Sapphire Skies

by Belinda Alexandra

  ‘Jump! Jump!’ I screamed, although of course there was no chance of the pilot hearing. We watched to see if the hatch would open and the pilot parachute out but nothing happened.

  ‘The pilot must have been shot,’ said my father through gritted teeth. ‘Or knocked unconscious when he rammed the other plane.’

  Then we saw a figure emerge from the cockpit and fall towards the earth. I screamed in horror, but the parachute mushroomed and the pilot landed beyond the trees on the other side of the river. The plane hit the ground somewhere in the forest with a crash that echoed around the valley. The ground trembled beneath our feet. The remaining German plane circled and circled the area where the plane had gone down like a hawk searching for its prey. Then it rose again and flew away. We wondered if the German had seen the pilot parachute out but perhaps he hadn’t. That’s what we hoped.

  My father wanted to go and find the pilot straight away. But my uncle stopped him. ‘Don’t be a fool,’ he said. ‘If the Germans catch you, you’ll be shot. Wait until tonight. Those pilots are trained for survival. He’ll know how to hide.’

  ‘If he isn’t injured,’ my father lamented.

  Olga paused and stared at the sky, memories animating her face. In her profile Orlov thought he caught a glimpse of what she had been like as a young woman, watching the battle in the air. Despite her age, Olga had been precise in her account. He was certain from her description that Natasha had been the daring pilot. Natasha was a woman when she lay in Orlov’s arms, but in the sky she was a demon. Many of the male pilots, including Orlov himself, had been dismissive of ‘Little Natashka’ when she had been assigned to the regiment. Orlov had not objected to women in the air force altogether, as some of his colleagues had. He respected the women who were willing to risk their lives to save the Motherland. But while he believed women could capably fly bombers and hit military targets, he didn’t think they had the killer instinct and cunning needed for pilot-to-pilot combat. Natasha had proved him wrong. After the Battle of Stalingrad, the men in the regiment had said, and not in jest, that they were glad Natalya Azarova was on the Soviet side: they would not want to fight her in the air. That was why the Germans had been determined to get rid of her.

  Olga continued her story.

  My father was grateful to the Soviet soldiers and pilots who were fighting to free us and he would have gladly forfeited his own life to save them. That evening he and my uncle packed a bag with the little bread we had and some vodka to take to the pilot, but as they were preparing to leave German soldiers stormed into the house. At first I thought they were after food, but by the way they overturned the beds and swept everything out of the cupboards before moving on to search the barn it was obvious they were looking for someone. It must be the pilot, I thought. I was glad because that meant he hadn’t been caught yet. Then, to our dismay, some German officers arrived and took over the house for the night. My father and uncle had to delay their journey into the forest until the following evening.

  While they were searching for the pilot, my aunt paced the kitchen. I put the children to bed and tried to distract myself by sewing. In the early hours of the morning there was a noise in the yard. We looked out the window to see my father and uncle returning. They were carrying something between them. ‘It’s the pilot,’ I said to my aunt. ‘He must have been hurt.’

  But when my father and uncle came into the house, I realised that not only was the pilot already dead but that she was a woman.

  ‘I couldn’t leave her in the forest for the wild animals to finish her off,’ my father wept. ‘Look at her! She’s just a young woman and she gave her life for us.’

  They lifted the pilot’s body onto the table. Her hair and face were covered in blood. I grabbed a cloth and began washing her face. Even with the wound on her forehead, I could see that she had been pretty. ‘She looks like an angel,’ my aunt commented. Even my stern uncle was moved. ‘War is not women’s business,’ he said. ‘They should be at home creating life, not taking it.’ It was his way of expressing his sorrow. He didn’t mean that the young woman had been wrong to defend her country, rather that it was wrong that circumstances should have brought her to have to do so.

  We wanted to give the pilot a proper funeral but the village priest had been shot a week earlier for helping the partisans. My aunt and I removed the pilot’s uniform and clothed her in my wedding dress, the only white item of clothing I had. We were uncertain about what to do next because the sun would be rising soon and it was too dangerous to be caught burying her. My aunt remembered the crypt in the cemetery. It belonged to a Polish family that had left the village long before the war.

