Aimie Runyan - Daughters of the Night Sky

“You’ve been shot,” I said, unzipping the top of my suit and unbuttoning my blouse. It wasn’t pristine, but it would do for bandages until I could get her back to the base for proper medical attention.

“I already deduced as much,” she said in a flat voice.

I began tearing my blouse into strips. “I need to get you patched up and back to base. You need a medic. A surgeon,” I corrected as I assessed the damage to her side.

She sat still as I tried to stem the flow of blood. Her breathing was strong, though raspy, as I applied the strips of cloth to the angry red flesh in a makeshift bandage and held my hands over the covered wound, hoping to stem the flow of blood. I didn’t seem to be making much progress, so I zipped her suit back up, hoping her blouse and suit would do their part to help the wound clot before it claimed too much of her blood, and I maintained pressure on the injured area. Oksana was a pale woman by nature, but she had gone from alabaster to crystalline in color from the loss of blood.

“Do you think you can walk?” I asked, barely audible, the image of German soldiers looming in the back of my brain. I could accept a death from being shot down. A good, clean death. What we would suffer at their hands would be worse than any fate I could conjure from the deepest crevasses of my brain.

“I’m not sure. I just need to catch my breath,” Oksana whispered. She took in a deep, raspy breath. “I’m cold. It’s always so damned cold.”

I lay beside her and pulled her into my arms, tucking her head under my chin, doing all I could not to upset her injury. I willed every ounce of my warmth into her broken body. I expected her to rebuff my embrace, as self-reliant as she always was, but she turned her face into my chest and took in a deep, ragged breath.

“You always smell like vanilla sugar somehow,” she said. “Sweet and wholesome. Like Yana’s cookies.”

“I’m sure she’ll have platters of them waiting when you get home,” I said, wondering how soon that day would come for Oksana. Sooner than for me, I wagered. I was certain she’d need time to heal from this injury and hoped the advances westward would have the war tied up before she was fit for service again.

“No, Katya,” Oksana said, her whisper even lower. “She’s gone.”

I gingerly tightened my embrace for a moment. “When did you receive word?”

“She died before the war started. When Stalin had his head up his ass and refused to stop the German army until they practically set up offices at the Kremlin.”

“What reason could they have for killing a young girl?” From the few times Oksana had mentioned Yana, I couldn’t imagine she was like us. She wasn’t the kind to take up arms.

“She was Jewish.” Oksana sighed. “They killed her, her parents, her baby brother. Gunned them down like stray dogs.”

“My God, Oksana. I had no idea. You always spoke of her as though she lived and breathed still.”

“I couldn’t bring myself to say otherwise,” Oksana said. “You keep alive for your Vanya. Taisiya had her Matvei. I had to have something to cling to.”

The meaning of her words seeped into me like the cold, dank air of the cave. She could never have spoken this way before. One word about exactly how dear Yana had been to her could well have resulted in her losing her wings and her place in the regiment.

What words of solace could I offer? This sullen girl now made perfect sense as I held her bleeding in my arms. She wasn’t simply angry. She’d been grieving. She used her churlish mask to protect her from the reality of life without Yana. She needed that mask to fight—to exact some revenge from the people who had cut short a life that had been so precious to her.

“Oksana, I wish I’d known. I would have tried to understand… tried to help you cope with it all. I would have been a better friend.”

“You were always a good friend to me, Katya. Even when I didn’t deserve it.”

“Nonsense,” I said, wishing I could think of more instances when I’d reached out to her when we’d first met. Tried to get to know her when she was still reeling from her loss.

“I need you to do something for me,” she said.

“Anything,” I said, stroking the back of her head, my fingers brushing over her silver-blond tresses.

“Can you take word to my family in Aix? My parents are gone, but my aunt and uncle, my cousin—I want them to remember me. And I don’t want them to hear about it in a letter. Take Yana’s drawing to them. You can take whatever you want from my effects and give them the rest.”

“Don’t talk like that, Oksana. We’re getting up. We’re going now if you’re going to try to give in like this.” I moved to release her from my arms and stand, but she summoned the strength to clutch my suit and keep me seated.

“It’s too late for me, Katya. Too much blood. I feel light. Like floating. Please just promise me.” The color in her lips had gone from rosy to blue, and she’d begun to shiver. She spoke the truth, and there was nothing I could do to save her.

I gripped her close to my chest, hoping to spread my warmth to her. “I can’t promise,” I said, not wanting any of our final words to be half-truths or empty promises. “But if I survive, I will do my best. I’ll beg for papers. I’ll do what I can.”

“That’s all I can ask,” Oksana said. I felt her muscles relax, as though I’d relieved her of a heavy burden. “Take your Vanya with you. Have a proper honeymoon by the sea.”

“Can’t you please try?” I pressed my lips to the top of her silvery head, my tears streaming into her hair. “We can try to get you back to the base.”

“I’ll slow you down too much, Katya. You need to go. Soon. I can’t risk your life for the slim chance of saving mine.”

“Oksana—”

“That’s an order from your superior officer. The others need you, Katya. And I’ve done my part. I can die knowing that I have.”

“I can’t lead them the way you and Sofia did,” I said, wiping my face free of the tears.

“No, you’ll lead them in your own way. Tell the commanders I named you as my preferred replacement, though I’m sure they will know it. Now go, Katya. Stay low. I haven’t heard bombs for a while now, so you should be clear from our side.”

She trembled in my arms, from cold, pain, and exhaustion, I was sure, no longer from fear. I wanted to argue. I wanted to refuse to leave. I did not want to disturb the peace of her last moments on earth with a dispute, however, and knew she would only repeat her order if I countermanded her.

My shivers equaled hers as I pulled away from our embrace. I lowered my face to hers and kissed her lips. She’d gone so long without tenderness. Her lips were cold as I pressed mine against them, wishing the air from my lungs could breathe life into hers.

She looked up with her gray-blue eyes, her gaze distant as she tried to focus on my face. “Thank you, Katya. Go and be well. Go home to your Vanya, and make some little painters. The world needs more painters.”

“And the first girl will be Oksana. For you.”

I kissed the top of her head once more and dashed for the mouth of the cave before I lost the resolve to leave.

The camp can’t be far. I can make it there in time and round up a search crew. The brass will allow it for the commander of the regiment. They have to.

I wasn’t more than ten meters away when I heard the crack of her service pistol. I stopped stock still for a moment and swiveled back to look at the entrance to the cave where Oksana’s body now lay.

I could go back and face the scene she tried to spare me from, or I could follow her orders.

I turned in the direction of the sun, whose weak rays had just begun to break over the crests to the east, and placed one foot in front of the other, back to where my duty called me.