Another week passed with no news of David. Most likely he was dead. Officially, he had deserted, and Raisa supposed she had to consider that he actually had, except that that made no sense. Where would he go? Or maybe he was simply lost and hadn’t made his way back to his regiment yet. She wanted to believe that.
Gridnev called her to the operations dugout, and she presented herself at his desk. A man, a stranger in a starched army uniform, stood with him.
The air commander was grim and stone-faced as he announced, “Stepanova, this is Captain Sofin.” Then Gridnev left the room.
Raisa knew what was coming. Sofin put a file folder on the desk and sat behind it. He didn’t invite her to sit.
She wasn’t nervous, speaking to him. But she had to tamp down on a slow, tight anger.
“Your brother is David Ivanovich Stepanov?”
“Yes.”
“Are you aware that he has been declared missing in action?”
She shouldn’t have known, officially, but it was no good hiding it. “Yes, I am.”
“Do you have any information regarding his whereabouts?”
Don’t you have a war you ought to be fighting? she thought. “I assume he was killed. So many are, after all.”
“You have received no communication from him?”
And what if he found all those letters she’d been writing him and thought them real? “None at all.”
“I must tell you that if you receive any news of him at all, it’s your duty to inform command.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We will be watching closely, Raisa Stepanova.”
She wanted to leap across the table in the operations dugout and strangle the little man with the thin moustache. Barring that, she wanted to cry, but didn’t. Her brother was dead, and they’d convicted him without evidence or trial.
What was she fighting for, again? Nina and her parents, and even Davidya. Certainly not this man.
He dismissed her without ever raising his gaze from the file folder he studied, and she left the dugout.
Gridnev stood right outside the door, lurking like a schoolboy, though a serious one who worried too much. No doubt he had heard everything. She wilted, blushing, face to the ground, like a kicked dog.
“You have a place here at the 586th, Stepanova. You always will.”
She smiled a thanks but didn’t trust her voice to say anything. Like observing that Gridnev would have little to say in the matter, in the end.
No, she had to earn her innocence. If she gathered enough kills, if she became an ace, they couldn’t touch her, any more than they could tarnish the reputation of Liliia Litviak. If she became enough of a hero, she could even redeem David.
Winter ended, but that only meant the insects came out in force, mosquitoes and biting flies that left them all miserable and snappish. Rumors abounded that the Allied forces in Britain and America were planning a massive invasion, that the Germans had a secret weapon they’d use to level Moscow and London. Living in a camp on the front, news was scarce. They got orders, not news, and could only follow those orders.
It made her tired.
“Stepanova, you all right?”
She’d parked her plane after flying a patrol, tracing a route along the front, searching for imminent attacks and troops on the move—perfectly routine, no Germans spotted. The motor had grumbled to stillness and the propeller had stopped turning long ago, but she remained in her cockpit, just sitting. The thought of pulling herself, her bulky gear, her parachute, logbook, helmet, all the rest of it, out of the cockpit and onto the wing left her feeling exhausted. She’d done this for months, and now, finally, she wasn’t sure she had anything left. She couldn’t read any numbers on the dials, no matter how much she blinked at the instrument panel.
“Stepanova!” Martya, her mechanic, called to her again, and Raisa shook herself awake.
“Yes, I’m fine, I’m coming.” She slid open the canopy, gathered her things, and hauled herself over the edge.
Martya was waiting for her on the wing in shirt and overalls, sleeves rolled up, kerchief over her head. She couldn’t have been more than twenty, but her hands were rough from years of working on engines.
“You look terrible,” Martya said.
“Nothing a shot of vodka and a month in a feather bed won’t fix,” Raisa said, and the mechanic laughed.
“How’s your fuel?”
“Low. You think she’s burning more than she should?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me. She’s been working hard. I’ll look her over.”
“You’re the best, Martya.” The mechanic gave her a hand off the wing, and Raisa pulled her into a hug.
Martya said, “Are you sure you’re all right?” Raisa didn’t answer.
“Raisa!” That was Inna, walking over from her own plane, dragging her parachute with one arm, her helmet tucked under her other. “You all right?”
She wished people would stop asking that.
“Tired, I think,” Martya answered for her. “You know what we need? A party or a dance or something. There are enough handsome boys around here to flirt with.” She was right: the base was filled with male pilots, mechanics, and soldiers, and they were all dashing and handsome. The odds were certainly in the women’s favor. Raisa hadn’t really thought of it before.
Inna sighed. “Hard to think of flirting when you’re getting bombed and shot at.”
Martya leaned on the wing and looked wistful. “After the war, we’ll be able to get dressed up. Wash our hair with real soap and go dancing.”
“After the war. Yes,” Inna said.
“After we win the war,” Raisa said. “We won’t be dancing much if the Fascists win.”
They went quiet, and Raisa regretted saying anything. It was the unspoken assumption when people talked about “after the war”: of course they’d win. If they lost, there wouldn’t be an “after” at all.
Not that Raisa expected to make it that far.
Davidya:
I’ve decided that I’d give up being a fighter ace if it meant we could both get through the war alive. Don’t tell anyone I said that; I’d lose my reputation for being fierce, and for being hideously jealous of Liliia Litviak. If there’s a God, maybe he’ll hear me, and you’ll come walking out of the wilderness, alive and well. Not dead and not a traitor. We’ll go home, and Mama and Da and Nina will be well, and we can forget that any of this ever happened. That’s my dream now.
I’ve still got that letter, the hideous one I wrote for you in case I die. I ought to burn it, since Inna doesn’t have anyone to send it to now.
Your sister, Raisa