Sapphire Skies

by Belinda Alexandra

  The train Orlov was on with his mother and brother caught fire outside Chita. Those who survived the inferno fled to a village that had been hit by typhus. Orlov’s mother caught the disease and died a week later. Fyodor had to give the priest every last rouble in their possession so that she could be buried with the proper rites.

  ‘The priest said that Vladivostok has fallen to the Reds,’ Fyodor told Orlov. ‘Father is either dead or has already fled to China. Our only choice is to go back to Moscow.’

  With no money for the fares, Orlov and Fyodor returned to Moscow by hanging onto the undercarriages of trains, along with other orphans who hoped to escape the famine by going to the big city. When they returned to their home, they found that their grandparents were gone and the house had been occupied by proletarian families.

  A former servant took pity on them and admitted them to an orphanage. But when Fyodor laid eyes on the overflowing latrines and the emaciated faces of the children, he pushed Orlov out of a ground-floor window and they took to living on the streets. Their upbringing hadn’t prepared them for such a life, and without Fyodor’s ability to adapt quickly Orlov would have perished.

  ‘Watch what those street urchins do,’ Fyodor told Orlov, pointing to a couple of children who were hiding behind a planter in an outdoor cafeteria. As soon as a patron departed, they would descend upon his scraps and shove whatever they could into their mouths before the waiters came and chased them away.

  Orlov and his brother survived the increasingly cold weather by burrowing into woodpiles or sleeping among the litter in garbage cans. For a while they found shelter in a crypt in Vvedenskoye Cemetery, until some older street children discovered their ‘luxurious’ accommodation and forced them out.

  The Bolshevik government had made plans to get the orphans off the streets and into State institutions, but the problem was overwhelming for an administration recovering from a civil war. Appeals were made to citizens to adopt the children. When Fyodor learned of this, he took himself and Orlov to stand in the designated disused churches along with hundreds of other hopefuls, all trying to look appealing enough to attract genuine families and not those looking for cheap labour.

  On several occasions couples had approached Orlov. ‘What lovely dark curly hair,’ said one woman to her husband. Orlov had heard another make a remark about his cute button nose.

  ‘Go with them,’ Fyodor would tell Orlov. ‘Go and have a good life.’

  But Orlov would cling to his brother’s sleeve and refuse to be separated, and no one wanted this older boy with his wizened face and nervous twitch brought on by living on his wits.

  Winter set in and food became scarcer. Fyodor found them some space in a tunnel at the train station. When morning came, hundreds of children crept from the tunnel or the crevices in the station’s walls. Orlov developed a cough, and no matter how tightly Fyodor held him to his chest he couldn’t keep his brother warm. Then Fyodor learned of a new orphanage that had opened a few houses down from where they had once lived. Some of the other children staying in the tunnel had gone there in an attempt to steal food and clothing so they could sell them on the streets.

  ‘Did you have any luck?’ Fyodor asked one of the boys when he returned.

  ‘No! It’s run by a retired Red Army general. That old Bolshevik was too smart for us.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll take Valentin?’ Fyodor asked, indicating Orlov. ‘And maybe me?’

  The boy laughed. ‘Getting too soft for the streets, are you?’ He shook his head. ‘I think they’re already full, so there isn’t much chance of the old general taking the two of you. I heard he runs the place like a military camp. But it did look clean.’

  Orlov remembered the day that Fyodor had carried him on his back to the orphanage. He smuggled Orlov into the hallway and hid him in a closet.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Orlov asked his brother.

  Fyodor put his finger to his lips. ‘You stay here where it’s warm, all right? I’m going to get some medicine for your cough. I’ll be back soon.’

  Fyodor embraced Orlov and kissed his cheeks before sneaking out the front door again. Orlov wouldn’t see his brother again for twenty years.

  The pain in Orlov’s chest subsided and he went to the living room and stood by the window. Although his building contained two hundred apartments, everything was quiet. The sun was beginning to rise and he could feel the warmth of the day through the glass.

