Aimie Runyan - Daughters of the Night Sky

At the end of the night’s work, the women turned to me, their faces expectant. Orders. They’re waiting for me to give orders. I didn’t feel a surge of pride, only the weight of the responsibility I bore to keep them safe.

“Renata, lead the crews in regular maintenance. The rest of you, get some sleep.” Renata beamed at the unspoken promotion from armorer to mechanic. She’d had a brilliant teacher in Polina and would follow her flawless example.

I could have taken the time to get some rest but found myself seated behind Oksana’s desk. My desk. Maps, official orders, and telegrams covered the surface so that the scarred top wasn’t visible. I began to wade through the piles of documentation that had accumulated since Oksana’s passing, on the desk that had always been so painstakingly organized.

The newest message, now addressed to me, contained orders to move west, yet again. Closer and closer to the German border. No regrouping to the east in months. Onward, ever onward.

My orders were clear. Longer sorties. As many flights as we could manage in a single night, every single night the weather allowed for it. Any time there was a suitable target within range, we were to attack.

I knew it meant only one thing: victory was in our reach, but we could not falter if we were to grasp it.

June 1945, the Battle of Berlin, Sorties: 1,106

The city of Berlin lay in ashes. Empty husks of buildings teetered and collapsed at random, filling the streets with dust and trapping war-weary citizens beneath the rubble. The German people eyed us with distrust and stooped their heads, avoiding eye contact. They cowered in the presence of the massive portrait of Stalin erected just outside the Brandenburg Gate. The city, and indeed all of Europe, was being cleaved in two—all that was Soviet, and all that wasn’t. Comrade Stalin had to be pleased with his victory. He’d paid for it with plenty of Soviet blood.

We stood at alert, waiting for an insurgency. The commanders were certain there would be one, but I doubted there would be attacks of any real significance. With Hitler dead in his bunker, the serpent of Germany had been decapitated. There was no one left with the drive to fight. I wondered if, without Stalin at the helm, Russians would have taken to the streets to defend Moscow. It was all too easy to imagine my own countrymen wearing this haunted look of defeat and acquiescence.

Ground troops were charged with keeping the peace, and we were simply there to await the official surrender orders to return home. We found ourselves with almost nothing to occupy our time. Now that we didn’t have missions all night long, we all tried to adjust to a normal rest schedule but found the dark of night too unsettling for slumber.

At odds with idleness, we spent our newly acquired free hours wandering into Berlin during the day as sleep eluded us. Never alone, always in groups. We circumnavigated the outskirts of the city, knowing many of the streets were impassable from the mountains of rubble.

“Do you have the time?” Renata asked, rubbing her bare wrist as we walked along.

“No,” Polina answered. “Does it matter? No one expects us until tomorrow.”

The deciduous forests to the east of Berlin were a change from the lush evergreens of home, but the parts that remained intact were thriving and verdant—indifferent to the hate that engulfed the city to the west. It felt good and natural to have twigs and branches underfoot instead of the blasted remnants of pavement and cobbles. The air was thick with smoke, not the pine-scented purity I associated with a ramble in the woods, but it was one step closer to home.

“I’ve written to Mama,” Renata said, still fidgeting with her wrist. “I’ve asked her to make her famous potato pancakes and zharkoye . And blintzes with black currant preserves. The minute I get home.”

“Your mama will have you the size of a house within the first month of your homecoming,” Polina chided.

Renata’s descriptions of her mother’s zharkoye —beef stew—were nearly as longing and tender as our comrades’ descriptions of their husbands and sweethearts and had been used more than once as a distraction from our poor rations. “All the better,” Renata retorted. “I’m entitled to a few months of gluttony after four years of hard work and army rations.”

“Absolutely true,” I agreed, remembering the massive gingerbread matryoshka doll pryanik of my youth. I had army pay now. I’d buy a dozen if the store was still open and operating as soon as I got back to Moscow. I’d eat three for myself before I crossed the threshold back onto the street, and give the other nine to the hungriest-looking children I came across. And then likely return for more when I realized how many more children were in need of some sweetness in their lives. I spared a thought for Comrade Mishin and the children he tended. For Oksana’s sake, I hoped they’d managed to survive, though the odds against them had been overwhelming.

Grinning, Polina kept up her teasing of Renata. “So much for finding a handsome hero to make little Soviet babies with.”

“Any man who has been to war will be pleased to see a woman with some meat on her bones,” Renata said. “They’ve all seen enough of the contrary.”

“I think they’ll be glad for the affections of a healthy, happy woman,” I said, then allowed my thoughts to wander as I hadn’t since before the height of the war. I hadn’t heard from Vanya in three months, but few of us had seen letters or postcards since we crossed into Germany. I hoped he wasn’t far from here, but we would have to wait for our reunion in Moscow unless we were remarkably lucky.

We heard a muffled scream up ahead, followed by deep-voiced chuckles. Renata and Polina looked over at me, awaiting orders; we’d been part of the military machine for so long, we didn’t even consider breaking ranks, even though we were all but discharged from duty. A second scream pierced the air, and I motioned for them to follow me as quietly and quickly as the root-strewn path would allow.

We happened upon two of our soldiers and a German girl of about sixteen.

One knelt between the girl’s knees, his trousers dropped. The other had her pinned down to the forest floor with one hand and was groping her breasts through a tear in her blouse with the other.

“Get off of her, you disgusting jackasses,” I snarled.

“What do you care what we do with some German bitch?” the man with his pants down said, barely glancing back at us. “We’ve won the war; we’re able to do with them as we please.” This soldier, no more than twenty years old, wore the marks of a lieutenant. The other was a sergeant.

“Get off of her,” I spat again. The soldiers looked at me in disgust but made no signs of movement. “That’s an order.”

“Fuck off,” the kneeling soldier said.

The poor girl, her blond hair matted with blood and her eyes pressed shut against her nightmare, whimpered softly.

I pulled out my service revolver and pointed it at the soldier’s head. “I am your superior officer. I will not repeat my order a third time.” I heard Polina and Renata free their pistols behind me as well.

The man must have seen the eyes of his companion facing me widen, because he turned. If he was alarmed by finding three pistol barrels trained upon him, he didn’t reveal it. But he did sigh and sit back. “Disloyal whore,” he mumbled, pulling up his trousers. The sergeant at least had the good graces to look embarrassed. “I should report you for this.”

“How do you think it would go for you? I’m within my rights to shoot you where you stand, you insubordinate prick. Get back to your regiment, and busy yourself cleaning latrines. It’s a far better use of your time.”