others got their cuts.”
The post was always a hive, so silence was a rare commodity. She reclined on her bunk with her novel, happy to oblige my need for quiet.
After perhaps a quarter of an hour, I summoned the courage to take my small hand mirror from my trunk to assess the barber’s handiwork. He was not deft with his scissors, but it wasn’t a ruthless hack job, either. The short cut threw every line and angle of my face into sharp relief, though my face would never have the chiseled quality that Oksana’s did. I did look harsh, though, the softness in my face all but gone.
I wondered if I could ever reclaim it again.
If we lamented our haircuts, the saving grace was that we weren’t given much time to fret. Sofia coordinated all the training, and we were in the classroom or in a plane for almost eighteen hours every day. As thorough as our training in our academies and flight schools had been, the intensity was now doubled. The women who’d been trained in little flight clubs were getting three years of military curriculum in a few months, and the rest of the trained recruits wouldn’t exactly be on holiday. I’d been selected for navigator training, which meant an extra hour of studying Morse code in the morning, before the pilots and crews woke.
Even Taisiya, as stoic and calm as she was, had become more withdrawn and had lost a few kilos.
“Eat,” I chided her at lunch one afternoon. “It may not be appetizing, but it’s worlds better than what we’ll have at the front.”
“I’m not hungry,” she muttered, poring over a text Sofia had specifically recommended to her, chewing the end of her pencil as she read. But to silence me she picked at the mashed potatoes and gray hunk of meat the mess sergeant had slopped onto the metal tray. It was just as well she wouldn’t abandon her text for the meal; the best way to eat military rations was quickly and while looking at the food as little as possible.
Lada, sitting several places down at the long table, shrieked. A tendril of her thick, blonde hair had fallen into her hand.
“For God’s sake, stop twirling it,” I snapped. “Cropped hair is bad enough—do you want to be bald?”