  What a strange life I have lived, he thought. People have always called me lucky. Lucky that the old Bolshevik and his wife took me into their well-run orphanage; that the State gave me a good education; that I was selected for an elite air-force academy; that I survived the war; that I was chosen to be part of the most ambitious adventure mankind has ever attempted; that despite my age I survived a heart attack. But I’m not lucky. I’m cursed. He would have traded all his success in return for coming home with Natasha from the war; for having a family with her and growing old by her side.

  Orlov strode to the bathroom. He filled the sink with warm water and swirled his shaving brush and razor in it. The citrus scent of the shaving soap he used to lather his face roused in him memories of summers past. He dragged the razor down his cheek in a long stroke and rinsed the blade in the water. An image came back to him from the war: he was shaving in his bunker and when he looked out the window he saw Natasha by her plane. She was sitting on a chair, her legs stretched out and her head bent back. Svetlana, her mechanic, was washing her hair for her, mixing hot water from the airplane’s engine with the water she had in the bowl. Natasha broke all the rules. She was naturally blonde but she persuaded the medical staff to give her some precious peroxide each month so she could bleach her hair even lighter. She was vain about her appearance even in the midst of death and destruction. The women pilots and ground crew were required to cut their hair short, which made them look like boys. Natasha slept in curlers and wore her hair like a film star. Orlov, a stickler for order, should have despised her for her narcissism. Yet, despite all his attempts to discipline her, he’d secretly found it alluring.

  He rinsed his face with cold water and patted his skin dry. He reached for his toothbrush and began to clean his teeth. The image of the two women stayed with him. He and Svetlana had shared an obsession for Natasha. Whenever the squadron left on a sortie, the mechanics used to return to their quarters to catch up on sleep, to play cards or to eat. Not Svetlana. She would pace the tarmac, her eyes never leaving the sky, until the planes returned. When Natasha landed, Svetlana first checked that her pilot was uninjured and then she checked the plane. The relief on her face when Natasha came back safely was palpable. She was like a loyal groomsman waiting for her master to return from the hunt. If Orlov came back from a sortie with bullet holes or damage to his plane, his mechanic, Sharavin, scolded him. When Natasha returned with battle damage, Svetlana would embrace her and say, ‘You go rest. I’ll see to the plane. It will be as good as new by morning.’

  At first when he saw the women together, Orlov wondered if they were lovers. The intimate way they put their heads together and whispered sometimes made jealousy ripple through him and sometimes desire. Then he found out that Natasha and Svetlana had shared a friendship that went back to their youth, that was all. There had been a rift for a while, something had happened between them, but they’d been brought together again when they both volunteered for Raskova’s women’s air regiments.

  Orlov had been transferred from his regiment soon after Natasha’s disappearance. After the war, when he’d searched the records, he’d found Svetlana listed as missing in action presumed dead, along with half the pilots and ground crew. He’d grieved to hear that. The last days of the war in Orël Oblast had been brutal and he’d wished he’d been allowed to remain with his regiment.

  Orlov rinsed his mouth and returned to the bedroom to dress. He had no idea why, even after retiring, he’d kept this strict regime of rising early and preparing himself for the day before brea
kfast. He put on a pair of pressed pants and a shirt with a collar. What day was it? He glanced at the calendar that hung on his wardrobe. Monday. Leonid and his family wouldn’t be expecting him for their weekly dinner until Thursday. He would need to find something to occupy himself with until then. He went to the living room and stared at his bookshelf. Finally he decided to read Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich again and settled into an armchair.

  He’d only just started when the sound of the telephone jolted him. He looked at it suspiciously then glanced at his watch. It was six o’clock. Who would be calling him so early? Worried that something had happened to Leonid, he picked up the receiver.

  ‘Hello,’ a male voice said. ‘Valentin?’

  ‘Yes. Who is this?’

  ‘It’s me, Ilya,’ replied his friend. ‘How soon can you come to Orël? Can you get the train tonight?’

  Orlov was taken by surprise. One minute he had no plans and the next Ilya was asking him to travel four hours out of the city. He hesitated before asking, ‘Is it something official?’

