Sapphire Skies

by Belinda Alexandra

  Orlov struggled past the tourists and other travellers to the first-class carriage. The train stewardess directed him to a seat by the window, opposite two young German businessmen. ‘Hello,’ they said in Russian and pointed to Orlov’s overnight bag, using gestures to let him know that they would lift it onto the rack for him. It irked Orlov although he understood that they meant well.

  When the men were all seated, one of the Germans took out a package containing slices of dark bread that smelled like molasses and a block of aged cheese. He cut the cheese and shared the meal with his companion, then offered some to Orlov, who accepted a piece of bread and cheese only because it seemed polite. Germans and their bread, he thought. The meals offered on Russian trains had improved in the last few years, but Orlov believed that it wouldn’t have mattered if his travelling companions had been offered five-star cuisine; they still would have preferred their pumpernickel bread and salty cheese.

  After their supper, the Germans returned to studying their laptops while Orlov tried to lose himself in the Solzhenitsyn novel he had started that morning. He looked over the top of his book at the Germans again. How strange a thing war is, he thought. And how easily animosity is erased when it’s all over. I could have killed these men’s grandfathers — shot them out of the sky or protected the bombers that blew them to smithereens — and yet here we sit, completely civilised. He looked out the window and his mind wandered back to the bronze bust of Stalin. Would somebody buy that and put it in their living room? Stalin was a madman who murdered millions of his own people.

  Orlov had been in the air force when the crazed purges of the late 1930s began. He had watched in horror as his commanding officers fell one after the other. They had all been fine men, but had signed confessions, no doubt extracted under torture, stating that they had committed acts of anti-Soviet sabotage and spying. They had been executed or sent to labour camps. Stalin wasn’t only vicious, he was a fool! Even during the German invasion, he continued to remove talented officers from the armed forces. At first, there might have been self-serving logic to the arrests: revolutions had often followed on the shirt tails of war and Stalin wanted to remove anyone who could threaten his power. But then things became frenzied. Every day, people were arrested and shot for nothing more than accidentally bumping a portrait of Stalin or wiping their backside with a piece of newspaper with his image on it.

  ‘Listen, Natasha, there is something you should know …’

  Orlov was distracted from his memory of that fateful July afternoon by the drinks waitress pushing her trolley down the aisle. He purchased a bottle of Georgian wine for himself and the Germans.

  ‘To friendship between nations,’ he toasted them in Russian.

  They had no idea what he’d said and toasted him back with ‘Prost!’ Then they went back to their laptops and Orlov returned to his memories.

  Nikita Khrushchev, whom Orlov got to know well when he was working on the space program, told him that Stalin once said it was better to kill the innocent along with the guilty than to risk letting the guilty go free. The NKVD were given quotas during the purges, as if they were a factory, and when they couldn’t fulfil those quotas they fabricated charges. Even the Bolshevik general and his wife who had run the orphanage where Orlov grew up disappeared in the purges. That general had been a Party loyalist and from the time Stalin came to power made the orphanage’s children, including Orlov, stand and salute the portrait of ‘their Great Leader’ in the dining room every morning. ‘It is because of Comrade Stalin that you have a roof over your heads. He has provided you with an education, warm clothes and a future. It is because of him that you are not dead,’ the general had repeatedly told them.

  Orlov often wondered why he himself had been spared. Despite the cult of Stalin he had been exposed to in the orphanage, he’d hated the man and the Communists. He had mouthed platitudes and kept his views to himself in order to survive. He had fought for Russia during the war, not Stalin. Stalin died in 1953, either of a stroke or poisoned by those around him, according to the differing views. The public mourning was overwhelming. People were crushed to death in the crowds that went to view his body. It was only when Khrushchev began his program of de-Stalinisation that Orlov felt he could visit Natasha’s mother without drawing attention to her. It was remarkable that she had survived after the arrest of her husband and with her missing daughter suspected of being a German spy. Orlov had found Sofia Grigorievna living in an apartment in the Arbat: one room, with a bathroom so small one could barely turn around in it and a kitchenette with enough space only for a sink and a café table. But the apartment was meticulously kept, with white antimacassars on the chairs, pink chrysanthemums in a vase on the windowsill and not a speck of dust anywhere. Orlov’s eyes fell on the icon of St Sofia in the corner. His mother had once owned the same image. There was a portrait of a man — Natasha’s father, he assumed — in a frame on a side table. Next to it was a photograph of Natasha with her brother, who was in an air-force uniform.

