Collaboration with @silmarilz1701
Svetlana knew how to play the game. She'd been caught in the political drama of Stalin's inner circle since birth. The only child of one of Stalin's closest friends, she grew up in the limelight, scrutinized by frie...
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Allying herself with Buck Compton proved to be the most advantageous move Zhanna had made since her American boots had touched British soil. She needed a shadow to slink into, a shadow whose owner was trusted by the officers, liked by the enlisted, and disliked by Nixon. The athletic Californian and the perpetually tipsy intelligence officer gave each other a wide berth, providing Zhanna the space she required to prepare herself. They stood on the cusp of an invasion. It gaped like a yawning mouth, ready to swallow her whole, filled with the nightmares and rattling of machine guns.
The jump was close. Everyone knew it. Everyone could feel it. Buck knew something, something that had been passed between the officers. The American officers, that is. Zhanna didn't pursue the hidden secret, she had too many of her own to reckon with.
The lock left open on her mind and memories of Russia would lurk in the corner of her eyes, like a ghost. Two figures floating between rows of tents, like the alleyways of home, like they were her parents, still watching over her. Still there but still not safe to touch, to hug, to hold. So Zhanna kept her distance and kept pushing. The river kept pushing. But the ghosts weren't bringing back just memories. They brought back old fears, adding to the anxiety that mixed with the fog hanging over the causeways.
Rumours started to spiral among the ranks as intelligence drifted across the channel, news of German aggression and Polish resistance. Nixon told Welsh, who then told Buck. And so it went, down like a trickle of rain on a windowpane down to Zhanna. Zhanna, whose Polish heritage couldn't be confirmed, whose Jewish faith had already bruised her pride and jaw. Zhanna, who couldn't be known as anything but Russian and even that was dangerous.
The Poles were dying, the Germans were thriving and Zhanna would be jumping into the midst of it all in a matter of time. No one knew the hour nor the day and Zhanna didn't know the end. But the river of life pulled her further and pushed her closer to that European smudge of coastline. Where she would only ever be the enemy.
Buck's shadow couldn't keep that fear at bay. He wouldn't be able to keep that nightmare from being a reality. Though he promised to jump beside her. Though he promised that they would stick together. Those promises were empty, though the sentiment was still there. As they readied for the jump, the day of days that was to change or end their lives, Buck and Zhanna stuck close together. Sveta had been like one of those ghosts, flicking in and out of sight. For a few moments, Zhanna toyed with the idea of finding her, looping her arm through her friend's but then the Russian had disappeared and Zhanna was left alone in the sea of Americans.
"No jump tonight,"
So it had been postponed, the inevitable. The moment when Zhanna would face the fears that she hadn't fully realized since leaving Stalingrad. She would be standing on enemy territory, Europe having bowed to the Germans' military. She would become, what her parents had tried to avoid. A piece on their chessboard.
The other men were still willing followers, marching from the blacktop of the causeway back to the rows of tents where they sat dumbly, watching a clattering film on a projector. Like drugged animals, they were peaceful and content to just wait until orders called them into the planes and out of the sky but Zhanna's mind couldn't let her sit numbly. She couldn't. They had gathered their gear and had said their prayers, signed away their lives for money to their families but Zhanna couldn't sit and await death.