  My aunt ran ahead of us to make sure all was clear and then my father and uncle opened the crypt and placed the pilot’s body on a shelf inside. I laid her leather helmet and gun, which my uncle had found beside the body, on her chest. Then we quickly crossed ourselves and rushed home to say prayers for her soul. Our intention was to leave her in the crypt and inform the Soviet authorities about her body if anyone came in search of her. But a few days later there was a fierce battle in the village as the Soviets fought the Germans to liberate us. My father and uncle both were killed. There were many more bodies then and much grief to deal with. The pilot remained forgotten until now.

  Olga fell silent. Everyone seemed to be staring at the ground. The old woman’s story had brought tears to their eyes. Orlov thought that he had never felt sadder or lonelier. No doubt when he passed away, there would be an obituary in the newspaper and a funeral with full honours. The President would make a speech. Natasha had been interred simply with love and devotion by simple farmers. Olga and her aunt had dressed her in the best clothing they possessed. Their gratitude for her sacrifice moved him greatly. It wasn’t only words but true feeling.

  Ilya took a photograph out of his pocket and showed it to Olga. Orlov saw it was a black-and-white picture of Natasha in her military uniform and flying helmet.

  ‘Is this the pilot?’ Ilya asked Olga.

  Fekla took the photograph from him and held it up for the old woman, who squinted at it. ‘Yes, I think it is. Or I think it could be. It was a long time ago and, you see, we didn’t have electricity in those days, only lamplight, and her face was covered in blood.’ Olga studied the photograph again with the expression of an elderly person who has seen too much tragedy. ‘Yes, I am sure this is her. She was pretty like this young girl.’

  ‘You say that her helmet and gun were found beside the body?’ Ilya continued. ‘And that she had a wound to the head?’

  Olga nodded.

  Ilya’s and Orlov’s eyes met. If the tight-fitting helmet was off then Natasha must have removed it herself. That meant she wasn’t dead when she hit the ground. Did she shoot herself? Orlov knew that the women pilots had a pact with each other that if ever they were in danger of being captured they would commit suicide rather than be taken prisoner. Not only could they be tortured for information by the Germans but stories abounded of the pack-rape of female Soviet prisoners. That seemed the most likely explanation if Natasha’s pistol had been beside her and not in her holster.

  ‘What did you do with her uniform?’ asked Ilya.

  Olga thought for a moment. ‘We burned it. We didn’t want it to be discovered if the Germans searched our house again.’

  ‘What about her identification?’

  Olga looked confused and Ilya explained to her about the Bakelite capsule that members of the armed forces kept in their pocket with their name, home town and relatives written on a piece of paper inside.

  Olga thought about it. ‘Yes, there was such a capsule,’ she said. ‘We didn’t know what it was, but we thought it might be important so I wrapped it in the helmet along with the gun.’

  ‘Natasha wouldn’t have been carrying her identification,’ Orlov said.

  Ilya looked at him, an eyebrow lifted quizzically.

  ‘It was a superstition,’ Orlov explained. ‘Natalya Azarova believed that i
f she carried her identification capsule into battle, she’d be killed. She used to give it to her mechanic before she got into her plane. Her mechanic was like a sister to her and she’d put the capsule in her pocket alongside her own until Natalya returned.’

  Ilya frowned. ‘You’ve never mentioned that before, Valentin.’

  Orlov grimaced. ‘I had to argue with Natalya Azarova about every formality, but her belief was so strong that I turned a blind eye to that one. You can tell from the description of the battle what a skilled pilot she was, but she was as stubborn as a mule. I was strict about identification, but you have to understand that carrying it wasn’t a formal air-force policy the way it is now, or as it was then with the German and British armies. It was left as a matter of personal choice.’

  Ilya turned to Dmitri. ‘Has anyone opened the crypt since the body was placed there?’

  Dmitri shook his head. ‘To the best of my knowledge, no. After the war the cemetery wasn’t used any more. I can take you there now. You can see for yourself.’

