by Gwen C. Katz
You can imagine my feelings when I heard the word “Rzhev.” I could barely sit still for our briefing. I’m coming to you, Pasha, after all this time! We’ll be together again! It’s not likely that you’ll actually spot me and even less likely that I’ll see you, but if you hear an overgrown sewing machine overhead, look up. If there’s an 18 on the tail, it’s me!
But not all the news that greeted me was so rosy.
Khomyakova, one of the pyaterka pilots from the 586th, was killed in a crash. She wasn’t in combat. A few days before, she’d shot down a bomber, the regiment’s first kill and a real point of honor for our women’s regiments. She’d been in Moscow receiving a decoration. When she got off the train that night, tired from traveling, Major Kazarinova let her take a nap in the dugout while her mechanic warmed up her plane. But then Khomyakova got scrambled—ordered to take off immediately—and she ran to the plane, still half asleep, took off, and crashed straight into a hangar.
Her death was ruled a combat casualty, so there won’t be an investigation. Meanwhile, Major Kazarinova has been removed from command, officially because of failing health. That war wound, you know. Iskra, would you believe it, stubbornly maintains that it’s a coincidence.
You might think that, with everything going on in the women’s regiments, I wouldn’t have time to worry about anything else, but I keep thinking of you and Petya. You’re right—attracting attention isn’t a good thing. Khomyakova found that out, not that the knowledge will do her any good. I don’t know what that starshina of yours is planning, but the fascists won’t hand her those photos tied with a bow.
Yours,
Valka
TWENTY-EIGHT
THE LAST OF MY STITCHES WERE OUT. I’D BEEN DECLARED fully recovered. I locked myself in the bathroom and took off my clothes so that I could get a good look at myself, or as good a look as I could in the rusty, pitted steel mirror.
It wasn’t pretty.
My left side was covered with a wide swath of mottled red, broken up by irregularly placed skin grafts I only hazily remembered getting. Those scars would be with me for life. At least they were covered by my uniform. I couldn’t bear to let anyone see me like this. A few months ago Pasha had gushed about my beauty. He was in for a rude surprise if I ever saw him again.
I could imagine Iskra saying, “That’s my vain baby cousin,” but it wasn’t vanity. This war had put its mark on me. I’d never be able to put it behind me when it was over, not now that the reminder was physically stamped on my body.
When I emerged from the bathroom, the other girls were still discussing Khomyakova’s death. The conversation had been going in circles for an hour.
“It’s a weird story all over,” said Tanya as she pulled her long-sleeved undershirt over her head. Our flight shared one sanitarium ward, a cheerful room with yellow wallpaper, a row of neat iron bedsteads, and a view of the sea. “Why put her on night duty when she’d been traveling all day? Why let her rest if she was going to be scrambled?”
“You can’t fly while you’re asleep,” said Zhigli’s young navigator.
Iskra and I exchanged glances. She said, “My pilot certainly doesn’t.”
“Absolutely not,” I concurred, putting on my most innocent face.
“It does cast serious doubts on Kazarinova’s judgment,” said Vera. “A disciplinarian who gets results is one thing. But a disciplinarian who lets her own pilots die in preventable accidents is unacceptable.”
“Accidents?” said Zhigli.
Everyone paused in their various states of dress and stared at her.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Iskra sharply.
Zhigli said, “The pyaterka wanted Kazarinova removed from command. Kazarinova has probably been harboring a grudge against them. An insubordinate pilot becomes the hero of the regiment and then turns up dead in a fluke accident a few days later?”
“You can’t just throw around a claim like that,” said Vera.
“It’s not beyond Kazarinova,” I said. “Nothing is.”
Zhigli sat on the edge of her bed and tied her portyanki, which had daisies embroidered on them. She said, “Everything makes perfect sense when you look at it in that light. Which pilots opposed Kazarinova’s appointment?”
I thought back. “The pyaterka and Lilya.”
