Above Us Only Sky (25 page)

29

Prudence

I
n 1992, we went back to Lithuania. She was now an independent country. Germany was reunited. In three short years, the world had changed. On this trip, Freddie and Veronica stayed home. I was able to spend a full month with my aunt and uncle. First, we visited Vilnius and Kaunas. In Vilnius, we met Daina and Stasys's daughter, Audra. She was blond, and according to Daina, she looked like my great-grandmother, Aleksandra. We spent a week at the university where Audra taught political science. Audra told me that she'd always known that Lithuania would gain its independence during her lifetime. “Maybe because of my parents and my upbringing or maybe because some things are inevitable, or maybe because I knew my people could only remain silent for so long.” Audra is an amazing woman. After a week in Vilnius and Kaunas, we returned to Palanga. I remember the windows open in Aunt Daina's flat, a warm ocean breeze drifting from the west, their apartment smelling of the sea.

Every morning and evening, we walked the long stretch of dune and played in the Baltic's shallow tide. I was mourning the loss of Wheaton, but I did so quietly. My aunt Daina still worked at the button factory, but my uncle Stasys was now a reporter for a Lithuanian newspaper. I could've remained there forever. For me, it was like hiding out, not the same as being home.

Next, we were off to Germany. It was my Oma's turn to go home.

My Oma had gone to Berlin in 1990, by herself—to visit cousins she hadn't seen in forty years—but on this trip, we were going to see her girlhood home, to see if it still remained. In 1990, my Oma hadn't wanted to go. She couldn't bring herself to see the home where she'd lost everything and everyone, not when she was filled with so much hope about the future. In 1990, she'd gotten to know her cousins, her mother's brother's children and their children, and they loved my Oma. How could they not? They described life behind the iron curtain, waiting in line for bread, being told that their fellow Berliners and Germans were suffering under capitalism, while they were thriving, but who was thriving? No one. They were hungry. They told my Oma what she already knew: before the wall, young people and educated people left in droves. The workforce dwindled. How could the communist leaders stop people from leaving? Build a wall and claim that the wall was to stop people from entering East Berlin. White is black and black is white. Two plus two equals five. Lies. Power has no conscience.

My Oma's girlhood home still remained, but in 1992, it was no longer a single home. It had long been divided into three apartments. I remember that she ran her fingers along the brick facade. Out front, there were roses in bloom, but we'd brought our own to leave on the spot where her mother had been buried. My Oma hesitated at the front steps, bending down to feel the bricks with her hand. The Old Man steadied her with his left arm. She kept looking around like she expected to see her father or brother run past. Instead, a young girl with straight black hair darted up the steps. At the front door, she turned back, speaking in German, asking if everything was okay. My Oma grinned, showing her broken tooth. “Everything is fine,” she told the girl.

At the left side of the house, we passed through the same wrought-iron gate my Oma had known growing up. It was a beautiful day, the kind of day that makes it hard to imagine my Oma's last day at home: soldiers and burials. Past the gate, there was a gazebo overgrown with a white star–flowered vine and a neatly trimmed hedgerow. Around the gate's interior, there were dog and sweetbriar roses, the roses Ingeburg remembered from her youth, her mother's roses. Even with black hairs poking from a mole on her jawline and wrinkles carved deep beneath her eyes, my Oma was youthful.

We placed the flowers on the grass at the site where the Old Man and my Oma agreed the grave had been dug. With the Old Man's help, my Oma got down on her knees, slipping her fingers between the blades of grass. The black-haired girl came out through the back of the house and told my Oma that her mother and grandmother were curious to know what we were doing. My Oma told the girl that she was sorry to bother them. She was an old woman. She had lived in this house as a girl. “My mother wants you to come inside,” the girl said. It was nearly the Old Man's Lithuanian homecoming wish come true.

The little girl's apartment was at the top of the stairs and to the left.

Nothing was as my Oma remembered. The space was cramped, everything divided as her country had been divided. In retrospect, I don't think she wanted to be there in the small apartment. I don't think she could breathe. We had ginger cookies and tea, and everyone spoke German. There was barely enough room for the five of us in the tight kitchen. According to my Oma, the apartment had once been her parents' bedroom.

Later that summer, when I was still on break from university, the Old Man took me to Coney Island. Apparently, he sometimes went there alone. I think he people-watched, but I don't really know. We drank cherry Cokes with real cherries and noshed hot dogs and popcorn. There was ketchup and butter in the Old Man's beard. It was comical and endearing, so I didn't tell him. We rode the Ferris wheel. On the way up, I nudged him in the side. “There's a deadbeat operating this ride.” I smiled and touched his tennis shoe with my boot heel.

The Old Man rattled the metal bar latched over our laps. “I'm afraid, Prudence.” He was being funny. “What do we do?”

I don't think the Old Man was afraid, not in the hospital, not at the very end.

I suspect that he was ready. His stories play in my head like an epic film with a great score. He's studying at university and playing violin with his father. He's courting a beautiful German girl at the beer garden. There's music and a parade. He's riding his bicycle across a field. The sun's setting. He's anxious, but hopeful that one day this war will come to an end. He's on a ship bound for the United States. He has a beautiful son. He teaches the boy about Lithuania, about home. He works hard. He loves hard. He treasures his father's pocket watch. You know his story.

There was a short Mass inside the church. Now, there is a gaping hole in the dirt. The backhoe that dug the grave is within sight. Earlier, it rained for the flowers. On the hillside, forsythia and gardenias bloom. The sun came out for the Old Man. It's June fifteenth, nearly summer in Bay Ridge.

Daina and Stasys arrived yesterday for the funeral.

