Night Witches

by Kathryn Lasky

  “Let’s get you out of the wind.” She stands back and takes me in. Her eyes travel from the crown of my head to my feet. “My God, girl, you have grown! You’re three inches taller than me! Whoever heard of a growth spurt in a besieged city?” She laughs. I try to laugh but can’t. All I can think is that Tatyana doesn’t know that Mama is dead. I’m tempted to lie, because until you know a person is dead, they are not exactly dead. You can still imagine talking to them, writing a letter. Savoring a small detail to share with them when you return. There’s a terrible hole in my world, but not yet in Tatyana’s.

  She stares at me, and I can tell she’s noticed something. My expression must have betrayed me.

  “What is it, Valentina?”

  I shut my eyes so I can’t see her face, then lean in to whisper, “Mama was killed … a bullet in her throat.” I feel my sister’s body go rigid, racked with a sob that is about to burst. Then she goes limp in my arms.

  The shelter is a stable. Over the doors is a sign: Flying Horse Hotel. We stay huddled outside of it for several minutes, hugging each other, sobbing.

  Tatyana pulls away. “How? How did she die?” Her voice is raw, like a fresh wound.

  “Sniper.”

  “But how?”

  “She … she leaned out to ask Polina if the baby was all right.” It sounds so innocuous.

  I see it all in Tatyana’s eyes. The shock that a gesture of banal kindness could have caused her death. I also see a shadow of guilt. I fold Tatyana into my arms and she presses her face against my shoulder. I’m taller. But what does it matter?

  Someone calls from inside. “Come in, for God’s sake. You’ll freeze out there.” It takes us a moment to collect ourselves, and as Tatyana steps back from my embrace, I feel hollow and empty.

  As we step inside, I see a group of women bent over embroidery hoops. It’s such a strange sight, it takes a moment for it to register. “What are they doing?” I whisper to Tatyana. She looks at me as if she doesn’t quite understand my question. She is sniffling and her eyes are red with tears.

  “What do you mean? Doing what?”

  “Them, over there.”

  “Oh, embroidery,” she replies, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to see aviators embroidering in an old stable. “We all find it relaxing.”

  “What do you embroider?”

  “Our underwear; scarves mostly. Really anything.” She puts her hand on my shoulder, gives it a squeeze, and looks into my face. I know what she’s searching for—Mama. Everyone always said that I looked so much like Mama and Tatyana like Papa. “What about Babushka?” She knows the answer even before I shake my head slowly. “Gone?” she says. I nod. “So it’s just us,” she whispers.

  “Just us,” I repeat. She takes my hand and leads me over to an oil drum that has been cut down to use as a wood-burning stove. Three women are gathered around it, warming their hands. Their goggles hang around their necks. They are obviously between missions.

  “Welcome to Flying Horse Hotel.” A beautiful woman of perhaps twenty-two walks over to us. She is holding a piece of fabric with little blue flowers embroidered on it. The blue flowers match the blue of her eyes. She’s tiny with silvery-blond curls that remind me of a Christmas-tree angel. When my mother was a little girl before the revolution, before Tsaritsyn had been given its new name of Stalingrad, Christmas was celebrated throughout the city. Then Stalin banned all public displays, and even Christmas trees in the home were frowned upon. But Mama kept the ornaments, and on Christmas Eve we’d decorate our dinner table with figurines of Father Frost along with angels and little animals. Mara looks so much like the angel that was always perched in the center of a bronze candelabra that I’m surprised when Tatyana says, “Mara Tretorov, meet my sister Valentina. Mara is our squadron commander and holds the record for the most missions.”

  “That’s because I’ve been here the longest, I think.” She laughs and a blush creeps up her cheeks. “So long that I have finally finished embroidering this scarf.” She holds up the embroidery hoop.

  “She’s very modest,” my sister says. “And very musical. Mara has a beautiful singing voice. Sometimes we can coax it from her.”

  I nod, then glance around to look at the other women. They’re all dressed in men’s uniforms, though it’s obvious that the trousers and jackets have all been cut down and resewed. More women straggle in. They must be the mechanics who had swarmed the field.

  “Rosa was shot down tonight. Lydia saw it,” one of them says grimly.

