LITMIR.BIZ

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to wish a body would be found.

      She had a sudden urge to take up a gun—in her own two hands, even, and not in the cockpit of her plane—and murder someone. Stalin, perhaps.

      If anyone here could read her mind, hear her thoughts, she’d be barred from flying, sent to a work camp, if not executed outright. Then her parents and sister would be even worse off, with two traitors in the family. So, she should not think ill of Stalin. She should channel her anger toward the real enemy, the ones who’d really killed David. If he were dead. Perhaps he wasn’t dead, only missing, like the report said.

      Inna sat beside her and took her arm. “Raisa, what’s wrong? You look like you’re going to explode.”

      “It’s nothing,” Raisa answered in a whisper.

      She kept writing letters to David as if nothing had happened. The writing calmed her.

       Dear Davidya:

      Did I mention I have three kills now? Three. How many Germans have you killed? Don’t answer that, I know you’ll tell me, and it’ll be more, and I know it’s harder for you because you have to face them with nothing but bullets and bayonets, while I have my beautiful Yak to help me. But still, I feel like I’m doing some good. I’m saving the lives of your fellow infantry. Inna and I stopped a whole squadron from completing its bombing run, and that’s something to be proud of.

       I’m so worried about you, Davidya. I try not to be, but it’s hard.

       Two more kills and I’ll be an ace. Not the first woman ace, though. That’s Liliia Litviak. Amazing Liliia, who fought at Stalingrad. I don’t begrudge her that at all. She’s a very good pilot, I’ve seen her fly. I won’t even claim to be better. But I’m just as good, I know I am. By the way, you should know that if you see a picture of Litviak in the papers (I hear the papers are making much of her, so that she can inspire the troops or some such thing) that Inna is much prettier. Hard to believe, I know, but true. After my next two kills, I wonder if they’ll put my picture in the paper? You could tell everyone you know me. If you’re not too embarrassed by your mouse-faced little sister.

       I’ve gotten a letter from Mama, and I’m worried because she says Da is sick again. I thought he was better, but he’s sick all the time, isn’t he? And there isn’t enough food. He’s probably giving all his to Nina. It’s what I would do. I’m afraid Mama isn’t telling me everything, because she’s worried that I can’t take it. You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?

      You’d think I had enough to worry about, that I wouldn’t worry about home, too. They can take care of themselves. As I can take care of myself, so do not worry about me. We have food, and I get plenty of sleep. Well, I get some sleep. I hear the bombing sometimes, and it’s hard to think they won’t be here next. But never mind.

       Until I see you again, Raisa

      Like dozens of other girls, Raisa had written a letter to the famous pilot Marina Raskova asking her how she could fly for the war. Comrade Raskova had written back: I am organizing a battalion for women. Come.

      Of course Raisa did.

      Da had been angry: he wanted her to stay home and work in a factory—good, proud, noble work that would support the war effort just as much as flying a Yak would. But her mother had looked at him and quietly spoken: Let her have her wings while she can. Da couldn’t argue with that. Her older brother, David, made her promise to write him every day, or at least every week, so he could keep an eye on her. She did.

      Raisa was assigned to the fighter regiment, and for the first time met other girls like herself who’d joined a local flying club, who had to fight for the privilege of learning to fly. At her club, Raisa had been the only girl. The boys didn’t take her seriously at first, laughed when she showed up wanting to take the classes to get her license. But she kept showing up to every session, every meeting, and every class. They had to let her join. Truth to tell, they didn’t take her seriously even after she soloed and scored better on her navigation test than any of the boys. She never said it out loud, but what made Raisa particularly angry was the hypocrisy of it all. The great Soviet experiment with its noble egalitarian principles that was meant to bring equality to all, even between men and women, and here the boys were, telling her she should go home, work in a factory with other women, get married, and have babies, because that was what women were supposed to do. They weren’t meant to fly. They couldn’t fly. She had to prove them wrong over and over again.

      Thank goodness for Marina Raskova, who proved so much for all of them. When she died—a stupid crash in bad weather, from what Raisa heard—the women pilots were afraid they’d be disbanded and sent to factories, building the planes they ought to be flying. Raskova and her connections to the very highest levels—to Stalin himself—were the only things keeping the women flying at the front. But it seemed the women had proven themselves, and they weren’t disbanded. They kept flying, and fighting. Raisa pinned a picture of Raskova from a newspaper to the wall of their dugout. Most of the women paused by it now and then, offering it a smile, or sometimes a frown of quiet grief. More dead pilots had lined up behind her since.

      “I want a combat mission, not scut work,” Raisa told Gridnev. Didn’t salute, didn’t say “sir.” They were all equal Soviet citizens, weren’t they?

      He’d handed her flight its next mission outside the dugout, in a blustery spring wind that Raisa hardly noticed. They were supposed to report to their planes immediately, but she held back to argue. Inna hovered a few yards away, nervous and worried.

      “Stepanova. I need pilots for escort duty. You’re it.”

      “The flight plan takes us a hundred miles away from the front lines. Your VIP doesn’t need escorting, he needs babysitting!”

      “Then you’ll do the babysitting.”

      “Commander, I just need those next two kills—”

      “You need to serve the homeland in whatever fashion the homeland sees fit.”

      “But—”

      “This isn’t about you. I need escort pilots; you’re a pilot. Now go.”

      Gridnev walked away before she did. She looked after him, fuming, wanting to shout. She wouldn’t get to kill anything flying as an escort.

      She marched to the flight line.

      Inna ran after her. “Raisa, what’s gotten into you?”

      Her partner had asked that every hour for the last day, it seemed like. Raisa couldn’t hide. And if she couldn’t trust Inna, she couldn’t trust anyone.

      “David’s missing in action,” Raisa said, and kept walking.

      She opened her mouth, properly shocked and pitying, as Pavel had done. “Oh—oh no. I’m so sorry.”

      “It’s nothing. But I have to work twice as hard, right?”

      They continued to their planes in silence.

      Raisa’s hands itched. They lay lightly on the stick, and she didn’t have to do much to keep steady. The air was calm, and they—Inna, Katya, and Tamara were in the other fighters—were flying in a straight line, practically. But she wanted to shoot something. They weren’t told who it was in the Li-2 they guarded, not that it would have mattered. But she imagined it might be Stalin himself. She wondered if she’d have the courage to radio to him, “Comrade, let me tell you about my brother …” But the higher-ups wouldn’t tap a flight of women pilots from the front to protect the premier. It wasn’t him.

      Not that their VIP needing guarding. Out here, the most dangerous thing she faced was the other pilots slipping out of formation and crashing into her. That would be embarrassing.

      Just before they’d left, the radio operator had brought news that Liliia had scored another kill. Six confirmed kills.

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