Legend of Lilia (eBook)

Chapter 1

On a warm day in the summer of 1936, Lilia Vladimirovna Litvyak sat in the cockpit of a Polykarpov PO-2 biplane, staring down the runway alone. The tips of her blonde hair showed under the edges of her flight cap, her blue grey eyes covered in goggles.

“Are you ready, Lilia?” said the flight instructor, ready to crank the propeller.

“I’m ready,” she replied.

“You’ll have only yourself to rely on,” he followed.

“Start it up!” she answered back.

The flight instructor leaned in hard, cranking over the wooden propeller, and with a thump and a sputter the wood and canvas machine came to life. The propeller spun into a blur and the engine sent rumbles through the airframe. The flight instructor stepped aside as she pushed the throttle forward. The biplane rolled down the runway, quickly gaining speed. The nose dipped as the back wheel lifted up. A little more speed and the biplane lifted off the runway, climbing into the sky. People on the ground grew smaller and smaller. Soon the buildings of Moscow would come into view. She flew above roads and houses and onion domed churches. A farmer stood in a field below, beside his horse and cart, waving to her. For the first time in her life, she was alone amongst the clouds.

As a child, she had been fascinated for as long as she could remember that it was possible for people to fly. Pointing to the sky at each rare sighting of an airplane, it became the singular goal of her young life to know how it felt to be up in the clouds looking down on the world. By age fifteen, Lilia had joined the Kalinin Air Club outside of Moscow. She had completed her ground school training, learning in a classroom the mechanics of how an airplane interacted with the air around it, and how to control it with throttle, pedals, and stick, and how to read the cockpit gauges and why they were each important. After passing her tests in the classroom, she flew with an instructor who would take off and land the plane but gave her the controls once in the air. She learned quickly how to pull the airplane through turns, and to climb and descend.

For Lilia, the summer of 1936 passed idyllically. She filled her days with frequent flights from the Kalinin airfield and bus rides home to her family’s apartment in Moscow. She would return in the evenings to find her mother cooking supper, while her father read the paper, and her younger brother Yuri, just six years old, colored in books or played with toys. Her father Vladimir and mother Anna had moved to Moscow from the country after the revolution, trading a life of farming for a life in the city. Vladimir had found training as a railroad engineer and worked hard to make his way up the ranks to become a Minister in the Department of Transportation. Lilia’s mother Anna worked by day as a seamstress.

While flying, Lilia focused her thoughts on the airplane, getting to know its feel a little more with each flight, giving little thought to any problems on the ground. But with each passing day, the people she encountered seemed to change. Their eyes were cast down as they walked the streets of Moscow, ever more distrustful of one another. In August of that year, Lilia’s father would read in the newspaper the details of Stalin’s show trials. His political opponents had been put on trial, accused of treason against the Soviet state. On every street corner one could sense a darkening mood amongst the people, and in hushed voices passed the stories of people disappearing in the night. There were even whispered rumors that the security apparatus was always listening with hidden microphones, desperate to know what the people said to each other when they believed they were alone.

Lilia’s father, Vladimir, didn’t share this darkened mood. She had always known him to be an optimist, encouraging her at every chance to believe in herself and never to give up when facing a difficult task. He had gotten himself from a rural life on a farm to a job in Moscow with hard work and optimism and the firmly held belief that life for the average Russian was improving. The conveniences of the modern world; radio, telephones, electricity, and mass transportation were just coming into reach for all. A new era of modern life was about to be born. Lilia followed his attitude on the world and by the age of fifteen it had earned her a pilot’s license.

The summer passed and the fall arrived. Lilia returned to school and took flights from the airfield on weekends. The leaves turned from green to red and gold, then fell from the trees. The nights grew colder and the streets became quieter. The rumors that passed in hushed voices persisted, and a vague sense of fear was never far. On a cold night in October, three shiny black sedans came to a stop outside the Litvyaks’ apartment building. Four officers of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, the NKVD, stepped out in green uniforms with blue caps, holding black nightsticks, pistols holstered on their belts. The black sedans would be heard driving the streets of Moscow late at night when everyone was asleep, or lying awake in fear that tonight the Black Ravens, as they were called, might come for them.

Lilia, her mother Anna, father Vladimir, and her brother Yuri were all asleep, even at the thumping of boots climbing the stairs to their apartment. Lilia woke to the sound of a hard clacking on the front door, and a shout to “Open up!”

Lilia jumped quickly out of bed and looked at the clock. It was just after 4 AM. What could this be? She stepped out of her bedroom to find her mother Anna staring at the front door, frozen in fear. Her father followed behind her wrapping himself in a robe as the clacking of the nightstick repeated.

“Open up!” the voice shouted again.

“Who is it?” Vladimir replied. If he was afraid, it didn’t show.

Anna pleaded to her husband in a hushed voice, “Don’t open the door.”

“Vladimir Litvyak, we must speak with you. Open this door.”

Anna shook her head, pleading with him not to open it. Perhaps they would give up and go away. Lilia watched in silence. She turned to see Yuri appear at the door to his room.

“Yuri, go back to sleep,” she said, pushing him back.

“What’s happening?” he asked.

“Stay in your room, and go back to sleep,” Lilia said again, trying to keep calm. She closed the door to his room softly.

Vladimir stared at the front door, thinking to himself that there must be a mistake. He had worked hard in his job, and kept his political opinions to himself, never speaking ill of the Communist Party or of Stalin. What could they want with him? He nudged his wife Anna aside and undid the latch. Three NKVD Officers stood in the doorway.

“What is the great emergency at this hour?” he asked of them.

“Vladimir Litvyak, we have a warrant for your arrest. You’re coming with us,” said an officer, walking through the doorway with the other two to take Vladimir by the arms.

“No. This must be a mistake. He’s done nothing wrong. He’s committed no crime,” Anna pleaded.

As Lilia watched her father being taken from the apartment, she could hear the rapping of nightsticks on the doors of her neighbors. “Come out!” the voices shouted.

The barking of a neighbor’s small dog down the hall was followed by a gunshot, and the animal’s dying whimper.

Anna followed the officers as they took Vladimir down the stairs by his elbows, urging them to stop. Lilia followed after her mother. By the time they reached the street below, it seemed the entire neighborhood had been woken from sleep and brought outside. Vladimir was quickly shoved into the back seat of a black sedan. He looked out to Anna and Lilia, helpless. Anna, now in tears, was pushed away from the car as more NKVD Officers emerged from the apartment building across the street. Holding another man by his elbows, the officers ushered him into the back seat next to Vladimir and the doors were shut. Lilia felt the salty sting of tears on her face. She looked to the faces of her neighbors, some she had known her whole life. Their eyes were cast down in shame, avoiding her glance.

Three more NKVD Officers emerged from the building across the street carrying armfuls of books and dropped them in a pile in the middle of Novoslobodskaya Street.

Another NKVD Officer stood on the running boards of one of the black sedans. “We have rooted out terrorists, right here in this very neighborhood,” the officer shouted. “They are charged with crimes of subversion and possession of illegal literature. Thankfully, one of you has informed us of these dangerous activities.” He addressed the crowd while another officer poured gasoline on the pile of books. “They are enemies of the people,” he continued. “There is no place in our society for class enemies! Nothing will stop our new Soviet nation from moving forward, to progress!” He roared to his silent audience as a match was thrown on the pile of books, sending up orange flames. He climbed down from the running board and got into the car.

Vladimir Litvyak stared out the back window as the Black Ravens sped away. Anna and her daughter, tears in their eyes, looked to the faces of their neighbors. They avoided her gaze,...