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STALINGRAD
SEPTEMBER 21, 1942
Two months of fighting and they’d had little luck driving the German soldiers back.
Order and rank didn’t cease to exist, but necessity required that they adapted. Polina continued her work with the Red Army on the side, providing first aid when it was needed, and spent the rest of her time among the partisans that Misha worked with. Every morning and every night the stillness was broken with the distant pop of rifle fire, and every day the groups that they sent out returned with fewer numbers. But they were strong. For every loss they took, the Germans took five. Whenever there was a lull in the fighting they would celebrate their victories and drink to the death of their enemies while they tuned in to the staticky, Allied radio stations. Soldiers and partisans alike would swap stories of the life they desperately wanted to go back to and then rise in the morning to fight to regain it.
Polina joined every patrol that she was able to. She’d complete her tasks behind the line and rush to catch up with whatever patrol was leaving that day, especially if Misha was assigned to it. Call it overprotection but after the loss of their father she watched him like a hawk. He stopped complaining after a while. And soon she became aware of the reverence that her comrades-in-arms now directed at her. She’d returned from an excursion past the front, getting up close and personal, and Misha came sprinting towards her, waving a poster in his hands and laughing as he told her about the title they’d bestowed on her. ‘Lady Nightingale.’ A heroic nurse, patching up civilians and soldiers day and night, right before she donned her rifle and armor and rained death upon the Sixth Army. If she was there it meant things were in their favor.
She didn’t quite agree with their theory—she was simply doing her job, trying to fight for her home back just as the rest of them were—but she soon realized that her attempts to dismiss the claims were falling on deaf ears. She kept a straight face around the other troops, but whenever Misha brought the title up to tease her it was met by a shove, a scoff, and an expression of her distaste, as though it was the worst thing he could call her. She knew that was why he did it, of course. Getting on their sisters’ nerves was what all brothers aspired to, after all. Privately, though, she wasn’t sure if she was proud of the title or pressured. For people to say those things it must have meant that they thought highly of her…high enough to consider her the hope of their people, if those posters were any indication. And that was a very difficult burden to shoulder. Especially when things didn’t go to plan…and rarely did things ever go to plan.
It was late in the night when she returned from her last patrol with Misha. The weather was still warm during the day, but the autumn chill began to set in during the night and early morning, and the recent rainstorms felt like ice when you were trudging along and soaked to the bone. Polina was exhausted. She smelled like gunpowder and her boots and pants were caked in mud. Misha was a similar sight. Their rain ponchos—given to their particular unit by Americans out on the Western Front—pattered from the sound of the rain, pooling in the folds of the fabric and rolling off their arms in droplets. They were cold, wet, and miserable. And Polina needed to clean out her rifles before they rusted. At least she was consoled by the fact that their group did a number on the German ranks.
Polina made a beeline for an old rail station that they’d turned into one of many temporary shelters. Factories and churches that had taken a beating became their barracks and storage facilities, lined with trucks filled to the brim with ammunition and rations while cots were lined up for the purpose of medical care or sleep, it depended on the area. Tents served a similar purpose, pitched in the streets, along the edges of the buildings, or even off to the side in clearings. Inside you’d find soldiers and civilians alike, the latter seeking a safe haven if they were for some reason unable to have evacuated with their neighbors. They were all desensitized to one another. Even with the limited rations neither group put up a fight with the other. They were all in the same boat, on the same side, and they did what they must. No one could fault another for their circumstances. Instead, they tried to get through it all together.
While she headed to one of the supply trucks inside, Misha slung his rifle over his shoulder and headed for the ration line. Rarely was there ever a long line for anything the cook had to offer. Usually he had to come to them, which meant whatever it was must have been a treat…or at least a treat when compared to their usual dinner. Polina rolled her eyes as he split off from her. Thinking with his stomach, not his head, it appeared. If he didn’t take care of his gun he was going to wind up dead, but she’d let him eat before she grabbed his ear and lectured him. She grabbed a rag and some oil for cleaning and propped down on an unoccupied cot by an old hearth, not far from where a few soldiers had started a fire to sit around and eat while they enjoyed the radio. It was the part of the day where they counted the dead, gave reports on the war, and everyone shook their heads in pity and prayed that God was merciful at the end of it all. This was all routine by now.
She was already halfway through cleaning her rifle when Misha returned, two hot bowls in his hands. He held one out to her, nudging the rim of the tin against her head to get his attention. She shot him a look but he spoke before she could. “Here. Eat,” he said. “You’ll need strength if you want to kill Nazis.”
