My partner nodded across the fire at Kitsenko, still singing as the men beat time. “Only Lyonya.”
That surprised me. “He’s that trusted a friend?”
“The best,” Kostia said, echoing what Kitsenko had said to me earlier.
“Well, I won’t tell, either.” I bumped Kostia’s shoulder with my own, not knowing how to answer such a tremendous gesture of faith except to make light of it all.
“Just don’t go singing ‘The Rose of Tralee’ where any of the other officers can hear, eh?”
He smiled.
“So where exactly is New York?” I asked, mentally searching a map of the American east coast. “North of Washington, but where?”
“I’m not too sure. I’d like to see someday. Where do you want to go, after the war?”
There is no after for me, I thought. I won’t be going anywhere but a grave.
It was the first time I let myself admit what I’d come to believe: that I was never going to make it home. That this war, at least for me, was the end of the road.
Chapter 13
My memoir, the official version: Snipers must be calm in order to succeed.
My memoir, the unofficial version: Snipers must make themselves calm in order to succeed, and that is why women are good at sharpshooting. Because there is not a woman alive who has not learned how to eat rage in order to appear calm.
“NO,” LIEUTENANT DROMIN snapped at me. “You cannot have that relic Vartanov in your platoon. The motherland is not so desperate we will stuff decrepit old grandfathers into uniform and send them tottering out toward the enemy on canes.”
I took another long, calm swallow of fury, keeping my voice reasonable. “He has requested permission to join, and his knowledge of the local terrain makes him invaluable.” My written petition to accept the old ranger into my platoon had been denied, and I was at the command post to plead his case. “It was with his scouting assistance that my men wiped out twelve Hitlerites in no-man’s-land over the last two days.”
“I heard the resulting mortar attack from the other side,” Lieutenant Kitsenko said from where he was leaning against Dromin’s desk. “Quite a concert they put on. Bit heavy on the brass; blame Wagner for that—”
“Who?” Dromin said irritably. “Never mind,” he added as Kitsenko opened his mouth.
Kitsenko just laughed, arms folded across his chest, cap pushed at a cheerful angle over a rumple of fair hair. I remembered Lena saying I’m having a bite of that! when she eyed his shoulders outside the banya, and I was trying not to notice the shoulders now. If you get distracted by a man’s shoulders, it’s better if he’s not the new commander of your company in the middle of a war zone, and it’s even better if you’re wearing a nice dress so you can be admired back. I was just back from a morning’s hunt and was wearing my camouflage jacket, which had been draped and stitched all over with tendrils of garland thorn, so I looked like an ambulatory bush.
“I say let Vartanov in if he’s keen to serve,” Kitsenko was saying. “Maybe he last saw service under Catherine the Great, but who cares? If there’s still sap in the tree, it may as well wear a uniform.”
“Your company, your decision,” Dromin said with an air of washing his hands of the matter. “On your head be it when he dodders off a cliff. As for you, Comrade Sergeant Pavlichenko . . .” I could see his eyes wandering with distaste over my camouflage and my rifle, which had been bundled and thorn-twined until it looked like a load of kindling. Clearly he did not find my horticultural couture appealing, and clearly he thought I should care about this. “You will represent 2nd Company tomorrow afternoon at the command post of the 54th Regiment in the Kamyshly gully, when Major General Kolomiets will be presenting government awards.”