before Nina caught a glimpse. The General Secretary with his important frown, scrawling away as though lives depended on every pencil stroke, had been doodling wolves. Wolves in red and black, slavering from the page.
Heavy hands grasped her shoulders. “You do honor to the state.” The wiry stiffness of Comrade Stalin’s mustache brushed her cheeks. With Nina in heels, they were almost the same height. Such a giant in your portraits, Nina thought, and you’re hardly taller than I am. The thought made her smile in genuine amusement, and she saw an answering smile quirk under the graying mustache. “This one,” the great man said to his aide. “This eaglet looks Comrade Stalin directly in the eyes!”
Comrade Stalin is a lying pig who shits on the common man, Nina’s father commented inside her head, so loudly she wondered if the man breathing tobacco in her face could hear it. Tell him he’s a murdering sack of shit, her father advised.
Not helpful, Papa, Nina thought.
The heavy hands still rested on her shoulders. “What makes you smile, Comrade Lieutenant Markova?”
This wolf could smell lies, of that she was certain. “My father spoke passionately and often of Comrade Stalin,” she said with utter truth.
He liked that. “Your father was a great patriot?”
“He cut many tsarist throats, Comrade Stalin.” Also utter truth.
“A good servant of the state, then.” Comrade Stalin smiled. The whites of his eyes were yellowed, like Papa’s. Nina thought of her father looking at her speculatively, right before he tried to drown her. Comrade Stalin’s gaze was speculative too. “How many enemies of the state have you killed, Nina Borisovna?”
“Not enough, Comrade Stalin.”
Fucking Georgian swine, her father hissed. Drag him under, rusalka bitch. And Nina couldn’t help but think how easily she could kill the most powerful man in the Motherland right here and now. She had the razor in her sleeve; she never went anywhere without it. She could drop it into her palm, flick it open, and open that heavy throat with one slash. She smiled, amused by the thought.
“Good hunting, eaglet.” Comrade Stalin kissed her again on each cheek, then stepped back. His gaze withdrew from her like a needle; more cameras flashed. Then he was gone.
“RED STARS!” The cry went up at the barracks, and everyone curtsied as if three tsarevnas had come back to the regiment. “It’s all due to you,” Nina shouted over the tumult. “Comrade Stalin gave me a red star because he liked my new hair!”
“I like your new hair,” Yelena admired in the shed afterward, as soon as they could sneak off alone. They lay spooned together in the back corner, Yelena’s back against Nina’s chest. Threaded through her collar was a drying rose plucked from one of the funeral wreaths behind Marina Raskova’s urn—the only memento of Moscow Nina had had time to take home. “You belong as a blonde, Ninochka. It makes you stand out, and you should stand out.”
“Then I’ll keep it blond just for you.” Nina tipped Yelena’s head back for a lingering kiss. Their escaping breath puffed white in the frigid air. “Did you miss me?”
“Not a bit! Zoya never tries to climb out on the wing.” Yelena grinned, and Nina swatted her. “You saw the girls from the other regiments—what’s their news?”
“Both of the other regiments are integrated, did you know that? Men and women. Necessity, they said. The 588th is the only one still just us ladies.”
“It’d better stay that way. The male pilots slack,” Yelena said, scornful. “They actually go in for meals between bombing runs. When was the last time any of us had dinner outside of a cockpit? No wonder our numbers are so much higher.” Squirming face-to-face so she could touch Nina’s star, Yelena whispered, “So what was he like?”
No need to ask who he was. “Short. And he pretends he’s such a big man!”
“It’s the height of his soul, not his head.” Yelena smiled. “I would have fainted if it had been me.”
Nina had heard that kind of awe from the others, but Yelena had always been quick to smile at Party drolleries and contradictions. “He’s not God, Yelenushka. Just another sack of Party horseshit in a suit.”
Yelena sat up straight. “Don’t say that.”
“I don’t, not in public. I’m not stupid.” Nina sat up too. “I don’t want the black van coming to my door.”
“But you actually think such things?” Yelena sounded horrified. “That the General Secretary is . . .”
“A pig-spawn schemer who stamps on the people?” Nina shrugged.