  “One of our Yak-7s chased the attacker, a Stuka. Supposedly clipped it,” another woman offers. She’s quite tiny and has the slightly tilted eyes of a Tartar.

  “Was she able to land?” someone asks.

  “I’m not sure.” The first woman shakes her head. “Lydia said the tail was on fire.”

  I try to imagine what it’d be like. The tail of your plane is on fire, near the fuel tank. You have no parachute. Rosa and her navigator seem doomed. I think of the planes I saw shot down from Trench 301. I didn’t know the pilots’ names. I just always hoped it wasn’t Tatyana. But now I know a name other than Tatyana, and it seems horribly real.

  I look around the small space. It still smells of horses. But there are no horses. There are only girls here, in their late teens to mid-twenties. Perhaps a dozen or so. The ones huddled near the oil drum have cheeks ruddy from the heat. They don’t seem anxious. They appear calm but intent on whatever it is they’re doing. Some sip tea. Two hold long forks with pieces of bread to toast in the fire, concentrating as if this is the most important task in the world. I have heard that in England, there’s a popular slogan: KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON. That is precisely what these women are doing. This is their reality and I want to be a part of it. They are calm, efficient fighters. Then they return and quietly resume living after killing.

  Tatyana leads me over to the oil drum and fetches me a mug of tea. We crouch down side by side. “I don’t have long,” she says. “I’m still on turnaround. Just waiting for my plane to be fueled. Then I have to go up again.”

  “Really?” I know the war must go on, but we’ve had only minutes to grieve the death of our mother.

  “Yes, really.”

  “How many times?”

  “How many missions? Eight so far tonight. I try for ten. The nights are long now. Come summer we’ll be lucky to get in half that. But tonight there’s no moon, so it’s especially good. We call it Witch’s Delight when the moon is gone. More protection. More bombs. More kills. Our mission is to destroy the arsenals that allow the Nazis to wage war. Their supplies, from weapons and bombs to food and clothing, all of it must be destroyed. Let them try to fight naked in a Russian winter, their bellies empty, their armaments demolished, their infantry decimated.”

  “You do that ten times a night?” She nods. “And how many of you are based here?”

  “Twenty-five. That means twenty-five airplanes to be refueled and rearmed ten times each night. That’s where you come in.”

  “Me?” I have a slightly sinking feeling. “I could be your navigator. You know how good I am with numbers.” I cringe slightly. I didn’t mean to sound so babyish. Like I was trying to brag about how fast I had learned the multiplication tables.

  She shakes her head and gives me a tight little smile. “I know you were quite quick when Papa was teaching us navigation.”

  “Very quick. Almost better than you.”

  “Yes.” I can tell she didn’t mean “Yes, I agree with you.” It was just a signal to not argue with her. “Look, Valya, that was navigating on our summer holidays over the Sea of Azov. This is war.”

  I stare at her, speechless. I have spent the last four months in a city under siege. I have probably been closer to Nazis, steps away sometimes, than she has ever been in her U-2. She was flying six hundred meters above the city. I was in it!

  “We desperately need ground crew,” she continues.

  “Really? It seemed like the field was sw
arming with them when we landed.”

  “We want to increase the number of sorties we fly each night.”

  “Increase them?” It seems impossible to me that they could fly any more than they are now. “But how can you increase them?”

  “By servicing the planes more efficiently. I know I could fly more. You have to understand, loading the bombs takes at least two girls per bomb. They have to crawl on their knees with the bomb in their arms and fix it under the wing. Some nights they have to load close to three thousand kilos of bombs.”

  It takes all my strength to keep my voice steady. “So you’re telling me that I’m not going to navigate or fly.”

  She nods. “We need you more on the ground than in the air. For the Motherland, Valentina.”

  “But, Tatyana, you know what I can do! You know I’m a great pilot.”

  “Valya, it’s not me saying this. It’s the commander. Bershanskaya.”

  “But I’m your sister. Can’t you ask her?”

  “Do you think that gives you special privileges?” She shakes her head. “Any new pilots need to be very experienced in combat. We have an astonishingly good record. Even better than the all-male units, which is why some of the officers from other regiments resent our successes. They want to introduce men into the 588th and almost enjoy hearing when one of our pilots has been shot down. So we can’t risk having an inexperiened flyer. That’s why we have the one thousand hours’ minimum of air combat time rule.”