“What is it?” she asked, wrinkling her nose as he held out the bowl.
“Stew,” Misha supplied. “Cook said the produce was going to go bad.”
Polina grabbed Misha’s wrist to pull the bowl down, allowing her to take a look at the contents. It almost smelled tempting…potatoes, carrots, and onions boiled to perfection and loaded with spices that they rarely ever used. But she had no idea where the meat had come from and something was making it smell sour. Even though her stomach growled, she shook her head and shoved his hand away. “No, thank you.”
“You have to eat, Polya,” he gave an exasperated sigh, sitting down on the hearth beside her. He set her bowl between them, setting his down on the other side. “At least eat the bread.”
“Is it stale?” she asked him, giving him a glance from the corner of her eye as she scrubbed down the barrel of her rifle.
“Of course,” he said, pulling two rolls from his pocket and setting them between them. He grabbed one and turned it over in his hand. “No mold today, though.”
“Pity. That’s the best part.” Polina let out a scoff as she worked, and she heard Misha snort beside her. She glanced his way again. “You should clean your rifle before it rusts. It won’t be any good to you if it does.”
“Can I at least eat first?” Misha asked her with an overly dramatic sigh, bowl in hand.
“Fine. Enjoy your mystery meat,” Polina said. “But don’t expect sympathy from me when you can’t get a clean shot off.” He gave out a frustrated sigh, muttering something about her worrying too much as he set his bowl back down with a light clunk against the brick. Then he haphazardly swung his gun from his shoulder. She looked back at him. “Careful. Spill your food and I doubt they’re going to give you anymore.”
“Then I’ll just take yours,” Misha retorted. He pulled a worn handkerchief from his pocket, covered in oil stains from various gun cleaning over the months. He intentionally moved so his elbow knocked into her arm. “Soplyachka.”
“Durachok,” she said, returning the favor and smacking him hard in the shoulder. He feigned injury, just like he always would when they were younger, wincing like she’d done any real harm. She shook her head and let out a huff. “You’re such a child.”
“Yet you hit me back,” he argued back, laying his rifle across his lap while he rubbed at his shoulder.
They both tended to their guns in silence for a few minutes, Misha pausing occasionally to take a bite off the stale roll or slurp down a mouthful of soup while he worked. The fire cracked and popped as it burned, soldiers talked and laughed, their voices echoing up through the vaulted ceilings where pigeons rested just under the support beams. The glass ceiling of the once bustling and bright had been broken by debris from the initial invasion, allowing rain to slip between the cracks. It pattered against the windows in a steady rhythm and dripped onto the cobbled floor in some places, drowning out the sound of gunfire down the streets.
On instinct, Polina lifted her head when she picked the sound out through the rest of the noise. Her fingers twitched for her rifle but she forced herself to stay calm, hoping she didn’t appear startled. Even if she was. Only Misha could read her well enough to identify the look in her eyes, she was sure. There was no immediate danger. She carried on. “Sounds like it may be a very long night.”
“After today’s fight? I think it’s just posturing,” Misha said between bites. She resisted the urge to tell him to chew with his mouth closed. Or to take smaller bites. He was gracious enough to swallow his food before he continued. He tapped his earlobe with his index finger. “Listen. No more shots.”
“Even so, don’t dismiss it,” Polina said with a shrug. She checked her rifle as she finished cleaning and reassembling it, aiming it up at the ceiling and squinting. For a minute she imagined shooting one of the pigeons and idly wondered if that was where the meat in the stew had come from. The birds weren’t in any danger, though. She set the rifle down beside her, leaning forward and resting her arms on her knees as she stared at the light reflected on the dark stone. “Letting our guard down in the name of optimism won’t help us any.”
“Better than worrying about things that may never happen,” he replied absently. “Neither help much at all. At least one of them makes it easy to sleep at night.”
“I’m not interested in sleeping,” she muttered in response, rubbing her hands together. “I’m interested in winning. And killing Germans.”
“And you call me simple minded,” Misha said. She glared at him and he dropped his rifle into his lap again, throwing his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t mean it! I was only teasing.”