  The old village cemetery was a short walk from the farm through a field and a wood. It was shaded by lime trees, and overgrown grass rose up around the tombstones and the Russian Orthodox crosses. Some of the graves were marked out by iron fences that had rusted and sunk over the years. Towards the back of the cemetery stood a stone crypt with a copper domed roof that had gone green with age.

  Dmitri’s sons and neighbours had followed the group to the cemetery; even the dogs had accompanied them. Orlov remembered that people in the countryside did everything together. He was grateful, however, when the onlookers stayed respectfully outside the cemetery’s gate. The crypt was now a site of investigation.

  Dmitri walked ahead of Orlov and Ilya, beating the grass down with a stick, no doubt hoping to scare away any snakes that might be lurking there. But Orlov wasn’t worried about being bitten. He kept his eyes on the crypt. Angel statuettes stood guard either side of the two steps that led to the iron gate. A bronze Catholic cross, tarnished and lopsided now, stood on top of the dome. It was an elaborate tomb for this part of the country. Olga had said that it had belonged to a Polish family who had gone from the region. Orlov wondered if they had left voluntarily, or if they had disappeared during the years of collectivisation, when wealthy landowners had their properties confiscated and were exiled to remote parts of the country.

  The crypt’s iron gate creaked on rusty hinges when Dmitri opened it. The wooden door beyond it was swollen with rot and wouldn’t budge when he tried to open it. He asked Ilya for permission to break it.

  ‘There appears to be no other way,’ agreed Ilya.

  Orlov thought Dmitri would return to his farm to get an axe. He gave a cry of surprise when the farmer took a step back before thrusting his shoulder into the door. The wood splintered but didn’t give way. Stepping back again Dmitri kicked it. The door fell inwards with a crash and the men found themselves staring into the dim space of the crypt.

  As Dmitri moved aside, Ilya entered the crypt but Orlov hesitated, bracing himself the way he used to do before he went into battle. Once inside the crypt, the air was musty and Orlov’s eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the gloom. He squinted and saw in front of him a coffin with a collapsed lid. If there had once been a body inside, it was nothing but dust now. There was another coffin on the shelf above it, equally decrepit.

  He turned and saw Ilya standing beside something. Orlov’s knees buckled. Natasha was lying there on a stone shelf, dressed in white, her blonde hair cascading around her face. Her skin was as luminous as it had been when he last saw her. She turned to him and smiled with her full red lips.

  Then he blinked and realised that wasn’t what he was seeing at all. Lying on the shelf, shreds of cloth sticking to its ribs and hip bones, was a skeleton. Its arms were folded across its chest and underneath the hands was a piece of mouldy fabric and a rusted gun. Ilya took a torch from his pocket and illuminated the bald skull with its gaping mouth and yellow teeth.

  ‘There are two holes in the skull,’ he commented. ‘It’s in keeping with what Olga told us.’

  Orlov barely heard him. It was taking all his willpower not to collapse to his knees. Everything pointed to the remains being Natasha’s, but according to Olga the pilot had been carrying her identification capsule; that left Orlov with some doubt.

  Ilya shone the torch along the length of the skeleton: the spinal cord and limbs were intact. He brought the light back to the skull to examine the holes more closely. He touched the cranium and his hand brushed something that rattled. ‘What’s this?’

  He shone the torch onto what at first looked like a bullet but turned out to be the identification capsule Olga had mentioned. Ilya deliberated over opening it. Unlike the stamped tags used by the German and British armies, the Soviet capsules weren’t even airtight or watertight. On some recovery digs, Ilya and Orlov had opened the capsules to find nothing but dust inside.

  Ilya glanced at Orlov. Even if they were to open it in ideal laboratory conditions, there was no guarantee that the paper inside wouldn’t disintegrate.

  Orlov had to know. Was this Natasha or not? ‘Open it,’ he urged.

  His heart seemed to skip beats as Ilya unscrewed the capsule and used the tweezers on his Swiss army knife to carefully open the paper. It appeared to be intact. Ilya read the information and took a breath before turning to Orlov.