  I gasp. “That’ll take years. Isn’t there some other way?”

  “No, Valya. It’s an order, not a sisterly squabble. We need more ground crew. You’re in the army now. You’re a soldier. Soldiers take orders from their commanding officers. You have to grow up.”

  Like a harsh wind, the old arguments come back and slam me in the chest. “Another few centimeters, right?” I mutter. I can’t believe we’re still having the same old arguments in the midst of war. We have lost our mother and yet some things never change.

  * * *

  The next day, I find myself not in the air, nor exactly on the ground, but on the wing of a U-2 attempting to hold down a tarp. A blizzard with strong winds is blowing in, and all flights are canceled. Such strong winds could topple the U-2s, but with four women on each wing, we can keep the crafts grounded using special blankets, swaddling them like babies. But the wind is so strong we actually have to lie atop the wings to keep the planes from being blown over. One of us is a designated sweeper whose job is to sweep off any buildup of snow so we aren’t smothered in a drift. However, the wind is so ferocious there is little time for any buildup.

  We wrap the heaviest scarves we can find around our faces to protect us from the wind. But it’s futile, as the cold from the wind, sharp as the blade of a knife, cuts through the cloth. I’ve heard of fingers and toes being frostbitten, turning white, then black, and then dropping off. And what about our noses? Will they be sliced off by the cold?

  I’m on the starboard wing with three girls not much older than myself: Lada, Olga, and Oksana.

  “Too bad we don’t have Galya on our wing,” Lada mutters. Galya is a very hefty girl.

  “They should at least rotate her,” Oksana says.

  “I’ll tell you who should be out here on a wing,” Lada says.

  “Who?” I ask.

  “Nika,” she giggles.

  “Who’s Nika?” I ask. They all laugh at this, but I don’t get the joke.

  “Who’s Nika?” she repeats. “How long have you been here, Valya?”

  “Two days.”

  “You prove our point,” Oksana says. “Three days and she’s seen not hide nor hair of Nika, our ground crew operations chief.”

  Lada snickers. “Nika knows more about her bottle of vodka than what’s happening in the field.”

  Oksana sighs. “She probably wouldn’t even notice if I left and became a navigator or a pilot. Not that there’s the slightest chance.”

  “You want to fly?” I ask her.

  “Of course. Who doesn’t?”

  “Not me,” says Lada.

  “Why not?” I say, surprised.

  “They’re all so snotty,” Lada says, wrinkling her nose. “They fancy themselves so elite just because they were either heading to university or were already in one when the war broke out.”

  “What about you, Olga?” I ask. “Do you want to join the elite?”

  “I wouldn’t mind being a navigator.”

  “They’re the worst!” Lada laughs. “You should have heard Eva going on about the opera the other day. Opera! Who has time for opera? And you, Valya? You want to be a pilot like your sister? Though I have to admit, she’s not snotty.”

  “Yes,” I answer tersely. “I want to fly.”

  We are strange bedfellows, or I should say wingfellows. Despite Lada’s views on snotty pilots and navigators, she’s a warm, funny girl. But I can tell I need to tread carefully with her.

  Every half hour we are relieved and allowed to go inside to get warm and drink scalding tea. That night I manage the seemingly impossible: I scald my tongue and get frostbite on one of my thumbs. I’m ordered to suck on it, which I find funny. When I was young my mother painted a disgusting concoction on my thumb so I wouldn’t suck it at night. Now here I am once more sucking on my thumb, but in the middle of a war. If I could write Yuri a letter, I would tell him not to worry. I’m not flying any planes. I’m just sucking my thumb.

  By the following evening the weather eases and the witches are flying again. Tatyana and her navigator climb into their U-2, which I refueled. I watch as she taxis out on the so-called runway and turns the plane into the wind for takeoff. She accelerates as she bumps down the strip. I imagine her pulling back on the control stick to lift the nose. I hold my breath, tasting the envy in the back of my mouth. Her takeoff is flawless. She begins to carve a turn into the night. A star gilds her wing. She is star-blessed and I’m earth-stuck. I kick the snow.

