The Huntress

by Kate Quinn

  There was no chopping buzz in the air signaling a third plane.

  “Where is Squadron Commander—” someone began, but Bershanskaia cut her off. She didn’t say anything. She just shook her head.

  The girls stared at each other. Not even one night active, Nina thought with a painful twist in her stomach, and the regiment had its first two losses.

  Bershanskaia looked from pilot to pilot, finding the white-faced deputy commander of the second squadron. “The squadron is now yours, Mariya Smirnova.” A silent nod. “Get some rest, ladies. Tomorrow you all take the air.”

  MOST OF THE GIRLS trailed back to their quarters, some pale and stunned, some crying. Yelena headed the opposite direction, toward the flat field where the rest of the U-2s waited. Nina fell in at her side, shock still rolling sickly inside her. Two women dead, two women she had known . . .

  “You should go to bed,” Yelena said.

  “I’m not leaving my pilot.” That surge of protectiveness overcame Nina again, laced this time with tenderness. “Navigator’s first job.”

  She caught up, taking Yelena’s hand, and the long fingers tangled through hers. Nina’s throat caught. They made their way to their U-2, staring up at it silently. Just a black shape against the stars. No proper airdromes so close to the front; on a fine summer night like this the planes sat in silent camouflaged rows in the flattened grass. Where will we be flying by winter? Nina wondered. If the German army was still in full advance by then, would it mean Moscow had fallen? Probably Leningrad too, starving and encircled, and Stalingrad . . .

  “What do you think tomorrow’s targets will be?” Yelena’s voice was soft in the dark.

  “German depots or ammunition supplies,” Nina guessed.

  Yelena ran her hand along the bombing rack under the lower wing of their plane. “Not much firepower on a U-2.”

  “Enough to disrupt, pester. Like a mosquito—you know that.”

  “But we’re just one mosquito in a big war.”

  “One mosquito in a cloud of mosquitoes,” Nina corrected. “And a cloud of mosquitoes can drive a man or even a horse so mad with pain, it’ll plunge into the lake and drown itself.”

  Yelena noticed Nina’s involuntary shudder at her own words. “What?”

  “Drowning. The one thing I’m afraid of.” She took a steadying breath, for a moment tasting the iron tang of the lake, feeling her father’s hand shoving her head under the ice. “What do you fear, Yelenushka?”

  “Getting captured and tortured. Crashing . . .” Yelena shivered. “What if it’s us tomorrow?”

  Nina was silent. There was only faint starlight, but she had no trouble seeing Yelena’s pale face. She saw it clear as day: the wide-set long-lashed eyes, the firm lips pressed into a line to keep from trembling, the dark hair that had grown from its training-day chop into short dark curls around her long neck. Nina reached up, taking hold of Yelena’s flying scarf with its half-stitched blue stars, and tugged her down so they could see eye to eye. “It won’t be us,” she said, and she fit her mouth over Yelena’s. Soft lips, soft cheeks, fingers sliding into Yelena’s soft hair. A moment’s stiffening, a surprised little sound like a startled cygnet disappearing into the warmth between them. Then there was a tentative parting of lips. A slender hand alighted on Nina’s cheek, and her blood turned to quicksilver.

  Yelena’s eyes were wide when they pulled apart. Nina wanted to soar. She didn’t need the U-2 to take flight, she could take a running leap and fling herself up among the stars. With one hand she patted the plane, and with the other she seized Yelena by the wrist. “This bird needs a name,” she said. “Come on.”

  They rummaged in the temporary mechanic headquarters, begging a can of red paint and some brushes from the few mechanics still prowling among their planes, and carried it all back to their U-2, pulling aside just enough of the camouflage to get to work. Yelena did the painting while Nina and her sharper nighttime eyes directed the placement of the letters. “That last word is wandering up—down, stick down! Does Raskova know she picked a pilot who doesn’t know up from down?”

  “Does Raskova know she picked a navigator who can’t give the simplest of directions?” Yelena swiped Nina with the paintbrush.

  Dawn was perhaps an hour away by the time they finished. The last mechanics had gone; Nina and Yelena were surely the only two not asleep in their quarters. They surveyed their work, Nina sitting on the U-2’s lower wing feet swinging, Yelena standing at her side head tilted. Along the fuselage, neat red letters read To Avenge Our Comrades with the names of the regiment’s first two losses. On the other side was the U-2’s new name.