“Right. So isn’t it suspicious that half of that group got transferred to an underequipped regiment flying the wrong planes in the hottest part of the front? And one of the two who stayed at the 586th ended up dead? Kazarinova only has one name left on her list.”
One of the rods used to clean the guns rested on top of the cast-iron stove. Iskra took it and delicately began curling the ends of her hair. She said, “Zhigli. These ideas you’re entertaining are horrendous.”
“What happened is horrendous!” I snapped.
Iskra pointed the hot metal rod at me and then at Zhigli. “Kazarinova made a mistake, plain and simple. These wild speculations are . . . they’re borderline treasonous, is what they are.”
“You wouldn’t say all this if our commissar were here,” agreed Vera.
“Not to mention they’re completely bizarre,” continued Iskra. She returned her makeshift curling iron to the stove and slipped on her flight helmet, taking care not to disturb her hair. “Now, are we going to stand around making up conspiracy theories or are we going to fly some slugs?”
She headed out of the room without waiting for a reply. I followed, fastening my own well-worn leather flight helmet under my chin and putting on my goggles. I told my cousin, “I can’t believe you’re defending Kazarinova. She arrested you. She had you thrown in prison.”
Iskra paused, holding open the front door. “You may have noticed she didn’t murder me.”
Remembering what had happened last time we argued and what we were headed into, I pulled her into a protective squeeze. “No. And I’m glad she didn’t.”
15 November 1942
Dear Valyushka,
To think that you’re coming here—and you’ll be wearing that beautiful red star! How can you think you’re ugly, Valyushka, when you have that? You are a hero and that makes you beautiful, no matter what your body looks like.
Thanks to Operation Mars, I could see you very soon. It isn’t likely, but it’s something I can hope for. And I desperately need something to hope for.
We’re not supposed to talk about the offensive on the radio for security reasons, but everyone is. This is the important one, they’re saying, the final assault. The one that will wipe out the Rzhev salient once and for all. I’ll have to hope they’re right, because I’ll be in the middle of it.
The intelligence report finally came through. Pashkevich swore when he saw it. They’ve found the German cavalry regiment, the one that was in Petrishchevo. They’re in the salient.
Stepanova considered the report stoically. She said, “It should be manageable. We’ll accompany the offensive. The bombers and Katyushas should do most of the work for us. We’ll have to hope that our man is alive when we get there. I have . . . questions for him.”
I tried to hide my feelings as I asked, “We’re going in during the offensive? Under the Katyushas?”
“Yes, Danilin, under the Katyushas,” she said, like I was an idiot. My skin prickled, and not just because of the winter air.
Stepanova has been with us for a month now, yet she has made no attempt to get acquainted with us. I don’t even know her first name. She sits by herself during meals. It seemed wrong to me to face death alongside a total stranger. So I sought her out.
She sat on a crumbled remnant of wall, paring her nails with her combat knife. I sat beside her, half expecting her to order me away, but she didn’t. I nodded at the submachine gun leaning against the wall. “That’s a beautiful gun. Sure beats our old Mosin-Nagants.”
“If you’re about to suggest a trade, forget it,” she said without looking up.
I gave a short laugh. A better weapon would be wasted on m
e. I said, “No, it’s just that we don’t see many PPSh-41s in the infantry. But sometimes I see photos of partisans carrying them.”
Stepanova said, “It’s been useful.”
Our commissar had told me that Stepanova had been a partisan once. I told her as much.
She replied, “Might have been.”
“And that you served during the defense of Moscow.”
“Might have. What’s it to you?”
I lit a cigarette and told her, “That was Kosmodemyanskaya’s assignment, too. You would have trained alongside her. You knew her.”
There was a long silence. Finally, without looking at me, Stepanova said, “Yes, I knew Zoya.”
“So this mission is personal.”
“My country has been invaded. The whole war is personal for me.”
“Are you out for revenge?”