  I remember flying summer holidays, when I’d climb into the rear cockpit as navigator, but also all those times when I got to be pilot and she navigated. I remember Papa’s words: “You two are a good team, a good team!”

  But now I’m stuck on the ground. I wish Papa were here. He would tell them how good I am. But Papa is gone; I’m not sure whether he’s dead or alive. Mama is dead. Babushka is dead. And Tatyana is climbing high into the night.

  Two more planes land for refueling. One has to fight its way through the throngs of the ground crew to get to the refueling trucks. It is the same with the bomb depots. It’s quite a mess; there’s very little organization. All the mechanics are in a rush.

  “You learn to use your elbows,” a girl named Ulla says to me as we fight for access to the pumping hoses. Our fellow mechanic Galya has certainly learned to use her elbows. She seems to take great pleasure in jabbing me in the ribs as she goes for the hoses. She would probably feel deprived if the system became more efficient. There’d be less opportunity to jab. She probably played water polo in high school.

  I work all night and there is no sleep. I think a lot about Anna and the others back in the trench. They thought I was going to be flying and joked that they would wave to me as I flew over. They expected me to be up there in the sky flying, bombing, and I’m not. Did I fight my way out of the trench for nothing?

  No, I know it wasn’t for nothing. I’m making a contribution, no matter how small. But I can do more. My yearning to fly is stronger than ever. I crave the sharp smell of the fuel, the purr of the engines, the flutter of the prop, the darkness of the sky on moonless nights. I feel it like an ache; not in my body but in my very soul. I am meant to fly.

  After a few hours of sleep, it’s back to work. Even during the day when the planes aren’t flying, the base is a sea of frenzied activity as we get them ready for the night raids. It is as if another war is being fought right here on the ground of our own airfield. Night, of course, is the worst, as mechanics are frantic to get their aircraft ready to tu
rn around within minutes. When I get off duty, Ulla orders me to go to the bomb truck and find Olga and Marina, with whom I often carry bombs to the planes. I’m better at carrying than latching them to the underwing. You can’t wear gloves but have to work bare-handed in order to feel what you are doing.

  Just getting to the bomb truck is like diving into a pile of writhing bodies. “She’s my carrier! Let her through,” I hear someone yell. Then I feel a uniquely sharp jab in my ribs. Undoubtedly from the formidable elbows of Galya, whom I have learned was indeed captain of the girls’ water-polo team in Leningrad. “I have to get this bomb on the squadron commander’s craft. Step aside. The commander can hit five munitions depots before you move your lazy ass!” She gives another shove, and I fall backward onto the ground.

  This system is ridiculous. We’re going to blow each other up before we even get the bombs to the planes. If I can’t fly, I can at least not get blown up or trampled by the ground crew. By the time I finally go to bed at dawn, I’m too angry to sleep. I even get paper and a pencil and make a diagram showing the paths the mechanics take between the fuel and bomb resupply stations. There are no patterns, which is half the problem. There’s no cooperation. I think about the clever teamwork I saw in the sky over Stalingrad between the three U-2s, when one plane would peel off toward the bomb site and the other two would lead a Stuka on a cat-and-mouse game through the latticework of the searchlights. That’s what we need. We have to work as a team.

  That evening before my shift begins I approach Mara, the squadron commander, who’s sitting with the mechanic Galya and Tatyana.

  I skip the preamble. “I have an idea about how to improve our system for servicing the aircraft.” They look up at me.

  “You’ve been here four days and you have an idea?” Galya mutters into her tea. Tatyana cuts her a sharp glance.

  “Everyone is dead tired,” I continue, pretending I didn’t hear her.

  “Dead tired after four days.” Galya laughs.

  “Shut up, Galya,” Mara snaps. I’m glad it’s Mara who reprimands Galya and not my sister. But I’m also surprised. Mara is so tiny and delicate, like a porcelain doll. No one would expect such a sharp tongue. But now, looking into her cornflower-blue eyes, I see a fierceness I didn’t notice before. Around her neck and tucked into her flight jacket she wears the wool scarf she embroidered with little blue flowers that match her eyes. It’s totally incongruous. But that, I will learn over time, is the key to Mara. It’s why she’s the squadron leader. She’s unpredictable in the best of ways. It’s why she has flown more missions than anyone, scored more hits on the best of targets.