  ‘Won’t you please sit down, General Orlov,’ Sofia Grigorievna said.

  She had Natasha’s fair colouring and doll-like features. But while her daughter’s beauty had been vibrant, Sofia Grigorievna emitted the fragile dignity of a woman who had survived tragedy. All her family was gone, and the only living being she had to lavish her affection upon was the red-furred dog she lifted onto her lap.

  ‘Natasha told me a lot about you,’ she said.

  Her grey eyes met Orlov’s and he wondered how much Natasha had revealed to her mother. Then he realised that even if she knew everything, it wouldn’t have made this meeting any easier.

  ‘You were kind to write to me the details you knew of her disappearance,’ Sofia Grigorievna continued. ‘I have your letter still. I shall take it, along with Natasha’s correspondence, to my grave.’

  Orlov took this as confirmation that she hadn’t had contact with her daughter since the war. Or was it? He decided to be more direct.

  ‘Do you think that your daughter might still be alive?’ he asked her. ‘We have not found her plane … or her body.’

  Sofia Grigorievna’s gaze moved to the pictures of her husband and children. ‘I don’t know. With my son, Alexander, I knew he had died the night it happened. But with Natasha …’ She shook her head. ‘I simply don’t know.’ Looking back to Orlov she added, ‘I am sure that if Natasha could have, she would have contacted you or me by now. Both of us know she wasn’t a spy.’

  They lapsed into silence. Out on the street there was the sound of singing. A group of old men and women were marching along with Stalin’s portrait. There were those who believed that the Soviet Union couldn’t survive without him. They listened to the singing and chanting for a while.

  Sofia Grigorievna said suddenly, ‘I’m glad that monster is dead. Aren’t you?’

  Orlov was taken aback. It wasn’t the sort of statement people came out with, no matter what they truly thought. The Soviet Union was a nation of people who knew that a single utterance could cost them their lives. But he understood that her boldness meant she trusted him and he wanted to assure her that her faith wasn’t misplaced. Something he hadn’t considered telling her before came into his mind.

  ‘Stalin signed your husband’s death warrant,’ he said. ‘Did you know that all along?’

  Sofia Grigorievna stroked the dog for a while before answering. ‘When Stalin replaced Yezhov with Beria as head of the NKVD, hundreds of thousands of convictions were quashed and scores of people were let out of labour camps. For many it was proof that Stalin hadn’t known about the NKVD’s excesses and now he was making good.’

  ‘Including Natasha? Even though it was too late for her father?’

  Sofia Grigorievna placed the dog down on the rug and got up to close the window. ‘I’ve always known who was responsible for my husband’s death,’ she said. ‘The chocolate factory couldn’t meet its quotas because the Soviet Union couldn’t compete for ingredients with the Ca
pitalist countries on the world market. When people don’t have chocolate for New Year’s Eve they blame the State. Well, you can’t have that. Scapegoats must be found. The first was the chief factory manager, and when that didn’t change anything, the axe fell on my husband.’

  Natasha’s mother had described things clearly but now Orlov was confused. He hesitated a moment before saying, ‘Forgive me, Sofia Grigorievna, if I ask you too many painful questions but I’m trying to understand something. Did you never voice your opinions about Stalin to your daughter? You see, she worshipped him.’

  Sofia Grigorievna didn’t flinch. ‘I think you understand very well, General Orlov. I let Natasha think that Stalin wasn’t responsible for her father’s death. I encouraged her in that belief. Why? Because my daughter had to survive in the Soviet Union. She already had her family background against her. How could I handicap her any further by making her hate Stalin? You know how headstrong she could be. Inflaming her would only have achieved her arrest and execution.’