“Hmph.” Polina turned away, huffing out a breath and shaking her head lightly. “I wish I could see a bright side in all of this, like you can. Or at least stay cheerful.” She reached for the roll he’d left beside her, checking for a place she could bite without breaking her teeth. Hard as a rock. She let out a heavy sigh. “But I’m not cheerful. I’m not an optimist. And—honestly?—I could use the sleep…”
Misha stopped for a minute, the metal of his rifle clicking against itself as he adjusted his hold on it. She heard him start to say something, but before he could get a word out one of the doors to the station burst open. Both of them sat up straight, stiffer than boards, and everyone turned to look at the two young soldiers that came sprinting inside, even before they started shouting. “Lady Nightingale!”
Polina exchanged a bewildered and concerned look with Misha before she got to her feet, grabbing her rifle by the strap and pulling it up with her. She marched toward them, Misha scrambling behind her, and as they both stopped to frantically ask an older soldier where she was as he caught one of them by the arm to chide them for the commotion, she called out, “I’m here. What’s going on?”
“We were over by the church—” one of them managed through his frantic breathing, visibly heaving from their run. He was fresh faced. Mousy brown hair, freckles, and eyes that could have been brown or green, it was too dark to tell. He was smudged with dirt. Both of them were dripping from the rain, hair plastered to their foreheads. “There’s something wrong.”
“That much is obvious,” Misha said behind her, crossing his arms.
Polina glared at him and he acted as if he didn’t know what he’d done wrong. She shook her head, turning back to them, voice stern. “What exactly?”
“A woman. She’s gone into labor,” the other one—a scrawny redhead—cut in. He had a cut from shaving on his cheek, as if he had anything to shave. “But there’s a lot of blood and she’s in a lot of pain. They sent us to find you, they said you’ll be able to help.”
Polina didn’t waste any time jumping into action. She grabbed her pack from the hearth and swung her rifle back over her shoulder, picking up a brisk pace for the door. The boys and Misha fell in beside her. She expected them to follow, so she didn’t look back. “Are they still at the church? How long has she been in labor?”
“They’re still there,” the first boy confirmed. He and his companion jogged to keep pace with her.
“It’s been about an hour,” the redhead added in, still out of breath. “The doctors and the rest of the nurses are at the tents further up the line, tending to casualties from earlier. The medic said you were probably close by and to send for you until they could spare one of the doctors.”
“Good call,” Misha said. Polina didn’t say a word.
The church was a short walk through the rain, made longer by avoiding parked convoys, tents, and crowds. Polina had memorized every route around her, though, and made a quick cut through an alley that brought them to one of the back entrances of the church. Ambulances were parked outside as soldiers carried stretchers to the front. The church became their sanctuary for convalescing soldiers and civilians, as it was tucked away safe from the fighting and had the space for it. The clergymen had refused to abandon their posts and they more than happy to offer the space and their assistance as it was needed. They made fairly decent nurses, actually, once Polina and the others had walked them through the general requirements and unlike the nurses and doctors they could be there all day and night. If there was a problem that they were not able to handle on their own then that meant it was serious.
She navigated the corridor that led to the nave, Misha and the young soldiers still on her feet but struggling to pick up the pace. She stepped out and it didn’t take her long to find who her patient was. Between the rows of cots and the sea of bandaged soldiers and IV drips, she spotted a crowd that consisted of a medic she only knew in passing, the patriarch of the church, and one of the bishops. They were huddled around a cot in one of the corners of the church, by a stained glass window, and sat on it was a brown haired woman that didn’t appear much older than Polina herself, heavily pregnant, soaked in sweat, seemingly too exhausted to scream. The bishop dabbed her forehead with a cool rag and the medic muttered softly as he fished through his kit in search of something to help. But he was trained for infections and wounds inflicted in battle, not childbirth.
Polina practically ran across the hall, throwing her rifle and bag aside. Misha hung back with the soldiers that had accompanied them, keeping out of the way. Her attention wasn’t on them though. She addressed the medic, nodding towards the woman as she leapt into action. “Tell me what happened. Quickly.”
“She’s been on bedrest,” the medic—Vanya—explained. “Her waters broke an hour or so ago and she’s been bleeding ever since, but her pain started before that.”
‘Idiot’ was what Polina wanted to say. Instead, she said, “You should have gotten help sooner.”
“I was monitoring her,” Vanya said, but his defense was weak. “I don’t know the first thing about childbirth. I thought blood was normal.”
“It isn’t. Not that much.” The woman’s voice was strained when she spoke up, forcing the words out through winces and gritted teeth. “There wasn’t that much…not the last time I did this. Not the first time, either.”
