The Sikorsky's propeller mists the snow as Pavel banks upwind. Fog is sweeping in ahead. It's a wall of cotton grey. The German plane, curling around to meet him, is first framed by it then silhouetted then finally swallowed whole.
A moment hangs. The mosquito purr of the engine, the rattle of bearings, the steady quiver of the machine gun sight. He eases into a gentle turn, predicting the arc of the Fokker. His helmet buckles whip at the back of his neck. His goggles are frosting up.
Pavel has imagined, often and in slow motion, the Sikorsky's firing sequence: the crack of the gun, the spurt of flame, the languid whirl of the propeller and the clean slipping of the bullet between its blades. A mechanical ballet. He grins as he squeezes the trigger.
Maybe it's the cold, but this time the gun sounds wrong.
Bullets spray into the fog moments before it rolls over him. He can hear the Fokker, but he's blind now and distracted by the off-key clattering of the gun, the titititititititictictictictic
tick
of the grandfather clock outside the teacher's office. His father's voice rose from behind that towering door.
Quiet dinners. Murmured voices from downstairs, the boy listening through the floorboards.
Perhaps he hasn't got the head for art, said his mother.
Who says that of a child?
Well, not everyone does.
At the time this made Pavel think of the way he had learned to laugh when his friends were laughing, even when he didn't understand the joke - if he didn't laugh they would roll their eyes and grin at each other, they'd pat him on the head like he was little. Pasha, Pasha (they said), you're adorable, don't worry about it. He didn't like to be adorable.
He decided, anyway, that whatever sort of head he didn't have, he was doing quite all right without it.
Finally he got sick of pretending to laugh and broke Petyr's nose, although felt bad about it later and apologised with a taffy he had been saving (then had to apologise again in an official capacity because neither his nor Petyr's parents believed that he had). After that nobody called him adorable any more, but they also laughed less when he was about and he found he didn't like that either.
As he'd grown his father would, increasingly, take him and his brothers to exhibitions and to a local theatre. He grew to hate the bore of it, the strange paintings, the long stretches of talking and fancy words and how few fights there were, but he'd always say he liked them because otherwise his father would look troubled and disappointed and he didn't like that look, although he often saw it. Like when he took apart the pocket watch his grandmother gave him and listened to the exposed tick
tick
ticktictictictititictitick -
He releases the trigger too late. Sparks jump. The propeller holds - it's shaped for deflection and this is why - but Pavel feels an unpleasant wobbling from the front of the Sikorsky and shouting a curse into the wind he slaps the side of the cockpit.
Something stirs in the fog. His instincts take over and he banks sharp. A shadow sweeps overhead. It's close enough to make the biplane lurch, the Fokker's dopplering growl aggressive and throaty like a
(the comparison pops into his head unbidden)
Ford Model T. He leaned out and shoved the handbrake forward and the automobile leapt into high gear, chugging and climbing all the way to 30 kph, to 40! Natasha gripped her seat, white-knuckled. The wind bit at his face in a glorious rush and he looked over his shoulder at the tyre marks in the snow, scarf flapping, him laughing, the trees like icicles whipping by. Slow down, slow down, Natasha called, are you crazy? Then he kissed her. Ten seconds later they crashed into a tree.
The auto had been his cousin's. He kept the wreck to tinker with in what little spare time he'd had between working and saving for a replacement, and in the end handed the money to his cousin in person having driven to Moscow himself.
He kept the Model T he'd repaired and was still driving it years later; had been preparing to participate in a race across Europe, even, but the war had put an end to that.
(they don't really sound that much alike, he thinks)
All at once the fog clears. He sees the second Fokker almost immediately and becomes powerfully aware that he is downwind of it and framed perfectly by the retreating fog. His heart jumps. He pulls up.
A bullet whizzes past his ear. Others patter along the fuselage like impatient knuckles drumming on a desk. Bracing wires snap. By the time the Fokker rumbles under him he can feel his engine hiccuping and his altitude dropping. He smells smoke and knows it's over. He screams rage.
Far below, tanks roll. He stares at the clustered German units and he
(remembers the first time he saw)
enemy positions beneath him, men like figurines hunkered down in trenches. His copilot, a man named Konstantin, leaned out with his camera and, with a wheezing click, snapped a photo. German infantry looked up at the little aplane and saw it do a barrelroll.
Give Kostya a gun, he'd said to his superior.
You won't hit anything.
They've got their own planes! We've got to do something. Give us a gun.
His copilot had been a lousy shot. Finally he'd run out of bullets and Pavel had ripped the rifle out of his hands and on a close pass hurled it at the German biplane. It cracked off the left wing and tore the fabric covering the metal framework. The pilot panicked, ducking and wobbling his plane, then buzzed away towards the horizon.
On a return flight months later Pavel spotted an Austrian scout plane over Russian positions.
What are you doing? asked Konstantin.
I am performing an experimental maneouvre, Pavel explained, and then he rammed his aplane into the Austrian scout sending both of them tumbling down to the earth. Enough remained of the aplane's fuselage to execute a shaky landing, but the same could not be said for the Austrian, awarding Pavel one of the world's first air to air kills.
After the engineers started putting machine guns on planes he was among the first flying aces.
Before he had always felt uncertain, but now he could fly.
(until now)
He doesn't think. He bends the nose of the Sikorsky down and, as it begins to teeter into an uncontrolled roll, the whine increasing, he draws his sidearm and takes potshots at the departing Fokker. He thinks he sees the flash of a hit, but nothing comes of it.
Behind him the Sikorsky's tail is aflame. The bracing hasn't failed yet, so if he's careful he might be able to land the thing and if the Germans don't capture him and if he can slip through their lines and find his way back and . . .
They shot my plane, he thinks.
Some of the Germans have noticed his arc of descent. Flashes below. A bullet zips overhead. He remembers the machine gun and returns fire. Dirt and snow jumps up in tufts. A puff of red. Sparks. As the biplane dives the wind slackens and the Sikorsky's nose evens out a little; he wrenches it back down and the force of the wind shreds the fuselage. His wings are there one moment, then there's an awful rending of metal and the air heaves around him and they're gone. He plummets, a bomb.
Around the tank, soldiers scatter.
Pavel is still gripping the wheel. He screams curses down, not knowing if anyone can hear them, then has a thought and repeats them in broken German. He imagines the sound they must be hearing, that shrill climbing wail of a plane's deathroll, then realises he can only hear the buffeting of the wind, and probably that sound's caused by the wings or something he thinks a moment before he