  ‘No. Don’t request a car. Don’t tell anyone you’re coming.’

  Orlov had a sense that whatever he had been waiting for all these years was about to happen. But not the way he had hoped.

  ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘What have you discovered?’

  Ilya’s voice was sharp with excitement. ‘I’ve got a lead on Natalya Azarova. I think I know where she’s buried.’

  TEN

  Radio Mayak, Moscow, 2000

  ANNOUNCER: Our next guest is Professor Andreas Mandt of the University of Cologne. Professor Mandt’s speciality is Russian–German relations and we’ve invited him to speak with us today regarding the war heroine Natalya Stepanovna Azarova, whose fighter plane was recently found in the Trofimovsky Forest, fifty-seven years after she went missing. Azarova’s plane was recovered but not her remains, continuing to support claims that she was a German spy who faked her death to avoid arrest.

  Good morning, Professor Mandt. It’s a pleasure to have you on the program.

  PROFESSOR MANDT: Good morning to you, Serafima Ivanovna. It’s a pleasure to be here.

  ANNOUNCER: Professor Mandt, for many years now the Kremlin has refused to award Natalya Azarova the distinction of Hero of the Soviet Union — now Hero of the Russian Federation — based on the lingering controversy about her being a spy. What’s your view on that?

  PROFESSOR MANDT: I think it’s an absurd theory that belongs to the Stalin era of paranoia. If, as the proposition suggests, Azarova had indeed been a spy for Germany it would have been excellent propaganda for the German war effort. If Azarova’s identity as a spy could no longer be kept secret and she had managed to escape the country, then why didn’t the German Ministry of Propaganda use her to demoralise the Russian people? Can you imagine? The Soviet Union’s darling heroine, ‘Stalin’s pin-up girl’ as she was often called, having actually been a spy working against her people all along? She could be quoted as having denounced Communism. But even if for some reason Nazi Germany didn’t use that information against the Russians during the war, there would be no reason for the German government to continue to be quiet now. With improved relations between Russia and the West, they could put the matter to rest. The simple fact is they have no information to support the spy theory because it never happened.

  ANNOUNCER: What you are saying makes sense. Supporters of Azarova argue that her kill record against the Luftwaffe was embarrassing to Germany. This brash young woman brought down some of their finest pilots. Revealing that Azarova had been persuaded to switch sides during the war might have helped redeem their pride in some way. The fact that the Germans said nothing does seem to weaken the spy theory.

  PROFESSOR MANDT: Yes, that’s my opinion too.

  ANNOUNCER: The other possibility, of course, is that Azarova was captured by the German army, interrogated and then executed before being buried in an unmarked grave. But I suppose the German government could have also used her death as propaganda to demoralise the Russian people.

  PROFESSOR MANDT: Oh no, I think that scenario would have been different. I don’t think the German command would have admitted to capturing or killing Azarova back then.

  ANNOUNCER: Really? What makes you say that?

  PROFESSOR MANDT: The execution of their beloved heroine would have stirred the Russian people to fight harder. It would have worked against the Germans. Stalin would have called on every warm-blooded citizen to seek their revenge on the German army.

  ANNOUNCER: Even if Azarova had given away valuable military secrets?

  PROFESSOR MANDT: The Russian people would have said that she only gave those secrets away under torture.

  ANNOUNCER: Yes, I can see how people would find it hard to believe that their revered heroine would have given information away otherwise.

  PROFESSOR MANDT: You see that sort of hero worship with the cult of Stalin.

  ANNOUNCER: That’s true. People were so brainwashed to believe that Stalin was a saviour, the father of the Soviet Union, that even with all the evidence that’s come to light regarding the millions of people who were murdered or who died in labour camps during his years in power, some remain convinced to this day that Stalin was a great leader.

  PROFESSOR MANDT: Psychologists call that ‘escalating commitment to a failing idea’: as more evidence comes to light to refute a belief, the tighter the adherent holds on to that belief. But you know that Azarova suffered that condition herself?

