Daughters of the Night Sky(89)
I darted to my room, where I found Papa’s violin. I grasped the handle and walked through the parlor without looking back at Mama and Grigory.
“Katya?” Mama called. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I’m going out again, Mama. Please don’t hold supper. I’m still full.”
“Be home before too late, dear,” she called after me. “It isn’t safe, even now.” I wanted to rebuke her but remembered I had neither my service pistol nor my band of sisters in arms at my side.
I found myself on the warm stone steps of the university, which appeared to be slowly coming back to life, though many of its scholars were forever lost in the war. I fussed with the violin case for a moment but then set the instrument beside me, still ensconced in the love-worn leather case.
I could not make my father’s music anymore.
I watched the bustle on the streets thin as the light grew weaker, but could not rise to return to the relative safety of the apartment. When I had seen Mama and Grigory together that afternoon, I saw the contentment and tranquility they shared. I was casting a shadow on the sunshine of their newly wedded bliss. They deserved their happiness unmarred by my bereavement.
The prospect of retreating to Miass, living in Babushka’s cabin, was enough to cause me to shake, despite the July sun.
Could I live as a bird in a gilded cage in Korkino, doted on by Vanya’s family? It wasn’t the life he’d wanted for himself, nor could I imagine myself spending my days with such a constant reminder of what I had lost.
I had to find a way out. Today I had ventured as far as the bakery. Tomorrow I had to venture far enough to find a life.
CHAPTER 27
August 20, 1945
The celebration shook Moscow with a jolt nearly the equal of the bombs that had cascaded down on her four years earlier. Ten Polikarpovs—one piloted by Polina and navigated by Renata—flew overhead, overshadowed by the massive bombers and sleek fighters. I’d been asked, as the commanding officer of the regiment, to lead the honor guard, but ceded my place so that Renata and Polina could go up together. Polina never got her chance to pilot her own plane during the war, and though she never complained, I knew she was happy for the chance to take command.
There had been victory parades before now, but more soldiers and pilots were home to be recognized for their service. There wasn’t the pomp of the rain-sodden parade several weeks prior, where our soldiers tossed fallen German standards at Comrade Stalin’s feet. This was a true celebration of the people and the soldiers who had defended them.
Mama and Grigory joined me in Red Square to take part in the revelry. Both seemed happy to see me out among the living. I was spending less and less time in the apartment, and I let them think it was because I was faring well enough to be out among people. The truth is that I spent most of my time trying to find some escape. I’d taken the initiative to inquire about a university course. I’d spent hours in libraries, even in the neighborhood church, to see if I might find some comfort in Renata’s faith. I’d rather have been nearly anywhere else than the pulsing square that crackled with the energy of a people too long denied a reason to celebrate, but I knew Mama, and especially Grigory, were anxious to join in the excitement.
Even after darkness fell, the lights strobed over the square so brightly it might have been day. I trembled, trying not to think of the German searchlights that had so often spelled our doom.
Do not cower. They’re fireworks. Amusement fit for children. Do not cower.
“You look pale, Katinka.” Concern was etched upon Mama’s brow. “Do we need to go home?”
I shook my head and forced my attention to the podium, where party leaders shouted and congratulated themselves on the victory, as though it had been done at their hands alone. As though millions of soldiers hadn’t paid their pound of flesh to defeat the German army.
“You need only say the word, my dear, and we can find our way out of this mob.” Grigory smiled at me over my mother’s head. He was a soldier, too, and knew something of what I was experiencing.
“I’ll be fine,” I assured them, taking Mama’s free hand in my own. Grigory had long since claimed the other.
The red, gold, and green flashes of light scarred the night sky. Today we celebrated our victory with the naive certainty that such horror would never be seen again. We’d thought the same thing a generation before when we closed the chapter on the last atrocity that had ripped the world apart. The war in the Pacific was boiling to its conclusion. The Americans had destroyed two Japanese cities to end it, and I remembered Oksana’s similar justification for her tactics: the longer the war dragged on, the longer the innocent would suffer.
We were disbanded officially in October. My commanding officer gathered us all in a great assembly room in the Kremlin to present us with the medals we had earned since the last time they had been able to attend to such matters. A gold star dangling from a red ribbon was attached to my jacket. Hero of the Soviet Union. There were twenty-four of us granted this highest honor. It was conferred upon both Oksana and Taisiya posthumously, and I accepted on their behalf as the commanding officer and their navigator. I would take Taisiya’s medals back to her family, perhaps taking the time to honor my promise and see Vanya’s parents, and to see Chelyabinsk and the academy one more time. I couldn’t imagine there being many more occasions to travel that far east again.