Daughters of the Night Sky(85)
Mama and Grigory had relocated to Moscow from Chelyabinsk as the war began to turn in our favor. Grigory had been able to oversee the supplies sent to the western cities that had been leveled during the war instead of spending his time managing the construction of tanks. It was good to think of Mama in a city that was slowly coming back to life, and not alone in her little cabin near the village that would always be sleepy.
Their apartment was the size of a shoebox, but comfortable, given that every essential of survival was scarce as the nation sought to heal its wounds. Even before I’d taken in my surroundings, the smell of tea and freshly baked spice cake assaulted my nostrils and awakened in me a hunger I hadn’t known was there. There was good furniture, if a bit careworn, and because of Grigory’s position, they did not have to share the minuscule spare bedroom with another family. The windows were open to allow the July breeze to flow through the living room.
I took a step back as I realized my own mother-in-law, Natalia Soloneva, sat on my mother’s sofa. Grigory excused himself to the kitchen, as did Mama once she’d placed two cups of tea on the small parlor table. Mother Soloneva patted the cushion next to her, and I took my seat next to her. I felt myself shake, knowing she would not have come all this way merely to take tea with me. She had news of Vanya. I tried to sip Mama’s good tea, but my shaking hands made the task impossible.
A delay. Some sort of bureaucratic hassle. Anything but the worst.
“I’m so glad you’ve returned safely, my dear,” she said, her tone flat as she stared past the cups of tea toward some nonexistent fascination on the parlor rug.
“Thank you, Mother Soloneva. And I’m glad to see you’re well. I hope Father Solonev is just the same.”
“He’s as well as one can expect in such hard times.”
I nodded in agreement. “Do you have word when Vanya will be released from the front? I wasn’t able to find his regiment near Berlin.”
“His regiment didn’t get quite that far. They ended service farther east.”
“Ah,” I said, comprehending. “Then I am surprised he didn’t make it home before I did. Is he on some sort of patrol assignment?”
“Darling.” Her thin resolve cracked, and she dissolved into a pool of tears. “He . . . he was killed in the final push for Seelow Heights.”
Air expelled from me in a torrent as I tried to make sense of her words. My brain seemed unwilling to process why this woman was breaking down before me. All I was able to do was hold out my arms to her and allow her grief to escape into great pools on my uniform jacket. I embraced her, still trying to understand that Vanya would never again do this for me. No more midnight embraces. No stolen kisses between practical lessons. No more tender words. Had we escaped, we might be already planning our return home.
“We received word just a few weeks ago,” Natalia explained. “We didn’t know if it would get to you before you came home. We expected it would be easier for you to hear in person, so we didn’t try to get word to you.”
Easier. The word thudded around in my brain, but no meaning registered.
He had survived so much of the war, only to be taken in the last weeks.
I had survived, only to be abandoned.
Mama served a dinner unlike anything I’d seen since before the war. Roasted-chicken stew with roasted potatoes and a sturdy, dry white wine to pair with it. Restorative, nourishing. A meal a mother would prepare for a child in need of feeding, but nothing to suggest a celebration. It was a meal prepared with grief in mind. I moved to the table with everyone else. They’d had weeks to process their grief, and mine was not yet real. From the outside we might have appeared like a normal family.
“Where is the vodka, Mama?” I asked, taking a small glass from the cupboard.
“I hope you haven’t developed that habit, Katinka,” Mama said.
“It’s not for me,” I said. Grigory, taking my meaning, fetched a good bottle from his small stash, presenting it to me without ceremony. I poured a small measure into the glass and handed the bottle back to Grigory, then placed the glass by my side at the small table and set a slice of bread on top. The portion for the dead.
Vanya’s mother swallowed hard at the gesture and caressed my elbow. “My dear girl, I know we didn’t get off to the best of starts. My husband is of the old sort, you understand. He had great plans for Vanya, and he didn’t understand that as a father he must put his vision aside and let Vanya make his own life. Antonin loved him very much, though he wasn’t much at showing it.” Natalia looked as out of place at my mother’s kitchen table as a crystal vase in a trench. She held my hand, her body turned completely in my direction.
“I’m not the sort of girl he would have chosen for his son. I understand.”
“He knows Vanya loved you—loves you, I like to think. Antonin has said as much. He’s embarrassed for the way he acted when we met.”
“Why did Comrade Solonev not come with you?” Grigory asked. “It’s not a good time for women to travel alone.”
I stifled a growl at my new stepfather’s assertion that a woman needed caring for. It was merely gallantry, I reminded myself. I would have to adjust to the notion again. What was more, Natalia was the kind of woman who was very much used to male protection.
“He would not want me to say this,” Natalia replied, “but he is far too heartbroken by his grief to be seen. I trust you won’t speak of such things outside the family, but he blames himself for Vanya enlisting.”