Irkutsk, Siberia

When war came to the Soviet Union, Nina was putting a Polikarpov U-2 through its paces, riding a cloud-scented breeze high over Irkutsk. Not that a U-2 had many paces—a dual-cockpit biplane open to the sky, crafted of linen over wood, cruising along at a pace so sedate that newer, faster planes would have stalled trying to match speed. But the old bird was maneuverable; she could turn on a razor edge without cutting herself. Nina had been happy to take her up for a solo spin to check for the mechanics if the controls needed adjustment.

It had been in a U-2 that Nina took her first flight shortly after joining the air club. That liquid excitement when the instructor allowed her to take the stick and make her first gentle, banking turn; the plane’s answering wobble as though aware of the uncertain new hands that guided it . . . She was four years past that first awkward turn now, an impressive number of flying hours under her belt, and she sent the U-2 looping and rolling among the clouds. The sky was Nina’s lake. She’d felt that on her first flight as she dove into the air like a green-haired rusalka diving into a lake. Diving not down but up, with a feeling of I am home. She had cried on that first flight, tears fogging her flight goggles.

It hadn’t been easy, getting in the air. “It’s going to take more than that, girl,” the air club’s director had sniffed when Nina pushed her application and birth record across his desk. “You’ll need a medical certificate, education certificate, references from the Komsomol, and only then can you even submit to the credentials committee for consideration. Do you know anyone in Irkutsk?”

“No.” Nina had no one who could pull strings for the paperwork and approvals she needed, but luckily, the head of the local Komsomol had taken a liking to her. “Here you see the epitome of proletarian spirit,” he proclaimed after one look at Nina’s hardscrabble background. “A girl who in tsarist days would have spilled the blood of her life in the field, now seeking the skies! The glorification of the state lies in the ability of its laborers to rise—” There had been a great many more slogans after that, and Nina was allowed to apply for the Komsomol with all its interviews and political literacy exams. She didn’t know much about political history, but she knew to nod fervently whenever anyone asked if she wished to exalt the Motherland by participating in the recent aviation drive to match the aeronautics of the decadent West, and alongside that, she had impeccable peasant lineage. The first time my father ever did me a favor, Nina reflected. If he’d been a prosperous kulak or highbrow intelligentsia rather than a Siberian peasant with barely a kopeck to his name, the Komsomol would have turned up their nose. But an untutored peasant with ambition was looked on with enough approval for a membership card, and with that, a good many doors opened. Komsomol girls were sought after, presumed to be aspiring Communist Party members. Nina didn’t care about policy or Party politics as long as she could get in the air.

And now here she was, dancing in the clouds.

Nina came out of her spiral, lining up the air club below. Nothing wrong with this old duck’s flight controls. She began the descent, feeling no place where the plane left off and she began; it was as though her arms had lengthened into the span of the wings and her feet had stretched down into the wheels, the sun warming her hair the way it warmed the linen over the wooden struts.

She brought the U-2 down soft as a snowflake alighting on dark water—perfect three-point touchdown, not even a bounce—smiling as she felt the tail skid brake them to a halt. Maybe that was another reason Nina liked the U-2, because it had been designed without brakes. So was I. She hoisted herself out of the cockpit, sitting on the rim atop the plane as she unbuckled her half-bald rabbit-fur cap. Nina Borisovna Markova was twenty-three now, still small, compact, and sturdy as a gymnast; she had engine grease under her nails instead of blood, and she breathed exhaust fumes instead of lake water. She might still be a little crazy, she acknowledged, because all Markovs were, but at least she’d won a place for herself in this world, on her wings and not on her back. She knew what she loved, she knew what she feared, and what she feared didn’t matter because there was no lake anywhere nearby to drown in. Nina sat atop her plane a moment longer, tilting her face up to the sun, then slid to the wing and down to the ground in one easy motion.

Looking around, she saw that something was wrong.

The runway should have bustled with students, mechanics, pilots. Even in Irkutsk, flying was such a craze that the air club was always busy. But Nina saw no one, and even the bustle of the city beyond—the noise of the streets, the sound of raised voices and feet in mass-produced boots trudging back and forth from work—seemed muted. Puzzled, she secured her plane—the process of checking her switches and mags, securing her flight controls, and taking care of the tie-downs all as automatic now as breathing—and headed for the nearest hangar. The sun stood directly overhead—high noon on a perfect June Sunday.

She found a silent crowd inside. Pilots, students, fellow instructors, all crowded together with faces lifted toward the loudspeaker high on the wall. Flying goggles and oilcans dangled from hands, and no one so much as cleared their throat. Everyone listened to the flat drone of the words coming from the radio.

“—to the effect that the German government had decided to launch war against the U.S.S.R.—”

Nina sucked in her breath. Coming to the fringe of the crowd, she saw the coal-black hair of Vladimir Ilyich and pushed up beside him—he was the best pilot in the air club besides Nina; they slept together sometimes. “Was there an attack?” she breathed.

“Fucking Fritzes bombed Kiev, Sebastopol, Kaunas—”

Someone shushed him. Nina pointed at the loudspeaker, the flat cadences of whoever was speaking. Vladimir mouthed back Comrade Molotov.

The public address continued. “—now that the attack on the Soviet Union has already been committed, the Soviet government has ordered our troops to repulse the predatory assault and to drive German troops from the territory of our country . . .”

So much for the Soviet-German pact, Nina thought. In truth she wasn’t surprised. War had been hovering in the air for months like the smell of dynamite. Now, war was here. Everyone knew Hitler and his fascists were crazy, but crazy enough to take on Comrade Stalin?

“—government of the Soviet Union expresses its unshakable confidence that our valiant army and navy and brave falcons of the Soviet Air Force will acquit themselves with honor—”

The Soviet Air Force. Nina did a rapid calculation. She had more flying hours than almost any pilot at the club; she’d scraped through two years of advanced training at the nearest pilot school and had been sent back as an aviation instructor. Already there were rumors of new fighter planes coming off the lines; to get in the cockpit of one of those . . .

“—This is not the first time that our people have had to deal with an attack of an arrogant foe. At the time of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia—” Hoots and cheers momentarily drowned out Comrade Molotov. Nina tried to imagine Hitler’s swastika being unfurled over the Old Man on the far edge of the world and shook her head in amused contempt. This land was too much for outsiders; Napoleon could tell you that. Too cold, too vast, and too unforgiving for anyone not seasoned to it from birth. A little fascist with a scrubbing-brush mustache thought he’d march on Moscow? He’d have better luck emptying Baikal with a pail.

Comrade Molotov evidently agreed with her, blaring on through the loudspeaker. “It will be the same with Hitler, who in his arrogance has proclaimed a new crusade against our country. The Red Army and our whole people will again wage victorious war for the Motherland—” Cheers rose again, until Nina could barely hear his final “The enemy shall be defeated. Victory will be ours.”