“I…should have known,” Vanya said, lowering his voice some as everyone looked to him.
Polina didn’t have the time to argue with him. “You should have,” she agreed, tossing aside her raincoat and rolling up her sleeves. “But what’s been done is done. Get me some antiseptic.” He complied, grabbing it off of a nearby crate before he undid the cap and doused some of the liquid over her hands. She scrubbed her hands with what she could, the rest of it spattering to the floor. A waste, but they were in a rush. She knew from her books and training that these things could turn for the worst in a blink of an eye and she needed to think quickly and figure out what the problem was. She turned her attention on the woman. “My name is Polina.”
“‘Lady Nightingale.’ I know who you are,” the woman replied, doing her best to give a smile. It quickly fell back into a grimace as she gritted her teeth again. “Everyone does.” Her hands trembled as she gripped the edge of the cot. “I mean no offense when I say this, but I hoped I wouldn’t have to meet you. Or at least…if I did I’d hoped it would have been under better circumstances.”
“That’s…fair.” Polina couldn’t blame her. Even if they thought she was a good luck charm, both on the battle and in matters of health, it was better if she wasn’t needed. They didn’t get far into the conversation before the familiar, distant pop of gunfire sounded through the rain. She glanced at Misha. “More posturing?”
“I’ll go check,” he replied.
He only made it halfway across the hall before the door burst open and another soldier ran in. He pointed to Misha, Vanya, and the two soldiers from before, still standing useless to the side, trying to catch his breath. “We need more people further up the line,” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. He nodded towards Polina, the patriarch, and the bishop. “We’re sending more wounded this way, we need the space. Can you handle it?”
“We’ll have to,” Polina said, turning her attention back to her new patient. Without looking at the others, she said, “Go do what you have to do, I’ll shout if I need help.” When they didn’t disperse immediately, she added more firmly than before, “Go.”
Just like that, the group scattered. Misha and the other soldiers raced after the newcomer, an ambulance rumbled up outside, people shouted back and forth, and the clergymen sent for more help from among their own ranks as they dispersed to check on the soldiers being moved in. That left Polina to handle the mess from before. She hoped she wasn’t in over her head, but she was confident in her abilities. And from her perspective she didn’t have much of a choice. They didn’t have enough people available for crises like these to keep popping up. Wounded came and went at a steady rate. This was not what they were used to.
“You didn’t tell me your name,” Polina said to the woman after some time had passed.
It took a moment for her to compose herself as she took in a sharp breath and forced it out slowly, but she finally did respond. “Agafa.”
“You said you've done this before, yes?” Polina asked her, straight to the point. Part of it was to gauge what exactly was happening, part of it was to distract her a bit.
“Twice before,” Agafa replied, managing to pant the words out. She cut off a cry of pain, evidently from a contraction. Polina made a mental note to time it. “But they weren’t like this. They were…easier. Less blood.”
Polina stayed quiet for a moment, surveying the bloodied rags and clothes laying on the floor. With the context she had and the knowledge and skills she had available, all she could figure out decisively was that there had to have been some kind of hemorrhaging. But she wasn’t a doctor and her knowledge on births had been limited, given the accelerated course of study they’d run her through. She remained calm, though. If she could face down Germans she could face down this. And she didn’t want Agafa to panic. “This is abnormal.”
That was an understatement, and they both knew it. “What should I do?”
“For now, nothing,” Polina said decisively. “How far into it are you?”
“Uh…about thirty-seven weeks, I think,” she replied, shifting uncomfortably. “I’m due. That much I can say for certain.”
“That’s good. It means this should be fine,” Polina said, but she knew her voice didn’t sound optimistic at all. She was to the point and curt, and she was treating this like she’d treat a wounded soldier in the field. From her examination, though, she knew enough to know they were going to be here for a while longer. “For now, we wait. I’ll be back in a moment.”
She straightened up, making her way down to the medics unloading the ambulance outside. She glanced over her shoulder briefly before she stepped out, making her way over to the men that were about to head back out to collect more of the wounded. She wasted no time in approaching them, and they stopped as soon as they recognized her. “Do we have any blood to spare?”
“They would know,” one of the medics replied, gesturing vaguely at the building behind her. “The church should have a supply.”
“I know. I’m sure they do. But I may need more of it,” Polina said, keeping her voice level. “A woman in labor. She likely has an abruption. She’s going to be here for a very long time and I need to be able to keep her alive.” More gunfire in the distance. She nodded vaguely in that direction. “And if that keeps up, they’re going to need more for the men you bring here.”
