“War will break you, Katyushka. Don’t make me see the light in your eyes grow dim.”
“It won’t, my Vanya. I promise.”
I felt the warmth of his arms around me, but when I moved to return the embrace he vanished, reappearing just out of my grasp.
“If you love me, you will come with me. You will stay safe with me.”
I took a step in his direction. “Vanya, I can’t. I can’t leave the girls behind. Could you really have crossed the border into Turkey? Could I have let us?”
Poof. He was now directly behind me. I spun to see him.
“This is killing me, Katyushka. What is a man if he can’t keep the woman he loves from peril?”
“The best kind. It means you trust me to stay alive. I trust you to do the same.”
“You’re a fool, Katyushka. I didn’t think you were. There are no happy endings in war.”
The words he never said ripped at me like fangs. I took a step closer to him. Poof.
He didn’t reappear.
I fought sleep, resented wakefulness.
I longed for the darkness to carry me to oblivion, until at last the dawn came again.
CHAPTER 26
Natalia left the next morning, not wanting to leave Antonin alone too long with his grief. I hugged her tenderly and promised that if nothing else, I would come visit to pay my respects to my father-in-law. No matter the animosity Vanya had felt toward his father, no matter how badly he had yearned for another life, he had inherited a good measure of his father’s pragmatism. Vanya would have loved nothing more than to spend his days studying art and devoting his life to his craft, but we were not born into a time where many people had the luxury of pursuing their passions.
His father had been wise to see his son trained in aviation. It had nearly saved his life.
Vanya could have gone to a conservatory and studied painting under masters. And he would have been plucked from school to die under a pile of rubble during the siege on Stalingrad or Leningrad. His training had given him at least a fighting chance to survive the war. He fell several weeks short of the mark, but Vanya had done more for his country before his death than a poor foot soldier who only survived service for a few weeks.
His death had not been in vain, and it was this thought alone that kept me sane.
On the dark days I remembered the time in the convalescent center with Vanya by my side. Him whispering in my ear. Imploring me to run away. To let him buy the papers that would allow us to escape safely to Sweden, Switzerland, or Portugal—anywhere neutral. If the truck hadn’t crashed, had my body not betrayed me, he would still be alive. It was almost two years since he’d implored me to leave. Simultaneously a lifetime and a handful of moments ago. Maybe Vanya could have coaxed me over the border. We would have been well settled somewhere safe, clamoring for news of the war in any newspaper we could scrounge up. Celebrating the end of the war we’d started but hadn’t the courage to finish. We would both see guilt glinting in each other’s eyes at every mention of the war. With the news of each fallen friend.
But it would have faded in time as we built our lives together. Vanya would have found scraps of time to paint when he wasn’t working to support us. I would have taught young pilots or found some other way to stretch my wings.
There might have been a child by now. A scamp of a boy with Vanya’s black hair that curled when it was overlong. My blue eyes and porcelain skin. Perhaps a girl with my red hair and her father’s mischievous coal-black eyes. Every time I tried to sleep, if it wasn’t the vision of Vanya’s face swirling in my mind, it was some variation of the child-that-never-was. The child-that-would-never-be. Or Taisiya. Oksana. Sofia. All the others we lost in three years.
That first week I spent most of my days curled up in the comfort of those pink, lavender, and periwinkle flannel pajamas and buried myself under Mama’s quilt. I only ate when she forced the issue. I could neither read nor write. My hands didn’t seem equal to mending or any menial task. I found myself staring at the patterns on the quilt to the point where the little white flowers began to dance on the inky-blue backdrop.
Oksana’s snowdrops.
I clutched the quilt to my chest and found, inexplicably, that I envied her. She was with her Yana now. Matvei had fallen in Stalingrad and had gone off to join his Taisiya. Even if heaven didn’t exist, I had to believe they were no longer lonely for one another.
Polina had her Andrei. I wondered if they waited a full hour to find a civil-registry bureau to have their union made official. Renata was young and would find her beau before long.
I was the one torn between the land of the living and the dead.
Mama came in on a balmy afternoon. It was just over a week since I returned home. She placed a tray with a bowl of hearty soup and a chunk of brown bread on my bedside table, sat on the edge of my bed, and brushed the hair from my forehead.
“I like your hair shorter,” she said. “It suits you.”
I smiled up at her. I knew what she was saying: I’m worried about you, but I know you need time.
“It’s better now than it was when the butcher of a barber had his way with it. I like it, too.”
Thank you for not pushing. I will try to get better.
“Will you please eat?” She took my hand in hers and squeezed gently. I can’t bear to lose you, too.
I sat up in my bed and accepted the tray from Mama. The soup was thick with savory beef, carrots, potatoes, and peas. The bread was crusty and rich—ambrosia compared to the black rocks they’d been serving us for the past four years. Grigory was doing his duty for Mama, and I was grateful to him for this. The soup tasted as palatable to me as soot, but I at least felt some of my physical discomfort ebb away. The dull ache in my head subsided, and I was able to focus more clearly.
“It’s wonderful, Mama. Thank you,” I said, placing the tray back on the table when I could no longer tolerate the food.
“You don’t need to say such things, my dear. Food tasted like dirt for weeks after your papa died. But thank you for eating all the same. You probably don’t remember your babushka feeding me like I am feeding you. I had no idea she was so sick at the time.”
I remembered Babushka Olga with fondness, but her death had barely registered with me after the loss of Papa. I’m sure it was the same for Mama, and I imagine there was some guilt in her heart some years later over not grieving as deeply for her mother as she should have done.
“I am also going to do something for you that my mama did for me.”
The image of the little cabin in Miass flashed before my eyes, and I felt my breath catch. I could not spend the rest of my life so far from the rest of the world. “Mama, I can’t go back there. Not Miass.”
“No, darling. I am not kicking you out of your home. And make no mistake, this is your home. I am, however, going to insist that you get up, bathe, get dressed, and fetch some bread from the bakery for supper.”
It was a simple request, but it seemed Herculean in scope. “Mama, maybe tomorrow?” The thought of dressing, let alone leaving the apartment, seemed more daunting than flying another mission over Germany.
“No, my darling, today. You need to move. Get some air.” Mama gripped my hand and fixed my eyes with hers.
“That won’t fix anything.” I buried my face in my hands for a moment, rubbing my eyes in defeat.
“No, but it’s a start. You must trust your old mama, Katya. I never wanted you to walk in these shoes, but I have worn them for over a decade. I will help where I can, but you have to make the first steps on your own.”