  Rusalka.

  “Silent and immortal,” Yelena said. “I like that.”

  “So do I,” said Nina and reached out to tug Yelena’s mouth to hers again. Not surprising her this time, moving slow to give her a chance to tug away—please don’t tug away—and she didn’t. Her hands cupped Nina’s face, her lips hungry and shy. Nina felt the swoop in her stomach that she always felt when she began spiraling nose-first into a stall. The weightless delirium of falling.

  “I haven’t—” Yelena said uncertainly, lips still brushing Nina’s, her fingers wound tight through Nina’s hair. “Why me?”

  “Because you’re the best flier I’ve ever seen,” Nina said. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in the air as you.”

  “Girls don’t—aren’t supposed to—”

  “I don’t care about aren’t supposed to,” Nina said roughly, sliding off the wing to pull her pilot down to the ground. The shadow under the Rusalka’s wing was dark as a lake, the crushed grass sweet and soft. Fumbling around overalls—was anything less designed for lovemaking than overalls? Nina had enough coherence left to wonder. Everything felt unfamiliar, intoxicating. Yelena had such smooth skin, an endlessly curving spine like a string of pearls, what seemed like a kilometer of ivory-pale waist. It should have been awkward, a dance they didn’t know, but it wasn’t at all. They were a perfect pair in the sky, moving like one—they could move like one down here on the ground, with the protective shadow of the camouflaged U-2 hiding them from sight, and the distant noise of ground fire and antiaircraft guns hiding any stifled, curlew-soft sounds of pleasure. My pilot, Nina thought, her hand stroking over Yelena’s hip. Mine.

  “Dawn,” Yelena whispered eventually. “We should get back.”

  “Don’t want to.” Nina yawned against Yelena’s arm.

  “We have to, rabbit.” Kissing Nina’s temple. “Tonight we fly.”

  Nina opened her eyes to the pinkness at the east. She already wanted stars again, wanted darkness, wanted night. Wanted the night to wrap up the three of them, herself and Yelena and the Rusalka, and send them to do what they’d been born to do. Nina sat up, feeling her lips curl in a smile. “I can’t wait.”

  Chapter 19

  Jordan

  Thanksgiving 1946

  Boston

  Jordan sat in the red glow of the safelight, flipping the Leica’s shutter back and forth. Even the darkroom smelled of burned turkey. I’m not crying, she told herself. But her breath hitched from time to time, and even the familiar embrace of the darkroom was no comfort. Perhaps upstairs Anneliese was sobbing and Jordan’s father was consoling her and Ruth was wondering why her very first Thanksgiving was not happening, after all. And at some point Dan McBride would come down here and say—

  Jordan flinched. The crumpled look on Anneliese’s face, the destroyed hunch in her shoulders as she fled the dining room . . .

  I was right. So why do I feel I got it all wrong? Jordan’s thoughts flickered back to the photographs, the Iron Cross, Anneliese’s dead father and his tattoo and the incriminating date, then she caught herself looking back at the image of Anneliese fleeing the dining room, studying it clinically, for signs of lying. Of putting on an act. A bone-deep wince followed: Haven’t you done enough?

  Round and round. Photographs and so-called proof and a ruined holiday. The only thing she kn
ew for certain was that she was no longer sure of the case she’d put together. No longer sure of anything at all.

  Finally it came—the sound of the darkroom door opening. A light switch flicked, the red glow of the safelight drowned in the harsh glare of white overhead bulbs, and then there was her dad, coming down the steps. Jordan made herself face him, putting the Leica aside. She met his gaze, knowing her face was already twisting up, but she couldn’t stop it. He didn’t look angry. She might have braced herself against anger. He looked exhausted, sad, disappointed. A look that made her shrivel inside, because she’d rather die than disappoint her father.

  “Anna’s finally sleeping,” he began. “I’ve scraped together some dinner for Ruth. Do you want any?”

  “No.” Jordan’s stomach was roiling so hard, she didn’t think she’d ever eat again.

  “I don’t know what to say.” He sounded so weary, so defeated. “I don’t know how to—fix this. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you more about Anna, that she’d changed her name. It’s my fault.”

