by Gwen C. Katz
I know it’s no consolation, but it needn’t have been Zhigli or Lilya or anyone who turned Iskra in. It won’t make you feel better to take it out on your friends. There’s a purge going on in the Red Army. I keep hearing about it on the radio. The other operators’ voices are on edge as they report this comrade or that suddenly hauled off by MPs.
Our commissar stalks around, his sharp eyes narrowed, looking for any sign of dissent among the ranks. Rudenko and I had to stop learning liturgical music for fear that he would catch us. It’s a tense time for everyone.
But it isn’t over for Iskra. You must keep hoping for her. You talk as though Iskra has already been sent to the camps. But I believe in her. Iskra is smart and resilient. Four years ago, she was in a tight spot. Her parents were gone. She was under suspicion from the NKVD. And she lived in the biggest, most heavily policed city in the Soviet Union during a time when anyone could disappear without notice. She could have been arrested and shot. She could have ended up in a state orphanage. When she fled to your family, she could have dragged that suspicion with her and brought all of you down.
Instead she graduated school with a gold medal, earned a pilot’s license, and got a seat on the Komsomol committee. And she made it look easy. I don’t mean to downplay the seriousness of her arrest. I know how much danger she’s in. But don’t underestimate Iskra.
I’m not one to talk, though—I worry about you. You’ll say I’m silly, but I do. You’ll be in combat someday and I have no illusions about how VVS pilots fare.
Whatever happens, please, please don’t do anything stupid. Asking for Iskra’s release was a big risk, even with someone as kindhearted as Raskova. If you get arrested, you only strengthen the case against her and make her chances of release that much slimmer. Keep yourself safe. That’s the best thing you can do for her right now.
Yours,
Pasha
13 January 1942
Dear Pasha,
The navigators began flight training a few days ago. Iskra and Zhigli know how to fly, but most of the others are students with no aviation experience at all. Some of them have never been in an aircraft before. It was a little bit satisfying seeing Vera wobbly and miserable with airsickness. She is undaunted. She says that she’ll go up in that transport plane as many times as it takes for her stomach to settle down.
Major Raskova is rotating us so that every pilot gets a chance to fly with every navigator. Yesterday I did a night flight with Zhenechka. I didn’t think I would like her at first. I lost my temper and yelled at her because she misread our altitude as 9200 meters instead of 2900 meters, a mistake only a silly college student who’s never flown could make. I could just hear Iskra’s voice in my head saying, “The big hand is the hundreds. . . .”
But as the flight went on, my misplaced anger faded and Zhenechka began to grow on me. She’s a dreamer who tells fairy tales and jots down poems among her notes and is nearly impossible to dislike. She pointed at the sky and said, “Look, Valka, there’s Sirius.”
Still, it’s hard not to think of the navigators, no matter how clever they are, as “not Iskra.”
Everyone is trying to be nice to me because of what happened to Iskra. I admit I’m not taking it very well. It turns out the only thing I’m worse at than giving sympathy is receiving sympathy. Partly it’s that I hate being coddled. And partly it’s that nobody wants to be too nice. No one will say, “It isn’t fair—she did nothing wrong and everyone knows it,” because they’re all too conscious that they might be next.
The worst part is the lack of news. If I knew she’d been sent to the camps, I could come to terms with it. I could get properly angry. But for now I’m just anxious. Don’t worry, I haven’t asked about her again. I’m acutely aware that I’m on shaky ground myself. I think I may have squeaked by because I wasn’t a Party member. Nobody gets the Order of Lenin for denouncing a teenager from the Urals.
Bershanskaya, bless her heart, kept Iskra in the rotation with the other navigators, rescheduling her when her turn came as if she was having an endless string of sick days. Captain Kazarinova upbraided Bershanskaya for that and informed her that Iskra Koroleva was no longer a member of Aviation Group 122. And then that trace of my cousin, too, was gone.
