Daughters of the Night Sky(47)
When Polina gave us the all clear, we took our place in the rotation. It would be our fourth sortie of the night, and we hoped for seven. Oksana insisted that we make scrupulous records of every single sortie. The reporters were watching. The Kremlin was watching. Most importantly the men were watching. We had to show them what dedication looked like.
We slept on wooden folding beds in an abandoned school. There was little privacy, no decent shower facilities, and as we had to sleep during the day, no real quiet. We couldn’t expect the villagers around us to stop going on with their lives because we needed sleep.
Oksana still kept to herself, but her dour expression had softened somewhat. Either that, or it had simply become the neutral expression we all wore and was therefore just less noticeable. We bunked in our four-woman teams, and Oksana’s crew had claimed the four bunks next to ours, which might have given us the chance to become better acquainted if Oksana had been more open to conversation.
Oksana pinned her hair up to curl like the rest of us but was less skilled, perhaps not having the practice the rest of us did.
“Would you like some help?” I asked one morning. The dawn was still weak, and we all rushed to fall asleep before the sun shone in earnest.
“I suppose,” she said, tossing the comb at me with a fatigued sigh. “I don’t usually fuss about this sort of thing, but it seems smart to follow your lead in this.” She gave me a martyred look, but I smiled upon seeing it was mostly insincere.
“It’s good for the spirit,” I said, taking the comb in my hand and smoothing her thick locks of fine, silver-blond hair. I took a section of hair, just long enough to reach her collar, between my thumb and forefinger, and twisted it up with a pin and affixed it to the top of her head. Her tresses were soft, and I found the monotony of the task soothing.
“You’re right,” she answered as I worked. “They like to look like women, even if we do a man’s job.”
“It reminds us of who we were,” I said, painfully aware of the past tense. Would we be those young girls again—perhaps not carefree and giddy, but at least living our lives in relative calm and safety? The unasked question hung in the air like Polina’s overly sweet perfume that she’d refused to leave behind, and of which she seemed to have an inexhaustible supply.
“Maybe,” she said noncommittally. “My best friend, Yana, was far more fond of curls, dresses, and shoes than I. I was the tomboy. I let her dress me and do my hair when there was an occasion, but I spent most of my time in boy’s trousers and plain shirts with my hair pulled back with a leather string. It horrified my mother and amused my father.”
I chuckled at the admission but didn’t want to draw too much attention to myself. It was the first time I’d heard her say more than one sentence that had nothing to do with aircraft, orders, or a mission.
“I’m sure Yana enjoyed it,” I said after a moment. “No doubt she’ll want to dress you like a girl for months after all this time in uniform.”
“There will be more important things to do after the war,” she said, her voice mirroring her cold tone. “Rebuilding our country, for one.”
I thought of the burning fields of wheat. Who knew what damage was done to the soil by the fires, the shrapnel, the land mines? The land might not grow proper crops for years. This was to say nothing of the decimated roads and bombed-out buildings. Even with manpower and supplies in abundance, rebuilding Russia would be the task of generations, and the war showed no signs of slowing.
“But it will be a country free from tyranny,” I said, thinking of the rumors of Hitler’s cruelty. “Better to rebuild than to have left the motherland intact and hand it over to the likes of Hitler.”
“Do you think Stalin is so very different?” Oksana asked quietly.
“How can you ask such a thing?” I whispered.
“Very easily. He claims to be a man of the people but has no problem sending hordes of his people to die for him. That’s not the act of a benevolent leader.”
I scanned the room for listening ears and hoped the gentle snores I heard on the nearest bunks were genuine. I pinned the last curl atop her head. She turned to look at me.
“Then why do you fight in his army?” I couldn’t help but ask. “You’re no draftee.”
“Just because I fight against Hitler does not mean I fight for Stalin. I fly to protect my people and my country. I fly for Russia as she could be, if given the chance.”
In her gray-blue eyes there was a wisdom born of suffering. I didn’t know what she’d seen in her twenty-three years, nor could I bring myself to ask.
“I think we all do, Oksana. We fly for the promise of better times.”
“Of course,” she said in a tone that indicated the conversation had come to its conclusion.
Part of me longed to press her, to learn more about Yana and her past, but I knew her well enough to know I’d only succeed in brokering more silence, or worse, resentment. So I went on about my daily ritual of lying in my bed, closing my eyes against the sun, and willing each muscle to relax. I started from bottom to top, focusing on each minuscule part of me. Toes, go to sleep. Feet, you’re next. Legs, hips, waist, and so on. I didn’t achieve real sleep, but I found the profound state of relaxation was better than tossing in bed counting sheep for hours on end.