He hesitated, but she knew that her reputation was enough to make him reasonable and willing to help. Perhaps it had its advantages. He nodded slowly. “I’ll see what we can spare.”
Polina nodded before she returned inside, hearing the ambulance’s engine sputter to life as she left. She returned inside, casting a glance out at the wounded before she returned to Agafa’s bedside. On the way she asked one of the bishops to get her a bag of blood when they got a chance. She wanted to be with her brother, fighting, but that would leave the woman alone and she didn’t want her or her baby to die, assuming the latter even survived. She took note of the few belongings tucked away under her cot. A gun, a bag of clothes…nothing more than anyone else in the city had left. But it gave her something to talk about as she took a seat beside the cot, pressing her back against the wall.
“We’ll wait for a moment,” she told her. “It will be a while before you can push.”
“I expected as much,” Agafa said, letting out an exhausted, pained laugh. “It’s not an easy process.”
“You know what to expect, at least,” Polina replied, forcing her own smile. She wasn’t much of a conversationalist, but she wanted to keep her awake and alert. And distracted, if she could manage it.
“Well, not quite,” she replied, and another contraction hit. She was seated over the edge of the cot, something Polina had heard was more comfortable for most women. She had only anecdotes, though. Agafa gripped the hard edges of the cot, breathing through it though clearly struggling. She forced out another light, breathy laugh. “I told you, the first two were easier…this one, though, has been fighting me from the start.”
“You had complications before now?” Polina asked her.
“A few, yes. Terrible sickness, intermittent bleeding…my doctor was worried I wasn’t going to get very far with it,” Agafa explained, her words slow and breathless. Her hair—no doubt once carefully pulled from her face—clung to her forehead and was damp with sweat. “I had lost one, right before this. They’re not sure why. But to prevent it this time, he told me to stay put. I was a nurse before all of this…I could see the reason, so I stayed, even when the war broke out.”
“Leaving would have been better,” Polina observed bluntly.
“I wanted to…and I tried, but…at that point, I was so sick that I couldn’t move,” Agafa said, her voice trembling a bit with the words. “I sent my sons away when they evacuated. I wanted them safe. I felt terribly about it, but I didn’t want them to stay here.”
Polina looked away, pulling her knees up, resting her arms over them. “That sounds difficult.”
“I know I should have risked it, but at least we can reunite when the war is over, yes?” Agafa replied, though Polina wasn’t sure which of them she was trying to convince. Maybe she wasn’t an optimist either, but she seemed to be the gentle type. The kind that could always find a silver lining. She seemed to be drifting a little, though. “Better than me traveling ill and dying for certain, in front of them.”
“Are they young?” Polina asked, focused only on keeping her awake. They were in for a very long night and she had no desire to lose her so quickly.
Agafa nodded. “The oldest is six. The younger one is three.”
Very young. There were younger orphans from this war. Polina leaned her head against the wall, looking over at them. She didn’t want to press too much, but she also didn’t know what to talk about. “So you’re alone now?”
“My husband was killed a few weeks ago, not long after the invasion. He’d been mad that I hadn’t left,” Agafa explained. Another contraction. Another pause as she struggled to breathe through it. Polina waited. She noticed tears glide down her cheeks as she gritted her teeth and her face contorted in pain, and she wasn’t sure if it was from the pain or the conversation topic. She sounded about as well as Polina expected as she went on. “When he didn’t come back for a few days…I knew. Well before they told me.”
“What was his name?” Polina asked. Maybe she knew him…maybe she could swap stories with her.
“Nikolai,” Agafa said, and to help identify him she added his surname, “Andreyev.” She must have figured out her train of thought since she asked, “Did you know him?”
“No. The name isn’t familiar,” Polina said, somewhat apologetically. She almost wished she did, if only because it might have made them both feel more comfortable. “Did he teach you to shoot?” When she was met by a slightly confused expression, Polina nodded towards the end of the cot. “The rifle under your bed. Is it yours?”
“It was my husband’s. My father is the one who taught me to shoot, but I never had much use for it,” Agafa replied. She gave a bit of a sheepish look. “I’ve never been much of a hunter. I can stomach it, but it’s too much work for me. But Kolya wanted me to have it so he wouldn’t worry about me.”
Polina nodded. “My father taught my brother and I,” she said. She shrugged. “But I enjoy it. I like the work.”