She asked what business of mine that was.
I said, “I could sacrifice my life for it. Petya’s, too.”
Stepanova flipped her knife between her fingers. Her face was still impassive. She said, “Zoya and I were schoolchildren together. We trained together. We crossed the lines together. Except for the caprices of fate we would have died together. They took her from me and they will get what’s coming to them. Call it revenge if you like. I call it justice.”
It frightens me to be under the command of someone like her. Yet a part of me understands. Reports are coming in about the POW camp in Vyazma. Tens of thousands of men are crowded into an unfinished slaughterhouse with no water, sanitation, or protection from the elements. The prisoners fight over frozen chunks of raw, rotten meat flung to them by the guards. Hundreds die every day. Their bodies are thrown into mass graves.
If you get shot down in the offensive and have to land behind enemy lines, that could be you.
If I found out something like that had happened to you, I’d forget all my conflicting feelings about being part of this war. I wouldn’t think of anything except how to make them pay.
Tell me it won’t come to that.
Yours,
Pasha
Captain Ilyushina had her hands full checking out the aircraft before their journey north. Number 18 had acquired a winter coat of hastily applied white paint. I’d grown fond of her. She wasn’t fierce and gutsy like her predecessor, but hardy and reliable. The longer I was in the field, the more I appreciated that.
While Ilyushina worked, I regaled her with the story of our aeroclub’s temperamental plane. The longer the war dragged on, the more I found myself reminiscing about life back in Stakhanovo.
“A steel fuselage and a wooden wing?” came the engineer’s echoey voice from inside the fuselage. “I know Yakovlev designed some mixed-material light aircraft before the war.”
“If that’s it, ours must have been some kind of failed prototype. It had a problem with the engine conking out. You could fly all day without a problem, but if you went into a dive at the wrong angle . . .”
Ilyushina’s tousled blond head emerged from the front cockpit and she rested her grease-spotted arms along its edge. “You, my friend, had something loose in your fuel tank. A ball bearing, I’d guess. The perfect size to cover the fuel line when it rolls into exactly the right place.”
“You’re kidding!” I said, almost laughing at my own stupidity. “We spent four years trying to fix that plane and all along it was that simple? You must think I’m an idiot.”
Ilyushina shook her head. “You’re a good airwoman. You all are.”
“Why, captain, did you just say something nice about us?”
“You can call me Klava. I don’t want to be the last person in the regiment known only by her rank.” The engineer sat beside me on the wet grass at the edge of the airstrip. Before us, the ground dropped away into bottle-green sea wrinkled with waves. The air tasted of salt and pine and oily exhaust from Ilyushina’s testing aircraft engines.
I asked, “So you’re no longer sore about having to spend the war serving with a bunch of girls?”
“I’m glad I’m not still at the airport factory. Nothing is as infuriating as doing quality control when you want to be at the front.” She put a cigarette in her mouth and lit it with a lighter made from a copper-washed cartridge case. “I wish I could have served with my husband’s unit, though.”
Surprised, I glanced down at the plain gold band on Ilyushina’s right hand, noticing it for the first time. “I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned that you’re married.”
“Was married,” Ilyushina corrected.
“Oh,” I said quietly. “What happened?”
“He was sent to the front. What do you think happened?”
“I’m sorry.”
Ilyushina shrugged just like I did when I was trying to pretend I wasn’t worried about Pasha. “There’s no time for love during a war, anyway.”
“What was he like?”
Ilyushina considered. “What I remember most is how much he cared about things. He treated whatever he was doing as if it was the most important thing in the world. His schoolwork. His military duties. Us.”
“Was that why you wanted to go to the front?” I asked, thinking of what I would have done in her place, then realizing with a pang that I might end up in her place. “Because of what happened to him?”
Ilyushina nodded. “Stupid of me, isn’t it? Being here doesn’t help him.” She lapsed into silence and looked out at the water. “You have a boy, don’t you? The one you’re always writing to.”
