Aviation Captain First Class Pavlo Grigor’evich Tychina smiled from behind an antiseptic cotton mask covering part of his face, at hearing his girlfriend’s voice. The mask was trimmed at the top, which allowed his curly brown hair to show and partially conceal the mask. Bandages and pads covered his nose and ears, but it was obvious that they were damaged — his left ear and his nose looked as if they were missing completely. Although Tychina wore a flight suit and heavyweight flying jacket — a new one, not the one in which he had bailed out — it could be seen that the upper part of his torso was covered with bandages, and his neck was thickly wrapped. “Mikki!” he shouted in return. He turned to greet her, but held back.
She paused, taking his hands warmly, her eyes narrowing with concern as she sensed something in his mannerisms. “Pavlo? What is it?”
“I … I’m happy to see you, Mikki …” But he was pushing her away. Fearing that she might be repulsed by the sight of him, he was trying to keep his distance, not forcing her to get too close because of the onlookers surrounding them.
“Pavlo … Pavlo, damn you …” Mikola rushed into his arms and kissed him. The hospital staff surrounding them gave them an appreciative “Ahhh …” But as the kiss became more prolonged, they broke out into enthusiastic cheers and whistles. She finally released him, hugged him, then took his hand and led him to the hospital doors amidst wild cheering.
The sunshine was dazzling outside the hospital. Pavlo breathed in the crisp, cold air, thanking God and the stars above for letting him live. “All I want to do,” Pavlo said, letting great gusts of steamy breath escape from the cotton mask’s mouth slit, “is to stand out here and drink it in.”
“We’ll freeze to death, Pavlo,” Mikola said, shivering. “So. Your place or mine?”
“Headquarters first,” Tychina said. “I’m going to report back to duty right away.”
“Report back to— Pavlo, you shouldn’t even be out of the hospital yet!” Korneichuk protested. “You should be in bed and off that left leg! You just survived a high-speed, high-altitude ejection. What on earth makes you think you can go back on duty?”
“Because my injuries aren’t serious, and we’re at war,” Tychina replied as if she should even have to ask. “I didn’t say I’d be flying, although I think I’m well enough to fly. They’re going to need every soul available to mobilize the armed forces if Russia wants to fight.”
“If Russia wants to fight, the best the Ukraine can do is negotiate and beg for help from the West,” Korneichuk said grimly. “They can slaughter us like sheep if they decide to invade.”
“They can try to slaughter us,” Tychina said, shaking his head as they walked away from the hospital. “And there may be little hope for us. The Ukrainian armed forces were designed to resist an outside invader until help arrived from Russia — not fight against Russia. But it’s important to fight, Mikki. Whoever the invader is, it is important to fight.”
A convoy of trucks carrying base security soldiers rolled by just then, and the truck’s driver started to beep his horn when he recognized the young fighter pilot who, almost single-handedly, fought off the Russian air invasion. Soon every soldier in the back of the truck was cheering, and then the entire convoy of ten trucks joined in. Like the scene at the hospital, it was a stirring moment for the young pilot — and for her. Mikola Koneichuk began to realize what her lover was saying: one man’s actions could make a difference. Seeing the enthusiastic faces of the men driving by in the trucks, in the faces of those she saw at the hospital, she could no longer say with certainty if her country would be defeated so easily by any foe — even Russia.
It was less than a kilometer to air army headquarters, but it took the couple over an hour to make the short walk because of the numbers of well-wishers who stopped to congratulate Pavlo on the way. Many of them offered the couple a ride, but Pavlo would simply put his arms around Mikola and say, “Would I deprive you unfortunate cretins a chance to glimpse this beautiful woman as you drive by?”
Korneichuk felt enormous pride and love for this man. His life, in many ways, had been so typical of young men in the then-USSR. Born in 1967 in Brovary, near Kiev, Pavlo was the son of Russian parents who made them very proud when he became a member of the Komsomol (Young Communists) and graduated with honors from the Gritevets Higher Military Aviation Academy in Char’kov, Ukraine SSR in 1987. After that, Pavlo was assigned to the Twenty-fourth Air Army in Tallinn, Estonia SSR, flying combat, strike, and maritime patrols in the Black Sea region in MiG-23s and MiG-27s. When the Ukraine declared independence from the collapsing Soviet Union in 1991, Pavlo gave up all privileges in the Russian/Soviet Air Force and accepted a commission in the fledgling Ukrainian Air Force. He did the same duties he’d always done for the Russians, except now it was for his true homeland. As his career moved quickly forward in the new Air Force, he became a flight instructor and flight commander just a year ago. Neither one of them could have guessed what had just happened, barely one year later.
She knew that he had almost been cut out of her life once, and that she should not allow it to happen again. She had always had doubts about being the wife of a military officer, especially a military pilot’s wife, and she was never sure if that was the kind of life she wanted. But she now realized that, as difficult as life was in the Ukrainian Air Force, a life without Pavlo Tychina would be even worse. “Pavlo?”
“Yes?”
“I … I want to ask you something.” She stopped, and Tychina turned to face her. “I’ve thought a lot about us, and … and …”
He reached up with leather-gloved hands and encircled her face. “I know what you’re going to say, my love,” Tychina said. “Believe me, I love you with all my heart and soul, and I want nothing more than to be with you forever. But I … I’m not … I just think you should wait. I don’t want to pressure you into something you might regret.”
“Regret? What could I possibly regret?”
Sadly, slowly, Tychina removed his fur hat, then pulled off the cotton antiseptic face mask. Pavlo’s face was a maze of scars and lacerations, some requiring extensive stitches to close; others were so deep that they had to be kept open to allow pus to properly drain. His nose was heavily taped, but it was obvious, too obvious, that he no longer had a nose. A deep scar missed his left eye by millimeters, making his left eyelid look as if it were twice as large as normal, and it slanted upward, giving him a sinister Oriental appearance. His eyebrows and eyelashes were burned or shaved off. The scars continued down his throat — Mikola saw where a trachea tube had been inserted in his throat sometime during his surgery — and Pavlo revealed enough of his chest for her to see that the injuries continued far down his torso. It was a wonder to her that he could stand the pain without screaming.
“Do you understand now, Mikki?” Tychina asked quietly. “I look at myself in the mirror, and I am sickened! I begged my best friend to bring a gun and kill me, but it would be a waste of a bullet that could be used to kill invading Russians. The only thing that keeps me from ending my pain is my desire to keep the Russians off my homeland. I will not compel you to be with a man like me.”
“With a man like—” Mikola stepped closer to him, reaching up to his face. He recoiled from her, but she took his horribly disfigured face in her hands and held it. “You are the bravest, kindest, most loving man I have ever known, Pavlo Grigor’evich,” she said. She kissed his scarred lips, holding the embrace until he finally relaxed and returned her kiss. She released him, then, still holding his face in her hands, said, “And if you don’t marry me right away, Pavlo, you and I will both regret it.”