Nina rattled it off. “Get some rest, Comrade Major,” she finished.
“We’ll rest when the war’s over.”
The year turned; flight training started for the navigators. Flying at night, getting used to the pulse of the blackness around them in the open-air cockpit, cruising under an icy sliver of moon and learning to land with no more aid than a few makeshift runway lights. Everyone knew Raskova would be sorting Aviation Group 122 into its three regiments soon: the day bombers, the night bombers, the fighters. Only the best would be in the fighters, and Nina already knew she wasn’t going to be among them.
It was a strange thing, not to be the best—she’d been the best for so long, certainly the best female in the air club, but here there were hundreds of women who had all been the best in their air clubs. Three members of an aerobatic team had enlisted; they could flip and twirl a plane like birds of prey. Lilia was impervious to air pressure; she’d push her machine to its limit without ever getting dizzy. Yelena could land featherlight on the roughest field in the region. Nina couldn’t match any of them, and she knew it. That hadn’t been a very pleasant realization at first, if she was being honest—her mouth had been sour with envy, realizing she was outclassed. But it hadn’t taken long for envy to fall away under the grinding stones of work and practicality. They were all fighting the damned Hitlerites in the end, if they ever got off this cheerless stretch of airfield by the Volga. When that happened, Nina wanted to fight wingtip to wingtip with fliers even better than she was.
“You’re a high-flying eagle,” Nina told Yelena, “and I’m a little hawk.”
Yelena slid an arm through Nina’s, giving the warm squeeze of reassurance that enchanted Nina every time. Maybe because she’d never really had a woman for a friend before. “You’re no little hawk, Ninochka.”
“I understand how the plane works—I pull the stick in a particular way, the plane moves a particular way. You understand why. Thrust, ratio, aerodynamics—you fly better for knowing all that.” They were crossing the frozen airfield toward the canteen on a freezing January morning. A group of men in mechanics’ overalls let out derisive whistles, but Nina ignored them. “For me, none of the science ever sinks in.” Nina rapped her own forehead. “Hard Siberian skull.”
One of the mechanics was shouting something at Yelena, grabbing his crotch. She still tended to blush when she heard the hoots and crude jokes, but for once she was distracted. “Don’t say you’re stupid, because you aren’t.”
“Maybe not, but I’ll never understand what I do in the air. I just do it.” Nina wriggled her fingers. “Magic.”
Yelena laughed, but it did feel like magic: Nina had no idea why a propeller worked or what the flying wires did, but as soon as the wheels lifted from the ground, her whole body disappeared into the plane. Her arms became wings, her torso filled the cockpit, her feet disappeared into the wheels. The sensation only strengthened in night flying; her eyes disappeared altogether and she could no longer see that she hadn’t become part of the plane. Flying through a midnight sky came as naturally to Nina as a rusalka swimming through her lake. She didn’t have Yelena’s grace or Lilia’s reflexes, but she had no fear of the dark and moved in the air like it was home. It didn’t make her the best, but it made her very good, and for Nina that was enough.
February came to Engels, bearing rumor and heartbreak on an icy wind. One of the navigators learned that her parents had starved to death in Leningrad; a girl in the armorer class had a brother fighting the German advance who swore in his letters that the Fritzes were decorating their tanks with Soviet heads. But even the most ghastly rumor couldn’t dent the ferocious anticipation as the women received their assignments. Nina stood breathless as names were read off.
Aviation Group 122 was no more. There were only the 586th, the 587th, and the 588th. New minted Junior Lieutenant Nina Borisovna Markova would fly out with the 588th.
The night bombers.
Chapter 16
Jordan
Thanksgiving 1946
Boston
Jordan.” Anneliese came into the dining room and dropped the bomb. “Have you been looking through my things?”
Jordan froze, hands full of silverware. She looked across the expanse of dining room table that Anneliese had decorated for Thanksgiving with the gold-rimmed china that only came out of the cupboard a few times a year. Looked at her stepmother, who gazed back at Jordan with quizzical innocence.
“What’s that?” Jordan’s father said, distracted. He was on hands and knees at the sideboard, unearthing the turkey platter.
“I was asking Jordan if she’d been searching my things,” Anneliese said, still with that puzzled air. “Because I think she has been.”
“I was cleaning.” Jordan hitched her voice into use with a jerk she hoped wasn’t too audible. How did you know? “That’s all.”
“Then why were you looking through my Bible?”
The picture, Jordan thought. She’d thought she’d put it back exactly as she found it, but—
Her father rose, puzzled. “What’s this about?”
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. It was Thanksgiving Day—the house smelled of sage and turkey and fresh-baked rolls, sending Taro into a tail-wagging shiver of canine delight. Ruth was laying out napkin rings, rosy cheeked at the idea of her first Thanksgiving. Within the hour, they should have been sitting down to eat. This was not when Jordan had planned to broach the subject of exactly who and what her stepmother might be. She was going to wait until the holiday was done and both Anneliese and Ruth were out of the house. Then she would lay her case before her dad alone, speaking calmly like an adult, not a child with a wild theory. She would convince him first, and then they could surprise Anneliese together.
But now Anneliese was the one who’d surprised her, and all the cards were up in the air.
“It’s nothing, Dad.” Jordan smiled, trying to slide past the moment. “Let’s check the turkey.”
But Anneliese was holding her ground, looking more and more hurt. “My Bible is private. Why would you—”
Jordan’s father was folding his arms now. “What’s going on, missy?”
He wasn’t going to budge, she could tell.
So, then.
Jordan looked at her stepmother, frail and pretty in her powder-blue dress, pearls like congealed ash compressing her throat. Met those blue eyes square and didn’t blink. Anneliese didn’t either, but Jordan thought she saw surprise there—as if her stepmother had expected fluster, not calm.
“If you think this is the time to bring it up,” Jordan said, “then by all means, let’s talk about this.” She laid down the silverware, aware her hands were sweating. “Ruth, will you take the dog into your room and play? Thanks, cricket.” She was not getting into this within Ruth’s earshot. Jordan waited until she heard the click of the bedroom door and then turned back to her stepmother.
“I don’t know if Anneliese Weber is your real name,” Jordan said without preamble. “I don’t know if you were really born in Austria, or if you came to this country legally or were running from something. What I do know is that you’re a liar. You’re a Nazi. And you’re not Ruth’s mother.”