  “It’s not your fault. She’s the one who lied, Dad,” Jordan managed to say. “To you, and to me. Even if everything she said was true about why she did it, she still lied.”

  “She did. I won’t say I’m not angry with her. It was very wrong. But she’s sorry, Jordan. She was crying her eyes out upstairs, saying it over and over.” His voice was thick. “People have reasons to lie, to hide things. Since the war I see refugees in my shop every week, selling their last antique brooch or bit of silver—men with names they’ve obviously changed, women holding children who don’t look anything like them, people making excuses for their scars or their accents. Every week I see people who were ashamed of what they did in the war, or what their friends did. War makes millions of people like that. Yes, she was wrong to lie. But that doesn’t mean I don’t understand why she did it. That I don’t still love her.”

  It wasn’t like her dad to speak so frankly, so emotionally. He’s hurting, Jordan thought. He’s hurting so much. “So you believe her?”

  He spread his hands, helpless. “What’s more likely, missy? That she has a father and a name she’s too ashamed to claim, and a child who isn’t hers? Or that she’s some kind of Nazi schemer out of a Nuremberg headline?”

  “I never said that!”

  “You said she was dangerous.” He spoke gently. “You said she could be anything, a murderer. You say she lied to cover up something terrible; she says she lied to cover up something she was ashamed of. Now, we’ve lived with her for months. We know her. She’s never been anything but good to you, and to me she’s been everything I could possibly . . .” He paused, swallowing. “We know her, Jordan. So I ask you: Which explanation is more likely? That she’s dangerous? Or just ashamed?”

  Jordan’s eyes spilled over then. She stood with tears streaming down her face, not even trying not to sob. Her father put an arm around her shoulders, pulled her against his side. He still sounded defeated. “I don’t blame you for wanting answers. You were right to ask. I just wish you’d—come to Anna about it differently. Willing to listen, as well as question.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” Jordan managed to say. “I was just—following what I saw.” And you did see something, she thought, but so what? Her dad was right; she’d looked immediately for the worst explanation possible.

  Jordan and her wild imagination. Where had it gotten her? Here, watching her father struggle so painfully with his disappointment.

  “Maybe I should have sent you to college, after all,” he said. “Anna was all for it. She said it would help you grow up, get your head out of the clouds. But I was hoping so much that you’d want to take the shop over from me. You and Garrett both, maybe. It was only a curio junk-room when I took it over from your grandfather, I wanted to make it into something special for you. A real future . . .”

  His voice trailed off, but not before Jordan heard the naked hurt. The note in his voice of why isn’t it good enough, what I made for you? She felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach.

  “I don’t know how to fix this,” he said again, and she could see he was close to tears. Her rock-solid father, who had never shed a tear before Jordan in his whole life.

  “I’m the one who needs to fix it.” She let her head drop on his shoulder. “I’ll—I’ll apologize to Anna when she wakes up. I’ll make it right with her, I promise.”

  “She’ll need to make it right with you too. She needs to be more forthcoming with you, and she and I will talk about that.” He kissed the top of Jordan’s head. “You’re my girl, and you were looking out for your old dad. I know that.” He turned away, toward the stairs. He wanted to hide the tears in his eyes, Jordan knew. He couldn’t bear for her to see that. “I should put Ruth to bed.”

  As he tramped up the stairs, Jordan could see the first touches of gray in his hair.

  GARRETT ANSWERED JORDAN’S KNOCK, framed by the doorway. Jordan’s eye automatically composed the shot, but she had no camera, and anyway, his smile fell away when he saw her face. “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything.” Jordan chafed her cold hands together; she’d run out of the darkroom straight into a cab, no coat or gloves. “I just needed to get away from home for a little while.”

  Garrett steered her in, past a dining room littered with pie plates. Jordan smelled pumpkin pie, cinnamon, coffee. Garrett’s father was half asleep behind a newspaper; he bid a sleepy hello, and Garrett’s mother came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on her apron.

  “Jordan dear, you look like you’ve been crying. Family squabble? These things happen at holidays. Every Christmas I swear this is the year I’m going to scratch my cousin Kathy’s eyes out if she makes one more condescending remark about my cranberry sauce. Let me get you some cocoa . . .”