  ‘It’s hers. Natalya Stepanovna Azarova of Moscow. Daughter of Sofia Grigorievna Azarova.’

  The blood rushed to Orlov’s ears. It was Natasha’s identification. Why had she taken it with her that day? Had she been so upset by what he’d told her that she had forgotten to give it to Svetlana? Or did she deliberately take it, intending to die on that mission?

  He staggered out of the tomb, needing some air.

  Dmitri, who was standing near the stairs smoking a cigarette, turned to look at him. ‘Are you all right?’

  Natasha had gone missing fifty-seven years ago but the grief that was gripping Orlov’s insides was fresh. He desperately wanted to give in to the tears that were welling behind his eyes but he controlled his emotions.

  ‘We’ve found her,’ he said. ‘It is indeed Natalya Azarova.’ He felt faint and sat down on the steps.

  Ilya came out of the crypt and put his hand on Orlov’s shoulder. ‘Well done, my friend. Your determination has paid off. You have done the honourable thing by your wingman. Now she can be buried with honours and any slur can be removed from her name.’

  He turned to Dmitri and explained that they would seal off the crypt and inform the local police. Once he got back to Orël, Ilya would call the Ministry of Defence so that they could collect the skeleton. Dmitri left to tell his sons and neighbours, who were still waiting outside the cemetery gates, what had taken place. Their little village was about to become famous.

  ‘Is that all?’ Orlov asked Ilya, still not able to believe his long quest was finished. ‘Won’t the Ministry of Defence want to run forensic tests for absolute confirmation?’

  Ilya took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. ‘A forensic anthropologist will be able to tell the age of the skeleton and how long it has been in the crypt. Natalya Azarova was a young healthy woman with no deformities. The skeleton confirms that. But as she doesn’t have any relatives to check the skeleton’s DNA against, they will have to use the circumstantial evidence and decide what to make of it. With the location of the plane, the identification capsule, the skeleton and Olga’s testimony, we will have to hope that the Kremlin will agree to confirm that we have found Natalya Azarova’s remains. That part will depend on the mood of the powers that be.’

  Orlov looked away.

  ‘Valentin,’ Ilya said gently, ‘we have found her. You know we have. Everything adds up.’

  A pain was crushing Orlov’s chest. He nodded. Drink a glass of bitter wine to the fallen friend: the words of Natasha’s favourite song echoed around in his head.

  Then Ilya said something that
turned everything upside down again.

  ‘I’m puzzled about one thing. When Olga described the pilot’s body and said that the helmet and pistol were found next to it, I assumed Natalya Azarova had shot herself to avoid capture.’

  The skin on Orlov’s neck prickled. ‘Yes, go on.’

  ‘Well, I study airplanes and not people, but from what I can see the injuries to the cranium aren’t consistent with a self-inflicted wound. The hole at the front of the skull is larger than the one at the back, and lower, suggesting she was shot at close range from behind by someone standing above her.’

  Orlov jumped up. His mind was racing. ‘An execution? But that makes no sense. A pilot would have information that the Germans wanted. She would have been taken to the commander of the nearest air-force regiment for questioning, not executed on the spot.’

  ‘It makes no sense for the Germans to have shot her,’ agreed Ilya, looking off into the distance. ‘But the only person who can answer our questions is the person who killed her.’

  THIRTEEN

  Moscow, 2000

  Lily added the rice to the sautéed mushrooms and onion and mixed them together. She took the dough out of the refrigerator, rolled it and cut it into small pieces, then flattened them with a rolling pin. Making her grandmother’s mushroom pelmeni was one of her ways to relax. She was glad it was Friday night. She’d been shocked how, after Kate’s death, things had returned to normal so quickly at the office. Scott was noticeably saddened, and had arranged to go to England to give the hotel’s condolences at Kate’s funeral, but apart from that everything carried on as normal. A bilingual temp from an agency had been hired to help the sales department with its administrative work. Mary didn’t mention Kate again, and Richard, after a couple of days of being grief-stricken, was back to joking around the office and forwarding humorous emails. Lily found it impossible to believe that someone as popular as Kate could be so easily forgotten.