Yours,
Valka
THIRTEEN
28 January 1942
Dear Valyushka,
Someone got hold of today’s Pravda. The article on the front page tied my stomach in knots. It honored the courage of a Russian partisan killed by the fascists. It was a girl, your age. There was a picture of her and she was tall, like you, and she had dark hair, like you, and it was cut short, like yours.
Being in the infantry is harrowing, but it’s playtime compared to becoming a partisan and fighting behind enemy lines. Here at the front, we have the support of artillery, aircraft, and our comrades in arms. But when partisans cross the lines to plant explosives or burn down buildings, they are alone, a small band of Russians darting in and out among the fascist forces. Is that bravery or suicide?
The higher-ups in Moscow assigned her to burn the village of Petrishchevo, where a fascist cavalry regiment was stationed, but the fascists caught her. The people in the village say she was brave. They say she didn’t tell them anything through that long night of interrogation. In the morning the fascists marched her through the village and executed her. And she was still brave. She said, “There are two hundred million of us. You can’t hang us all!”
But the things they did to her, Valyushka, I can’t get them out of my mind. I keep thinking of you in your airplane, so quick and deadly in the sky, so vulnerable on the ground. What would become of you if you were hit and had to land behind enemy lines? Do you ever think about that, about what might happen to you in the field? Are you afraid?
They say our offensive was a victory. I guess that depends on your perspective. Moscow is safe. But four whole armies, a hundred thousand men, were trapped behind enemy lines at Rzhev. They’re holding out for now, but for how long? And if any of them throws down his weapons and surrenders, he’s a traitor.
We are encamped on the shores of the Ivankovo Reservoir. It’s on the Volga. I’m glad you’re on the same river as me. If it weren’t frozen and I had a boat, I could float gently down the river, around its twists and bends, through cities and dockyards and collective farms, and eventually I would get to Engels and I’d be with you.
The snow is so thick that you can’t tell where land ends and water begins; the reservoir is a smooth patch without any trees, its shores punctuated here and there with stands of dead black reeds. Boats rest frozen in place, rows of icicles hanging from their gunwales.
The Germans are on the west bank and we’re on the east. We took a few potshots at each other before getting bored and running low on ammunition. We can hear them sometimes, their voices brown and gunmetal gray. It’s dangerously cold. The Germans are suffering in their thin coats, posting shorter and shorter watches to keep from freezing at their posts.
We’re not much better off. When the wind kicks up and the cold gets unbearable, I think of happier winters, like the year you returned from your trip to Moscow with a brand-new pair of ice skates and we spent every waking moment out on the canal. Your nose and cheeks were always red and you had that big smile. Those were good skates. My sister still has them.
Vakhromov and I went in search of farms to scavenge food. It’s the only way we can avoid starving. It’s touch and go. The farmers would be struggling through the harsh winter even if there weren’t a war, and then the Germans came through—twice—and stripped everything and burned most of it. At this temperature, the snow is a fine powder that doesn’t stick together. Underneath, everything is bone dry. Fields of stubble go up instantly when they’re lit during a retreat or hit by a stray rocket, ours or theirs. We have no skis, so we had to trudge through thigh-deep snow, Vakhromov carrying a sledge on his back.
We came upon what had once been a wheat field but was now a battl
efield pockmarked with icy craters. It put me in mind of one of the chants I’d learned, and so I began to sing to myself: “I was entrusted with a sinless and living land, but I sowed the ground with sin. . . .”
I trailed off awkwardly when I noticed Vakhromov looking at me. He said, “You don’t have to stop. You’re a good singer. What was that?”
I said it was something Rudenko had taught me.
Vakhromov said, “I don’t understand that guy. Whenever I ask him about his family, he clams up. Maybe he doesn’t like me.” He shifted the sledge on his shoulders.
“It’s not that,” I said, and asked if I should take a turn carrying the sledge.
“I’m fine. It isn’t heavy.”