Today, Daina wears a white cardigan dragging the ground, stained green by summer grass. An orange scarf holds back her white hair. Her wings are unfettered, but like the rest of her body, they have shrunk and are barely noticeable. She could be any other eighty-year-old woman. Stasys wears a blue suit. Last night, he was dressed all in black. He and Daina nodded off on the sofa while neighbors and friends of the Old Man came to the house, carrying casserole dishes that Oma refused to serve. I don't know why she wouldn't put them out, but no one asked because no one wanted to upset her. They remained covered on the kitchen counter. I heard Veronica whisper that Oma won't be long for this world without the Old Man.

Right now, there's no food to think about, just a big gaping hole, a grave. Oma holds a handkerchief to her eyes. Occasionally, she sobs. There was no eulogy. The Old Man left specific instructions. Daina looks up at the sky, blue and fresh after the rain. When I grow up, I want to be like her. The only problem is that I am grown up. I'm wearing an A-line silk jacket, the same blue as Stasys's suit, over capri pants. The jacket is a floral print. It has pockets and silver buttons down the front. My hair is loose and the back of my neck is sweating. There are thirty people at the gravesite. I know because I've counted them. We match the summer grass and sky. No one is dressed in black. It's strange, but good. I am waiting for a sign. I think that if the Old Man is in a magical place, he'll send me a sign that he is all right.
Stop it with the worry, Prudence,
he'll say. Lukas Blasczkiewicz believed in miracles. So did the Old Man.

So do I. I try. I did. I do. I used to. I do. I think I do.

Daina pulls an embroidered handkerchief from her pocket and opens it to show me a pile of dirt. I understand what it is. We couldn't take the Old Man's body to Lithuania, so she's brought Lithuania to him. I wonder if she'll let me throw a bit of the dirt into his grave. I think it will help me to
do
something, to actively say good-bye. Then I hear a plastic rustling. Stasys has been carrying a grocery bag, which I thought was strange, but he speaks very little English, so I left it alone. He reaches inside the grocery bag and starts handing plastic Ziploc bags of dirt to everyone around the gravesite. It's too funny: Lithuanian soil in plastic bags. Yellow and blue zipped together make green. The priest says, “We commit the body of Frederick Vilkas, husband to Ingeburg Rosemarie Kischel Vilkas, brother to Daina Vilkas Valetkiene, father to Frederick Peter Vilkas, and grandfather to Prudence Eleanor Vilkas, to the peace of the grave.”

Stasys hands the priest a plastic bag of dirt. It's lovely to see thirty people at a funeral opening Ziploc bags. The priest is opening his. I'm opening mine. This is pretty good. Basically, it's the kind of sign I would expect from the Old Man. Staring down at the simple pine box the Old Man picked out, we toss our dirt on the coffin. “From dust you came, to dust you shall return. Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life.” The priest smiles at us before making the sign of the cross. No one is crying now. In fact, it's hard not to laugh. The Old Man would've liked this. He really would've liked this. Stasys walks around collecting the Ziploc bags, smoothing them, piling them back in his grocery bag. Of course, he'll reuse them. We Lithuanians are not wasteful. The priest says, “Lord God, our Father in heaven, Lord God, the Son and Savior of the world, Lord God, the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us. At the moment of death, and on the last day, save us, merciful and gracious Lord God.”

The sun is up and the sky is blue. The watch in my pocket ticktocks. The Lithuanian soil has been tossed. “We thank you for what you have given us through Frederick Vilkas. When the time has come, let us depart in peace, and see you face-to-face, for you are the God of our Salvation.”

“Amen.”

This place of death smells like birth, like honeysuckles and hyacinth. On the hillside, jonquils are in bloom. I hug Oma first. She has slipped her handkerchief under her bra strap. In German, she thanks Stasys for the dirt. It meant so much to everyone. There was no one, not even the priest, who didn't know where the dirt was from and what it meant, how much the Old Man would've appreciated it. Oma reaches for my head to have me bend down. She kisses my hairline and says, “I love you.” I think Veronica is wrong. I don't think my Oma will die right away. The Old Man teased that she couldn't get along without him, not after so many years together. Oma will prove him wrong.

The Old Man was a grumpy old man, a charming curmudgeon who didn't waste one hour of his long life. He enjoyed his cigars and his cheap Black Label beer. He reunited his family and returned to his homeland. He made peace with the world. Dying is part of the adventure.

I realize today that it doesn't matter how many people in your life die because it doesn't make being without them any easier. This is what the Old Man would tell me, and as usual, he'd be right.

Daina and I hold hands. We're two little birds, grounded for now, walking along a grassy path, passing older graves, the good kind with statues and discolored stone, with angels and dogs and dates faded by the elements. Daina says, “We talked on the phone all the time. He was proud of you. He loved you very much.”

I would like
never
to let go of her hand. As we pass a statue of the Virgin Mary, I see a man up ahead with curly hair down to his shoulders. The watch ticktocks in my pocket. I can practically feel time passing in my bones, especially in my knees, which seem wobbly today, like I could fall over any second. I can't imagine how Daina must feel. The Old Man told me that pocket watches used to be a status symbol. They were expensive, complicated machines, each part—wheels, springs, and pinions—­handmade. Not like today. Our watch has its own key. It's not the original, but a key that the Old Man had specially made to keep the watch ticking, to keep our family moving.

The curly-haired man wears a loose-fitting yellow oxford and faded jeans. He's just standing there. Oma is telling Freddie that there are things at the house, things that were his father's, things he'll want. Freddie doesn't want anything. Robins peck the ground for worms. It's a good day. The ground is moist. The worms are easy to find. Up ahead, the curly-haired man crosses his arms. He's just standing there. As we get closer, he turns and trots to a green four-door in the parking lot. I know that the man is not Wheaton, but there's the possibility of Wheaton. There's no reason to think that I won't see him again—one day.