“Yes, Pasha.” The reply came naturally to me without thought.
“Take care of him, Valka. If you can.”
That was apparently as much relationship talk as the engineer had in her. She stood up and ground the cigarette out under her boot heel. “Enough chitchat. I’ve got nineteen other planes to look at.”
She climbed into the next plane. I stayed by the cliff edge, lost in thought. I had admitted something to Ilyushina that I hadn’t even admitted to myself. I’d spent so much effort quashing rumors about Pasha, telling everyone that he was only a friend. Even though I anticipated his letters and tore them open eagerly, yet carefully, for fear of tearing the paper inside. Even though I daydreamed about meeting him when we rebased, inventing elaborate scenarios involving forced landings in friendly territory. I’d see him first. Then he would turn and there would be that moment of recognition. His soft brown eyes would light up. I’d throw my arms around him and, regardless of who was watching, kiss him the way I should have kissed him on the barge all those months ago.
No. Pasha was not just a friend. Pasha was mine. The thought fit me as comfortably as a favorite pair of slippers, yet it was heavy with responsibility. Because if he was mine, then Ilyushina was right. I needed to take care of him.
20 November 1942
Dear Pasha,
Promises are cheap. There are many promises I could have made you once in all earnestness that I would have broken by now: that you’d be home in a year, that we’d see each other again soon, that I’d take care of myself and not get hurt. But as I make you this promise, I want to believe it more than anything: One way or another, we’re making it out of the meat grinder alive.
Faithful Number 18 brought us to our new aerodrome east of Rzhev. We’re rejoining our first division, the one we served with in Trud Gornyaka. We formed up on the airfield, standing straight at attention, our chests spangled with stars and medals. Colonel Dmitry Dmitrievich Popov was there to meet us.
He stalked down the line, his face more worn and weary than I remembered, but frowning just as deeply. He stopped in front of me and asked, “Junior Lieutenant, what is that you’re wearing?”
I said, “The Order of the Red Star, sir.”
“How did you get it?”
I told him about the Armavir airfield.
He furrowed his brow and looked at me intently, as if he thought I might be lying, but only said, “Your big brothers at the 650th have three red stars among them. Half of you have them.”
He cleared his throat awkwardly and said, “Actually, I requested you.”
Bershanskaya’s eyes widened with innocent surprise. “Really? Are we the last U-2 regiment in the Soviet Union?”
The colonel looked everywhere but at Bershanskaya. “No. I asked the commander of the Transcaucasian Front for the 588th specifically. He didn’t want to give you up. He offered me two male regiments instead, but I insisted.”
“I was under the impression that you were displeased with our performance when we served under you.” Bershanskaya kept her face serious, but her green eyes twinkled. She was enjoying this conversation immensely.
“I was. But I’ve been forced to reevaluate. We need to hammer the Wehrmacht infantry as hard as we can before the offensive. Especially at night. The less sleep they get, the lower their morale, and the better our troops will do.”
Bershanskaya asked what that had to do with us.
Popov said, “There have been reports from Wehrmacht soldiers captured in your operational area. You’ve gained a reputation. The Hitlerites, you see, have very traditional views about men and women. For a fascist soldier to be terrified of a bunch of girls . . . it’s humiliating.”
“So what you’re saying is . . .”
He forced out the next sentence as if it took physical effort. “I’m saying that being women makes you better harassment bombers.”
Objective accomplished.
But now is not the time to lord it over our division commander. I’ve heard rumors about Operation Mars. Rumors about our men being outnumbered and underequipped. Rumors that all the air support in the world won’t save the offensive.
What about you, Pasha? Your band will be delving straight through the worst of it. Are they sending you into the grinder with a scant handful of bullets and no choice but to charge blindly in and hope for the best? Finally we’ll be fighting side by side, and yet there might as well still be an ocean between us.