  Orlov recalled Sofia Grigorievna’s explanation as he sat on the train to Orël. Even now, he was impressed by her wisdom. It must have been galling to hear her daughter praise the man who had been responsible for her husband’s death, but she had borne it to protect the daughter she loved.

  It was late when Orlov arrived at the hotel in Orël. There was a note from Ilya at reception saying that he would collect him at five o’clock the next morning. Where are we going, wondered Orlov.

  He ate some smoked cod and bread for supper. Try as he might, he couldn’t sleep. During the war, when sleep deprivation was a daily way of life, he had thought he would sleep forever when it was all over. But his post-war life had been plagued by the insomnia that came from a troubled mind.

  The hotel was modern and the walls were thin. He could hear the restaurant’s singer. Was she really singing that song or was it his imagination?

  Wait for me, and I’ll come back.

  Wait in patience yet

  When they tell you off by heart

  That you should forget.

  Even when my dearest ones

  Say that I am lost,

  Even when my friends give up,

  Sit and count the cost,

  Drink a glass of bitter wine

  To the fallen friend —

  Wait. And do not drink with them.

  Wait until the end.

  The lyrics were from a poem by Konstantin Simonov. It had been Natasha’s favourite song during the war and the regiment used to ask her to sing it often. She had a beautiful voice and her interpretation of the song brought tears to everyone’s eyes.

  ‘If something should happen,’ she’d once told Orlov after they’d made love, ‘I’ll wait for you no matter what because my waiting will keep you alive. I’ll wait for you just as Svetlana always waits for me to return from a mission. It’s because she waits for me that I survive.’

  ‘I did wait for you, my darling,’ Orlov whispered into the darkness. ‘But now it seems you were dead all along.’

  His mind drifted back to Sofia Grigorievna. He hadn’t gone to visit her again after that first time but he’d used his influence to make sure she was well provided for until her death in 1960. She had been cremated, as was the new trend in the Soviet Union then. It occurred to Orlov now that he’d missed an opportunity by not asking her if he could read Natasha’s letters. Perhaps there would have been some clue in them. But back then he’d still harboured the hope that he would find her in person. Now the truth was waiting for him, somewhere out there in the dawn.

  ‘Where is she buried?’ Orlov asked Ilya the next morning when his friend came to pick him up. He hadn’t even said hello.

  Ilya opened the door to his Skoda for Orlov. ‘There is a village on the edge of the Trofimovsky Forest where a ninety-year-old woman says her father and uncle found the body of a female pilot in July 1943 and buried her in a family crypt.’

  ‘A crypt?’ asked Orlov in surprise. Family crypts were unusual in Russia, especially in the countryside.

  ‘That’s all I know,’ said Ilya. ‘I didn’t want to investigate without you being there.’

  ‘Why didn’t you inform the Ministry of Defence? If there are remains there they’ll want to run tests.’

  Ilya stared at the road ahead. ‘I didn’t want to call them out until we’re sure there is actually a body and we aren’t simply listening to an old lady with a failing memory. But also because … well, I thought that you should see her first.’

  Orlov swallowed. He felt like he had a rock in his throat. ‘So you think this could be it … you think we’ve found her?’

  Ilya reached across to the glove box and pulled out a map. ‘I’ve marked the distance between the crash site and the village. If Natalya Azarova parachuted out of the plane she would have landed in one of the fields nearby. She is the only missing female fighter pilot who was active in that area at the time, and if a body is buried there it could well be hers.’

  Orlov stared at the map. Did he want to be part of this process? What would be left of his beautiful Natasha now? Perhaps it would be better if Ilya and the Ministry of Defence handled this and simply gave him a forensic report. He looked at the birch trees that lined the road and remembered the plane they’d found in the forest. It was as if Natasha was calling to him, reeling him in like a fish. She’d had a strong will in life. Was it possible that her will had survived her physical death?

