As much as I wanted her to go home a heroine, it would be another lie I’d have to live with. I slumped in the chair. “This isn’t right, comrade major. She didn’t shoot down anything.”
Gridnev arched an eyebrow. “Are you certain? I was under the impression you’d temporarily lost sight of her.”
I nodded. “That’s correct, comrade major.”
“Then unless you saw something concrete contradicting this report, I’d like you to sign at the bottom.”
I took the pen he offered and looked down at the line begging for my signature. A few simple strokes of the pen would grant Alexandra one last set of honors, I knew, and no one would be the wiser—especially with Gridnev’s approval. Morality aside, putting lies to official reports was a severe crime, and I didn’t understand why Gridnev would risk such a thing. Then again, the report would likely never be challenged. Still, my gut tightened. “Why?”
“Because she deserves the honor for all that she’s done,” Gridnev said. “And her parents could use the extra comfort knowing their girl died valiantly protecting Stalingrad and had something to show for her sacrifices.”
I pulled the report closer. I wanted to sign and give Alexandra the recognition she deserved. She may not have shot down a couple of fascists that day, but she was no less heroic in my eyes. I longed for people to talk about her fondly for generations, and this gave it to her. She’d be an ace. One of the few pilots to have five confirmed kills in aerial combat—a female one at that.
“I can’t,” I said with a heavy sigh. “It’s not the truth, and she’d have my head if she could if I did such a thing. Honesty was always the most important thing to her.”
Gridnev smiled and took the report. He crumpled it up and tossed in a nearby box. “How is this one then?” he asked, reaching in his desk and handing me a new document.
I looked it over. The report was sterile, a simple account of an uneventful escort followed by an interception of German bombers. It credited me with victories over an He-111 and a Bf-109. Alexandra’s loss was a line near the end, and like the first one, Gridnev had already signed it at the bottom. I detested how little attention she’d been given, but signed the paper without objection. “This one is accurate, comrade major.”
He tucked the form back into a folder. There was a hint of pride in his eyes, accented by the smile on his face. “You may go, Nadya, and do as you please for the rest of the day. Thank you.”
I stood, bewildered at what had happened. I started for the door, but stopped after a couple of steps and turned back toward him. “Why the two reports?”
“I wasn’t lying about what I said of Alexandra,” he replied. “But there are some who would have liked you to sign the first document and those reasons were not good ones.”
“Petrov…” The Commissar’s name slipped by my lips without thought. My eyes widened at the spoken accusation, but they found nothing to be fearful of in Gridnev’s look.
“Your intuitions serve you well, Nadya,” he said. “I told him you’d never lie, even to benefit another. But I’d leave this exchange—even the false report—unspoken from here on out if I were you. I don’t want him or anyone else thinking you didn’t sign the original report because I tipped you off.”
“Of course, comrade major.”
I should have been happier to have sidestepped Petrov’s little trap. There was no telling what he wanted to do to me had he caught me making false reports. The truth of the matter was, however, there was no telling what he’d try next.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
A ZIS-5 truck idled near my dugout. White smoke from the exhaust hung in the air, making clouds that reminded me of those I’d been in the day before. A driver waited inside the cab, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as he absently stared at the entrance to my earthen home. A few moments later, a soldier came out of the dugout with a stuffed burlap sack over his shoulder and a large book in his arm. Alexandra’s book.
“What are you doing?” I yelled, running up and planting myself between the soldier and the waiting truck.
The young private jumped. He looked himself over with a perplexed expression on his face as if some grave breach in his uniform of winter coat and pants was about to send him to the stockades. “Junior Lieutenant Makunina’s items are being sent to her parents, comrade pilot,” he said. “Major’s orders.”
I snatched the copy of War and Peace he carried like a hawk plucking a fish from water. “This isn’t going.”
“The Major was explicit,” he stammered. “Everything goes.”
“This does not go,” I said.
“The book has her—” The soldier hesitated. His face paled and his voice trailed as he finished his thought. “It has her name in it.”
At that point I realized my left hand had tightened around the handle of my revolver at my side. I let go of the firearm, but kept the intensity in my voice and stare. “This book stays.”
The poor boy shifted the sack on his shoulders, and thankfully for the both of us, he didn’t argue any further. “Yes, comrade pilot.”
I fumed as he hopped in the truck and left, all the while clutching Alexandra’s book against my chest. It was all I had left of her and I’d be damned if I was going to let anyone take it from me. I headed inside the dugout and cringed at how hollow it felt when I looked at Alexandra’s bunk. Without her personal affects around, the place seemed alien, even more so when I noticed Bri and the mutt had taken refuge under Alexandra’s bunk together. I wouldn’t have called them friends, but I assumed their mutual hatred of the cold drove them to a cease fire.
Needing a distraction, I sat on my bunk, opened her book, and thumbed to the first chapter. I had to shift in order for the light outside to reach the pages and see well enough to read:
Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes. But I warn you, if you don’t tell me that this means war, if you still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetuated by that Antichrist-
“So, Junior Lieutenant, it seems you’ve taken to strong-arm robbery now.”
Given the line I was reading, Commissar Petrov’s arrival couldn’t have been any timelier. He stood at the entryway of the dugout, looking at me as hungry as ever. He also held an air of smugness about him, one that said he’d finally gotten what he’d been long searching for.
“I don’t have time or energy to guess what you’re talking about, Commissar,” I said, barely remembering to interject some proper formality into my reply.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” he said as he closed the distance between us. “If you’re going to lie, try not to sweat so much. We both know you stole property from the deceased, with a gun, no less.”
I stood with the strength of a saint accused of blasphemy and kept the book behind my back and out of his reach. “The book is mine.”
“No, Nadya, it’s not,” he said, drawing a thin smile. “The inscription on the inside clearly states it was Alexandra’s, and now it belongs to her family.”
My eyes narrowed, and I wanted nothing more than to pull the man apart, limb from limb. “You’ve got no authority here, and I don’t care what the hell you think you know.”
He struck me on the side of the head with his fist. “I assure you, I have plenty of authority, and this goes beyond a mere book,” he said as I reeled from the blow. As I recovered, he held out his palm. In it was the scorched and slightly melted remains of the syrette I’d tossed into the oil drum the other day. “Recognize it? I missed it yesterday, but this morning I had the inkling to look around one last time. I’m glad I did.”