We came across a collective farm that hadn’t been despoiled. The peasants came out and kissed us, calling us liberators for driving off those filthy Hitlerites. One of the women brewed us tea. She kept apologizing that they had no sugar or lemon. It didn’t matter to us; we’ve had nothing but water since our vodka rations ran out two weeks ago. I felt guilty taking the beets and potatoes from their root cellars. But we were full for the first time in ages.
Now we’re on sentry duty. There’s a fox sniffing around nearby, a red flame against the snow. She’s lucky. Yesterday, we would have eaten her and made her fur into gloves. But right now I feel that there’s something inviolable about her, the intent way she paces around on top of the snow, never breaking through, nose to the ground. I can hear the soft lavender crunch of her footfalls.
Have you ever seen a fox hunt in winter? She sniffs, stops, pricks up her ears, and listens. And then she leaps into the air and dives straight down through the snow, leaving her hind legs sticking up in the air. When she comes up, she has a mouse. Vakhromov thinks this is the funniest thing he’s seen in ages and he laughs every time. I think that’s unfair. She’s better at finding food than we are.
And here’s the strange part: She always jumps while facing north. I took out my compass to check. How does she know? I can’t guess. But somehow facing north helps her find her prey. I think foxes are as clever in real life as they are in stories. Anyone who can survive out here must be.
Yours,
Pasha
“Do you know that foxes can find north?” I asked whoever was awake. Vera and I were both staying up to read letters.
“Magnetoception,” said Vera. “Birds use it to navigate by dead reckoning, just like we do. Charles Darwin figured that out.”
“Do they also use Vetrochets?” I asked. I was getting annoyed at how Vera always knew more than anyone else, regardless of the topic.
“It has never been observed,” said Vera, brushing off my sarcasm. “Zhenechka!”
She waved Zhenechka over and patted for her to sit down beside her on her bed. “I have news for you.”
“What is it?” asked Zhenechka.
Vera folded her letter. “I just got a letter from a boy who was at MSPI with me. He was an absolute wreck at calculus back then. He kept begging me to help him. We spent many nights practicing antidifferentiation together. If that sounds like a euphemism, it isn’t; we really were practicing antidifferentiation. On his final exam he got top marks. He wanted to kiss me but I didn’t let him.”
“I would have taken the kiss if he was nice.” Zhenechka lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’ll tell you a secret: I’ve never been kissed by a boy.”
Vera nodded sagely. “Men are intimidated by intelligent women.”
“We can’t all be as lucky as Valka,” said Zhenechka, looking across Lilya’s sleeping form at me. I was chewing my pen cap as I worked on my reply.
“I’ve never kissed a boy, either,” I said around the cap. “Pasha and I aren’t really . . .” I trailed off, not ready to face the snarl of emotions pulsing within me, definitely not ready to explain it to my friends.
“Why not?” asked Zhenechka. “He sounds so sweet.”
I thought back to the moment on the barge, before Pasha saw combat, before I got letters filled with pain and hopelessness. We’d sat beside each other like friends. Like children. Was that why I hadn’t kissed him? Because if we stayed children, we wouldn’t have to face the reality of what was happening around us? I’d wanted to kiss him, I now realized, wanted it badly even though I wouldn’t have admitted it then. I’d let that chance slip away and I might never have another.
I shrugged, trying to pretend it didn’t matter. “I guess we didn’t have time to figure things out. He was just the kid next door, and then he was gone.”
“At least you have someone to write to,” said Zhenechka. She rested her cheek on her hand and cast me a wistful look.
“You’ll have plenty of time for boys after the war,” I promised her.
“They’re overrated,” said Vera.
I asked, “So what happened to your friend?”
“He became an army engineer. I heard from him a few months ago. He was helping construct an ice road across Lake Ladoga.”
I perked up. The ice road had been all over the news, a tiny artery pumping life into starving Leningrad. “The Road of Life!”
“The very same. He sent me a letter full of equations about the weight ice can bear.”
“How fascinating,” said Zhenechka.
“Seriously?” I said, but Zhenechka’s guileless face looked completely sincere. “Sometimes I think you navigators are a different species.”