  After a toilet and tea stop the two men took to the road again. Just over an hour later, Ilya turned the car off the bitumen road onto a dirt one. The farmhouses they passed, with their rickety wooden fences and vegetable gardens, looked the same to Orlov as they had during the war.

  They drove through a gate and were greeted by a collection of boisterous farm dogs of all breeds and sizes. A man in a woodcutter’s singlet waved to them, exposing his hairy armpit. Two blond boys with bare chests and buzz cuts ran towards the car.

  ‘Hello!’ said the man in the singlet. ‘I am Dmitri Borisovich Mochalov. My grandmother is waiting for you in the garden.’

  A woman wearing a kerchief on her head came out of the house and introduced herself as Fekla Petrovna, Dmitri’s wife. Two other men in tracksuit pants and singlets, who Orlov took to be neighbours, joined them and the group led Orlov and Ilya to the back garden, where an old woman was waiting for them at a table, surrounded by chickens and more playful dogs. It was always a shock for Orlov to see someone close to his own age. He still had his hair, grey and thinned but still there, and his own teeth. Until his heart problem, his health had been good. This old woman looked ancient, with a sunken mouth and wrinkles so deep her nose and chin seemed to have disappeared into her weathered face. Her eyes were faded and watery, but she sat up straight with her hands on her knees and had an almost queenly pride about her.

  Fekla pulled out chairs for Orlov and Ilya and sat down next to her grandmother-in-law. The others gathered around to hear the story. Dmitri stood directly behind Orlov and Orlov could feel the farmer’s belly bumping into his neck. He cringed with the thought that Dmitri was sweating onions and meat through his skin.

  ‘This is Olga Vadimovna,’ said Fekla, putting her arm around the woman. ‘In 1943 she was a mother of five young children. Her husband and brothers were away fighting. She ran the farm together with her uncle and father. She has never learned to read and has never taken interest in anything except her family and farm, but a few days ago she overhead Dmitri and me talking about the plane that was discovered nearby. That was when she told us her story … about how her father and uncle found the body of a female pilot in the forest.’

  Olga studied Orlov and Ilya with the suspicious expression elderly peasants bestowed on anyone from Moscow. But something about them must have overcome any misgivings and she began her story in a raspy voice.

  ‘In the summer of 1943, the Germans occupied our village. All our produce beyond our basic needs was to be given to their army. Anyone who didn’t comply
was executed along with their family. Our neighbour was hanged with a piece of wire for keeping a cow in his barn so that he could give milk to his pregnant wife and two young children. The German soldiers raped the wife and then they tied her two children to her and threw a grenade at them.’ Olga stopped for a moment, clenching and unclenching her fists, then continued.

  You can imagine how much we hated the Germans. One day we were working in the fields when we heard the rumble of planes in the distance and machine guns firing. We looked up to see a Soviet plane fly over chased by three Messerschmitts. It made us furious to see the Germans attacking one of our planes. But the Soviet pilot wasn’t going to be caught. The plane cut a jagged vapour trail across the sky as it dodged and weaved to avoid the bullets. Then the pilot turned the plane and headed back towards the pursuers, dividing them and shooting one down at the same time. We cheered as the enemy plane went down in flames. The Germans could have let the fighter go back to its own territory but they were determined to get it. The two remaining planes turned and pursued the Soviet pilot. We were forbidden to watch dogfights but we couldn’t take our eyes off the battle taking place in the sky. The odds were against the Soviet plane, yet the pilot skilfully manoeuvred and again faced his attackers head on.

  ‘That is no ordinary pilot,’ my father said. ‘That’s why the Germans will not let him go.’

  But the Soviet plane was doomed. It began to lose altitude and its guns stopped firing. ‘It’s either running out of fuel or ammunition,’ guessed my uncle. The two remaining German planes closed in but the Soviet pilot wasn’t going to go down without a final strike. We watched as he swerved to approach from the side and rammed one of the enemy planes, sending it spinning to the ground. There was just the one German plane left now, but the Soviet plane continued to lose altitude. It tilted nose down and hurtled towards the ground.