Life is so short. Who would want to have blood on their conscience? Blood of humans, of animals, of the planet? Who would choose to arrive into the next world with all that blood on them? There is no God wants murder in their name. Not a single one. Humans made that up to compensate for our own bloodlust, to sanctify it, to make it holy, to refuse the gallows, to avoid the cells… We keep our silence and do not act in ways we should because men with money pay poor men to hold guns up to other poor men or women to keep all of us in line. They own the people who own the armies who own the schools who own the hospitals who own the police who own our homes who own our rights and who can do anything they want – to anyone. They lock us up if we dare to think too loudly, let alone speak. Well, I am thinking, and I am ready to speak. And not in a letter to you. Not in bones and not in code. There can be no peace, or change, in silence.

I hope with all my heart to see you again one day, soon.

I love you,

Levi

Part II

1944

Flat 4F4

Ivy Proudfoot (17) the night witches

THE NIGHT WITCHES fly in formations of three. Yevdokiya Bershanskaya is the regiment commander. Serafima Amosova is her deputy. Irina Sebrova has flown more missions than anyone else. I am obsessed with them. I can’t jump into a biplane like they do but I can still do what I can considering, can’t I? We have lost almost all of our family. First it was the Spanish influenza. That is the main reason Mum still drinks so much. She was left in a small flat in Paris with the bodies of her grandparents, aunt and cousins. It is a miracle she was still alive. They watched people dying in hundreds, then thousands, then millions. Nobody escaped that pandemic untouched. Mum survived and grew up to be permanently tense. Then there were both of the World Wars. We are strong people. We want to do what is right. We didn’t ask for any of these things and now the person we loved most is not here.

We don’t say out loud what happened, there is so much we don’t know.