“It’s not our fault you can’t appreciate the beauty of mathematics,” said Zhenechka loftily.
“They’re going to get supplies into Leningrad and save thousands of lives,” said Vera. “And he told me that it might never have happened if I hadn’t been sitting next to him in math class that first semester. I told him that I knew someone who had studied in Leningrad, and if he wanted to repay me, he could ask the drivers to bring news.”
Zhenechka dropped her eyes. She picked up Vera’s Vetrochet, lying on the foot of the bed next to some half-finished calculations, and fiddled with its wheel. “I don’t think I want news out of Leningrad.”
I didn’t blame her. Ever since the fascists laid siege to Leningrad, each rumor from the city had been more horrifying than the last.
Vera gave Zhenechka her serious smile and held up the letter. “You’ll want to hear this. He sent someone to visit the observatory. The towers and pavilions were ruins, just as you heard. But do you know what the professors told him?”
Zhenechka shook her head.
Vera lowered her voice as if she was confiding a secret. “Almost everything was saved. They moved it all to the basement when the bombing started. The instruments. Those irreplaceable books.”
“The refractor?” whispered Zhenechka. “The whole tower was destroyed.”
“They saved the lens. They can rebuild it when the war is over.”
“Saved” was all Zhenechka could say. Tears sparkled in her eyes.
“Everything will be waiting for you at the observatory. You can pick up your studies where you left off,” Vera told her.
“This war can’t be over soon enough. An occupied country is no place to do science.” Zhenechka gave Vera a sly sidelong look. “But I still would have taken the kiss.”
They covered their mouths with their hands and snickered. Vera said, “He wasn’t my type.”
“Vera?” said Zhenechka after a moment.
“Yeah?”
“When this is all over and you’re off in Kerch corrupting the youth, you’ll send the brightest of them our way, won’t you?”
“Naturally. But right now we should go to sleep.”
“As if I could sleep the night before we find out our assignments!” Zhenechka bounced in place. “I’ve enjoyed flying with everyone. I can’t begin to decide who I want as my pilot.”
Vera pointed a warning finger at her. “You can’t have Tatiana Makarova. She’s mine.”
Tanya Makarova slept on the opposite side of the gymnasium, but I could often hear her laugh from my side.
“Tan
ya?” said a puzzled Zhenechka. “But she’s so rude! And reckless.”
“She’s a whole different person in the air. Besides, she likes me. She said I was way better than that silly girl she flew with yesterday.”
Zhenechka gasped. “She flew with me yesterday!” She grabbed Vera’s pillow and hit her with it.
“Don’t take it out on me!” said Vera, covering her head with her arms.
I warned Vera, “You’re in for a disappointment. She’s far too good to end up in a bomber.”
“That’s what everyone says, but two-thirds of you will,” Vera pointed out.
“Who do you want as your navigator, Valka?” asked Zhenechka. Then she clapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think about what I was saying.”
A pang went through me at the reminder. Every time I thought I’d come to terms with Iskra’s arrest, something else happened to bring it freshly back to my mind. It never hurt any less. I retreated into the assurance I kept giving myself. “It’s all right. I won’t be flying with any of you. I’ll be in a fighter.” And I returned to reading Pasha’s letter.
8 February 1942
Dear Pasha,
Yes, I saw the article about the partisan girl. They’ve found out her name: Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. She has a mother and a younger brother. They waited for months before they learned her fate. I understand how they must have felt all that time, sometimes despairing, sometimes daring to hope, only to find out that it had all been futile.
But I’m not afraid of facing Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya’s fate. It’s too remote, too abstract an idea. But there is another fear. Something real and physical. Fire. Being trapped up there in the cockpit and knowing I’m going to burn. That’s what I’m afraid of.
Today was the day I’ve been counting down to since we arrived: the day we got our regimental assignments. Whenever I pictured this day over the past few months, I saw myself on top of the world, screaming with joy that I’d finally achieved my dream and become a fighter pilot. Instead I’m lying here on my cot, trying to figure out what I did wrong.