“You are a far better woman than I am,” Agafa said through another laugh, clearly taking no offense to it. “But what should I expect from Lady Nightingale?”
Polina hummed in acknowledgment. “I think I’m more suited to shooting and killing than I am to medicine,” she admitted. “Not that that should worry you. It’s just…easier.”
“I would think killing would be harder,” Agafa mused.
“You point, you pull the trigger, you kill,” Polina said, going through the motions. She held her arms up like she was holding an invisible weapon, pulling her index finger in to mimic the motion of shooting, down to the recoil and the butt of the gun slamming into her shoulder. It was muscle memory at this point. She could shoot in her sleep. She relaxed a second later, letting her arms fall to her sides. “Medicine is complex. Though I suppose there’s an overlap…when it comes to vulnerable parts on the body; what kills and how to keep it from killing. But destroying is simple. Repairing them is another matter entirely. Far more delicate.”
“I’ve never thought of it that way,” Agafa said. She adjusted her seating position again, one hand on the swollen bump of her stomach as she sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth. Another contraction. They were getting closer together. So were the bursts of gunfire. The latter was getting louder, prompting them both to turn their heads towards the doors. Polina didn’t react, but Agafa chewed at the inside of her cheek. “I will admit…I’m a bit nervous.”
“You shouldn’t be,” Polina said. She stood up, moving to check on Agafa again, hoping that maybe the sooner she pushed the less blood she would lose. “They won’t get very far, not if we have any say in it.”
“It’s not that. I’m used to the fighting,” Agafa said, drawing in a deep breath. She let it out in a shaky breath. “The baby. You don’t need to lie to me, I know something is wrong.” She looked back at Polina, giving her a tight and uncomfortable smile. It looked as though it took a lot more energy than it should have. “I’m starting to feel lightheaded.”
“You’re still losing blood,” she said. “Do you feel ready to push yet?”
“Close, I think. The contractions are getting closer together,” Agafa said. She seemed to be nodding off a little. “Mostly I feel exhausted.”
“You can rest soon, but you have to stay awake right now,” Polina reassured her. She glanced over her shoulder, then towards the door as more gunfire sounded. She wished she could be in two places at once, or that there was someone else to help here, but they had to make do with what they had. She marched away as the bishop returned with the bag of blood she’d requested, and she returned to Agafa’s side, breathing a sigh of relief. Now she felt that things were more in her control. Carefully, she set up the transfusion, ensuring it was flowing correctly as Agafa fought through discomfort and exhaustion. “This should mitigate the bleeding. I should warn you that I might need to cut.”
Agafa nodded weakly. Even in the dim lantern light she looked pale. Without any words left to comfort her moved to kneel beside her and offered her a hand to squeeze, which she accepted with a grateful look. Even in her pain, though, her grip wasn’t strong. It was shaky and cold. Polina wished she’d been able to do more sooner, but she couldn’t dwell on the past. Right now they needed to focus on the present. She let her hold onto her hand for the next few hours as she labored, stifling cries of pain and sucking breath in through her teeth while Polina did her best to guide her through the process as the battle outside moved closer and more people began to come and go, shouting the whole way, drowning out the misery taking place in their tiny little corner of the world.
The baby was born long after midnight, in the blue hours of the morning, and Agafa was dead by sunrise.
She had lost blood faster than they could give it to her, maintaining enough strength and lucidity to meet her daughter for a brief moment before she slipped into unconsciousness. Polina did what she could—having finally had the help she’d needed from the beginning—but in the end her efforts were in vain. The battle had ended at some point, and she witnessed the soldiers trudging back, covered in dirt and blood that wasn’t their own while the clergymen moved Agafa from the bloodied cot to clean her up for her final resting place. She’d join the overcrowded graveyard at the back of the church, with a temporary marker in place of stone.
Polina sat by the open church doors, holding the baby and absently rubbing at her chest to ensure there was less fluid in her lungs than there had been a few hours ago. She hadn’t held a baby since one of her family’s neighbors introduced her to their son, and that had been over a year ago by now. Before that the last time she’d held a baby was when Misha was born. She was only three or four by that point. This baby was much smaller than either of them had been. Wispy, short light brown hair framed the little thing’s face and she blindly pawed at the air with tiny fists in her sleep, barely fussing in the hour or so she’d been alive. She hadn’t even cried at first.