  Soon Jordan and Garrett were sitting with whipped-cream-topped mugs in his bedroom, door left ajar after Mrs. Byrne’s habitual twinkling “Don’t get into any trouble, you two!” Garrett swept the pieces of a half-finished model airplane out of the way.

  “The Travel Air 4000,” he said, self-conscious. “I know model kits are for kids, but it’s the plane I learned to fly on when I joined up . . . What happened, Jor?”

  “I’ve sent my stepmother into hysterics and possibly destroyed my father’s marriage,” Jordan said. “How’s that for a Thanksgiving squabble? I’d rather have someone scratching my eyes out over cranberry sauce.”

  Garrett tugged her into his chest, and Jordan inhaled the comforting smell of cocoa and model airplane glue. He didn’t interrupt while she blurted out the rest. Garrett never tried to offer advice when anyone was upset, just hugged and listened. “What are you going to do?” he asked when she was done.

  “Grovel to Anna, hope she forgives me.” Jordan wiped her eyes on his green sweater. “You never believed my crackpot theories about her, did you?”

  “You’re not one of those girls at school always making things up, Jor. You’re not crazy. You saw clues. Maybe you were wrong about what they added up to, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there.”

  “No, I was right—Anneliese was hiding something. But I was jealous when Dad wanted to bring her into the family, as much as I didn’t want to admit it, and that made me more interested in my theory that she was dangerous than the possibility that there might be another explanation. A harmless explanation. So I ended up hurting everyone.” The humiliation stung red-hot. I haven’t really come very far from that little girl who told herself her mother had gone away to become a movie star because that was a better story than the truth.

  “Look on the bright side,” Garrett said. “Your stepmother isn’t some sinister Nazi, just a nice lady who makes punschkrapfen.”

  “I was so stupid.” Lurking around her darkroom linking up dramatic theories, thinking she was so clever and observant. Thinking she was J. Bryde, future Pulitzer winner—what a joke.

  “It’ll blow over,” Garrett said, sounding helpless.

  “I ha
ve a lot of making up to do.” And you’d better get started, Jordan told herself. Because face it: you’re not going to be the next Margaret Bourke-White or Gerda Taro. You’re just an idiot girl who thought you could see like a camera, and all you ended up doing was hurting everyone you love. But you have a good family, if you don’t ruin things with them, and a good future. So go home, and start being grateful.

  “I should get back,” she said, setting aside her cold cocoa.

  “I’ll drive you.”

  But they ended up pulling over halfway there, Garrett pulling his Chevrolet coup up next to the river when he saw Jordan was crying again. Because she was remembering that first photograph of Anneliese, the photograph that had started everything, wondering how that feeling had been so wrong—that surge of swift, sure recognition, of knowledge. Knowing that she had taken one of the best pictures of her life, knowing that in it she had seen something hidden and true and important. But it was all wrong. She hadn’t seen anything at all.

  “Come here,” Garret said, kissing her in the dark car by way of comfort, his warm lips tasting like cocoa. Jordan twined her hands tight around his neck, squeezing her eyes tight shut. In a few more minutes she’d have to go back home, face her dad again, start forming an apology for Anneliese, but not yet. Garrett was pulling her collar open; Jordan hesitated a moment, then slipped the buttons of her blouse all the way down, and pulled his hands around toward the clasp of her brassiere. She could feel his surprise—this was where they usually stopped—but Jordan pulled him close for another kiss, and he gave a soft groan and tugged her hands under his sweater. If it had been a warm summer night, Jordan thought, they probably would have gotten on with it, right there with the sound of the slow-moving Charles River going by outside. But it was November, freezing cold, and the honks of holiday traffic sounded nearby, and eventually they pulled apart, breathing hard.

  “Um,” Garrett said, fumbling to do up his belt. “I didn’t mean to, um. Push you—”

  “You didn’t,” Jordan said, even though it wasn’t what girls were supposed to say. Boys pushed, and girls scolded them. “I’m the one who pushed,” she added, though girls weren’t supposed to say that either, much less do it. But she didn’t feel guilty, sitting here doing up her brassiere in the front seat of Garrett’s Chevrolet. She wished it were warm enough to just move to the backseat and keep going, keep kissing, keep putting off the moment where she’d have to go home. She looked out at the moonlight on the Charles and pushed away a surge of dread. “I should get back now.”