  ANNOUNCER: In what way?

  PROFESSOR MANDT: She continued to believe Stalin was a hero even after he destroyed her family.

  ELEVEN

  Moscow, 1937–1938

  I might have had a letter from Stalin supporting my acceptance into the Moscow Gliding School, but Sergei Konstantinovich, the chief instructor there, wasn’t going to make things easy for me.

  ‘How old are you?’ he asked, staring at me over the piles of paper spread over his desk. His office was situated in an elementary school in Yuzhnoye Butovo.

  ‘Nearly fifteen.’

  Sergei rubbed his horseshoe moustache and shook his head. ‘Tch, tch, tch, even younger than I thought.’

  ‘I’m mature for my age,’ I assured him.

  His frown showed that he thought otherwise. ‘You start with aeronautical theory,’ he said, rising from his chair and guiding me towards the door. ‘If you master that, we will see about gliding.’

  ‘But I want to fly,’ I protested as he pushed me into the corridor. ‘Comrade Stalin said I could.’

  ‘And I don’t want you to break your neck. You start with aeronautical studies and then we’ll see.’

  The door shutting in my face told me that his word was final.

  During winter, on the afternoons that I didn’t have meetings for the Young Pioneers, I commuted to Yuzhnoye Butovo to join the other students of the Moscow Gliding School to learn about angles, direction of motion and how the density of air affected flight.

  ‘Think of “lift” as Stalin and “drag” as the old Tsar,’ Sergei told us. ‘It is Stalin who makes you soar.’

  It was a condition of my parents that I could only learn gliding if I kept up with my school work and piano practice. Even though I had to rise early on freezing mornings to fit in my study, my enthusiasm for what I was learning gave me the energy to continue. On Saturday afternoons, I was allowed to go with Svetlana to the cinema near Smolenskaya Square. Our favourite films were the ones about aviators: The Motherland Calls and Tales of Aviation Heroes. Afterwards we would stroll along Arbat Street and visit the studios where artists drew portraits. If there was something I hadn’t understood in the flight theory classes, I could ask Svetlana to explain it to me.

  ‘You will have to remember that flying a glider won’t be like driving a sled,’ she once told me. ‘You won’t be using the rudder pedals to steer the glider but simply by aligning its fuselage to reduce drag.’

  As enthusiastic as I was, I could
n’t have kept up all my activities to a high standard forever. I was going to have to make choices about what to concentrate on. In spring, what I truly wanted to do in life became clear-cut to me.

  ‘All right,’ Sergei announced to our class. ‘We’ve had enough of theory. It’s time to fly.’

  Everyone rose from their chairs and cheered.

  ‘Me too?’ I asked.

  Sergei squinted at me. ‘You haven’t grown. You’re still the little doll you were when you arrived.’

  He hadn’t actually said no so I joined the others when they met early in the morning to launch the school’s gliders from a high bank of the Moscow River. Launching a glider involved one student sitting in the cockpit while the rest of us, eight each side, ran forward while dragging the glider with all our strength using a rubber rope. Once the rope was stretched tight, the glider was catapulted like a rock from a slingshot and the pilot sailed the air for one or two minutes before bringing the glider to land.

  Because of my size, Sergei Konstantinovich assumed I’d be useless to assist in the launching exercise. But gymnastics had given me reserves of muscle power and I used my compact size well. Once he gave in and let me help to launch a glider, he was astonished to see that I pulled best of all.

  ‘Can I fly now?’ I asked him.

  ‘No. First you must watch what the older students do and then we will see.’

  ‘For how long must I watch?’

  ‘For one hundred flights, at least.’

  Not all the pulls resulted in a launch. For every two or three successful pulls there was one in which the glider lifted only a few metres into the air and then crunched back to earth, accompanied by groans of disappointment from those who had pulled the rope and annoyed yelps from the bruised pilot. But watch and learn I did, until one day, when I’d almost given up hope of being allowed to pilot, Sergei pointed to me and then to the cockpit.