Daughters of the Night Sky(88)
I remembered Babushka Olga with fondness, but her death had barely registered with me after the loss of Papa. I’m sure it was the same for Mama, and I imagine there was some guilt in her heart some years later over not grieving as deeply for her mother as she should have done.
“I am also going to do something for you that my mama did for me.”
The image of the little cabin in Miass flashed before my eyes, and I felt my breath catch. I could not spend the rest of my life so far from the rest of the world. “Mama, I can’t go back there. Not Miass.”
“No, darling. I am not kicking you out of your home. And make no mistake, this is your home. I am, however, going to insist that you get up, bathe, get dressed, and fetch some bread from the bakery for supper.”
It was a simple request, but it seemed Herculean in scope. “Mama, maybe tomorrow?” The thought of dressing, let alone leaving the apartment, seemed more daunting than flying another mission over Germany.
“No, my darling, today. You need to move. Get some air.” Mama gripped my hand and fixed my eyes with hers.
“That won’t fix anything.” I buried my face in my hands for a moment, rubbing my eyes in defeat.
“No, but it’s a start. You must trust your old mama, Katya. I never wanted you to walk in these shoes, but I have worn them for over a decade. I will help where I can, but you have to make the first steps on your own.”
The realization that Mama had endured this same pain, and that I could only now understand it, shook me. I wondered now how she had been able to go on with her life as she had done. To give me a normal, if cheerless, childhood. I had met some brave women during the course of the war, but I now felt awed by my own mother’s strength.
“How did you manage to do this, Mama? How did you move on?”
“I’m not sure I ever moved on, Katinka. Not really. But I learned to carry my grief for your papa like the medals on your chest. Proof I had loved and been loved. I had no choice but to find a way to carry on. For you, my sweet girl.”
I did as Mama commanded. I rose from my bed and scrubbed away a week’s worth of grime and sleep. I washed the grit from my hair and let the warm water trickle down my face, where tears refused to flow.
When I returned from the washroom, I found my bed already made up with clean sheets, and a light dress of dark charcoal gray, appropriate for both the summer heat and a widow in mourning, draped like a shroud over the blue-and-white field of snowdrops.
Mama knew I couldn’t face the world in a pink frock. She knew exactly what I needed and now had the means to provide for me the way she’d longed to.
I was a woman grown. A widow. I should be beyond my mother’s care. I shook my head, remembering the strength she’d shown after Papa’s death. I shouldn’t be troubling my mother, as needy for her attentions as an infant.
And I would never have the words to tell her how grateful I was for her.
I found the little handbag I used before the war, and placed a few bills and coins inside. Grigory smiled broadly from the kitchen table as he saw me emerge from my bedroom fully dressed and looking equal to facing the world. I let the corners of my lips turn upward. I let him think this was more than a farce I was putting on for my mother’s sake. And his.
I descended into the world below. The July sun only made the ice in my veins pulse a few degrees colder. The crowd looked both weary and jubilant, as one would expect of a people worn down by war. Many of the shops were empty, a few buildings still in shambles from raids and stray bombs, yet there was a buzz of excitement in the air that I never remembered of the Moscow of my youth. I was happy for my people. I had fought for this very thing.
It took nearly a half hour to find an open bakery, and the first one I found was the very shop where I had purchased my illicit matryoshka pryanik as a girl. The shopkeeper handed over the loaf of bread for our evening meal with a smile. There were no matryoshka cookies in the case that day. In honor of our victory, the cookies were all shaped like stars, helmets, and tanks. In the corner was a pile of the spiced cookies shaped like tiny airplanes.
“A dozen, please,” I said, pointing to the case. So many promises I had made since the start of the war, but this was one I would be able to keep.
I did not eat my fill of the still-warm cakes I had sworn to eat in the depth of my hunger at the front. The spices smelled alluring, but even they could not awaken my appetite. Instead I wandered. It was less than a block before I came upon my first hungry child. The little boy’s features were coated in a layer of dirt. His teeth seemed shockingly white as he smiled at the gift. Three more children emerged when they saw his prize. Within moments the cookies were consumed, and at least there would be four children not sleeping on empty stomachs that night.
I couldn’t help Klaus or Veronika. I couldn’t help the children Oksana tried to protect. But I had done something small for these children.
I returned to Mama and Grigory’s apartment to give Mama the bread. She would begin cooking soon, and I would offer to help. I entered noiselessly into the apartment, the door and latch too new to have a telltale creak. I was greeted with the sight of my mother and Grigory sitting companionably on the sofa. She was mending a pair of his uniform trousers while he read the newspaper. He leaned over to kiss her temple as he turned the beige-and-black pages. I took a step back, as though I had witnessed them in the deepest throes of lovemaking. I turned my head and placed the loaf on the kitchen table.