She stared out at the city, gray from smoke and the clouds that covered the sky, threatening to rain as it had for several days. The gunfire had stopped. The soldiers came marching further into the city. They had taken a few losses, far more than just Agafa, but Polina felt numb to the usual casualties of combat, instead focused on the already orphaned newborn in her arms. People died. In war and in medicine. That was life. For all her efforts, though, Polina had wanted to do more. She always wanted to do more, but there was so little that was in her power to do. If she could raise the dead back to life then this would be far less of an issue…but even she hadn’t mastered death, regardless of what their army and the enemy’s seemed to think.
She heard footsteps on the damp pavement, looking over to see Misha. He looked worse off than he had when they’d returned from their patrol. “Polya,” he said in greeting, jogging up the steps, rifle in one hand. He looked at the baby in her lap, her tiny head cradled delicately in her hand. He grinned. “Look at that. You brought her here all by yourself?”
“Until the end, at least,” Polina replied. Her mouth was dry and her throat itched with the dust she’d been breathing in. “She hasn’t been here very long at all.”
“And her mother? Is she resting?” Misha asked as he crouched down beside her on the steps, extending a finger to brush the baby’s soft cheek, not taking a moment to consider the scene he walked up on.
“In a sense, I suppose,” she replied, lowering her voice some. Misha’s expression fell in an instant and he swore under his breath, letting his hand fall. Polina looked over at him. “Did we win? Last night?”
“We did. It wasn’t easy, though, but we pushed them back,” Misha said, though he didn’t have the same spark that he usually did whenever he would brag about victories. It wasn’t hard to tell that this morning had been a bittersweet one. For every victory there was always loss. He kept his eyes fixed on the baby. “Does she at least have a name?”
“Svetlana,” Polina replied, smiling a bit. “Her mother picked it out, just before…” She cleared her throat. “She hasn’t cried very much at all. This whole time she’s barely so much as fussed.”
“Is that a bad thing?” he asked her.
“It can be. There was fluid in her chest,” she explained, drawing in a deep breath. Her eyelids felt heavy and it was taxing just to hold her head upright. She massaged her thumbs gently on the baby’s chest before she tucked the rough, military-issued blanket back over her when she made a short, chuff of a cry in protest, swatting her hands about. Polina let out a sigh. “She should be fine. I hope that she will be, at least. The birth was difficult on both of them.”
“And her father? Any other family?” Misha asked her, looking between her and her baby. Polina just shook her head. She didn’t know how to go about finding where her siblings ended up, and she knew both of her parents were gone. She wouldn’t know where to begin to look for any other relatives. Misha adjusted the blanket to tuck it closer to her neck, shielding her from the light breeze. “What will happen to her, then?”
“I assume that the church will move her somewhere safer. Somewhere there’s no war and no one is starving,” Polina said. There were orphanages that were already overcrowded from the war, and families in safer areas were doing their best to provide a safe haven for the children until they could be reunited with blood relatives. For Svetlana, though, there was no one to rescue her. Too deep in a war zone to easily get out and no family to take her. All she had were the soldiers and clergy now. A sorry, mismatched group if there ever was one. “She’s in their care now. She’ll be looked after.”
“Such is war,” Misha said, letting out a sigh of his own as he pressed his finger into the baby’s palm. “It’s a pity to be born now, with everything the way that it is. I think the lucky ones are the ones that die.”
Polina glanced at him. For once, his optimism had been beaten down. She wouldn’t consider herself one, but even she didn’t see any use in dying. You didn’t do anyone any good dead. Even she had to admit that he wasn’t wrong, though. One battle was won, but tomorrow—even tonight—there’d be another one. She saved one life and lost another. Tomorrow someone in the exact same position wouldn’t save either. These were the cards they had been dealt and their hands had been tied. All they could do was take it a battle at a time. Kill the fascists that invaded their country, protect their brothers-in-arms, find some way to live while they had the chance to do so and maybe none of it would be in vain. Then maybe there wouldn’t be anyone else that had lost everything before they were even born.
“We have to see it through to the end. Otherwise there’s no point to it all,” Polina muttered, the closest thing to wisdom or optimism that anyone would ever hear from her. Misha glanced at her but said nothing, turning his attention to the sky while she adjusted Svetlana in her arms.
The Allied radio station gave a garbled report on a table just inside the church doors, and an American hymn soon followed as they fell into their usual routine. Quietly, a knuckle barely brushing the newborn’s cheek, Polina softly hummed along to the tune.