Between Shades of Gray (27 page)

“J-Jonas, keep this.” She handed him Papa’s wedding band. “It’s full of love. Nothing is more important.”

Mother’s trembling increased. She whimpered between breaths. “Please,” she pleaded, staring at us with urgent eyes. “Kostas.”

We held her between us, our arms curled around her withered body.

Jonas breathed quickly. His frightened eyes searched mine. “No,” he whispered. “Please.”

JANUARY 5. Jonas held Mother through the lonely morning hours, rocking her gently, as she used to do with us. Mrs. Rimas tried to feed her and massage circulation into her limbs. She couldn’t eat or speak. I warmed bricks and shuttled them back and forth from the stove. I sat next to her, rubbing her hands and telling stories from home. I described every room in our house in detail, even the pattern on the spoons in the kitchen drawer. “The cake is in the oven baking and it’s hot in the kitchen, so you’ve decided to open the window over the sink and let the warm breeze in. You can hear children playing outside,” I told her.

Later that morning Mother’s breathing became increasingly labored.

“Warm more bricks, Lina,” my brother told me. “She’s too cold.”

Suddenly, Mother looked up at Jonas. She opened her mouth. Not a sound came out. The trembling stopped. Her shoulders relaxed and her head fell against him. Her eyes faded to a hollow stare.

“Mother?” I said, moving closer.

Mrs. Rimas touched her hand to Mother’s neck.

Jonas began to cry, cradling her in his eleven-year-old arms. Small whimpers became deep, racking sobs, shaking his entire body.

I lay down behind him, hugging him.

Mrs. Rimas knelt beside us. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,” she began.

“Mother,” cried Jonas.

Tears spilled down my cheeks.

“She had a beautiful spirit,” said the man who wound his watch.

Janina stroked my hair.

“I love you, Mother,” I whispered. “I love you, Papa.”

Mrs. Rimas continued.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: For thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

“Amen.”

It described Mother perfectly. Her cup overflowed with love for everyone and everything around her, even the enemy.

Mrs. Rimas began to cry. “Sweet Elena. She was so dear, so good to everyone.”

“Please, don’t let them take her body,” said Jonas to Mrs. Rimas. “I want to bury her. We can’t let her be eaten by foxes.”

“We’ll bury her,” I assured Jonas through my tears. “We’ll make a coffin. We’ll use the boards we sleep on.”

Jonas nodded.

The bald man stared blankly, and for once, said nothing.

The bald man sat, his elbows on his knees, talking to himself. “Why is it so hard to die?” he asked. “I helped turn you in. I said ‘No’ too late. I saw the lists.”

Mrs. Rimas spun around. “What?”

He nodded. “They asked me to confirm people’s professions. They asked me to list the teachers, lawyers, and military who lived nearby.”

“And you did it?” I said.

Jonas held Mother, still crying.

“I told them I would,” said the bald man. “And then I changed my mind.”

“You traitor! You pathetic old man!” I said.

“Pathetic, and yet I survive. Surely, my survival is my punishment. That has to be it. This woman closes her eyes and she is gone. I’ve wished for death since the first day, and yet I survive. Can it really be so hard to die?”

I WOKE, UNEASY. The night had been unkind. I slept next to Mother’s body, muffling my sobs so as not to scare Jonas. My beautiful mother—I would never see her smile again, feel her arms around me. I already missed her voice. My body felt hollow, like my sluggish heartbeat was bouncing and echoing through my vacant, aching limbs.

The bald man’s questions kept me awake in thought. Was it harder to die, or harder to be the one who survived? I was sixteen, an orphan in Siberia, but I knew. It was the one thing I never questioned. I wanted to live. I wanted to see my brother grow up. I wanted to see Lithuania again. I wanted to see Joana. I wanted to smell the lily of the valley on the breeze beneath my window. I wanted to paint in the fields. I wanted to see Andrius with my drawings. There were only two possible outcomes in Siberia. Success meant survival. Failure meant death. I wanted life. I wanted to survive.

Part of me felt guilty. Was it selfish that I wanted to live, even though my parents were gone? Was it selfish to have wants beyond my family being together? I was now the guardian of my eleven-year-old brother. What would he do if I perished?

After work, Jonas helped the man who wound his watch make a coffin. Mrs. Rimas and I prepared Mother.

“Is there anything left in her suitcase?” asked Mrs. Rimas.

“I don’t think so.” I pulled Mother’s suitcase from under the board she lay on. I was wrong. Inside were fresh, clean clothes. A light dress, silk stockings, shoes without scuffs, her tube of lipstick. There was also a man’s shirt and tie. Papa’s clothes. I began to cry.

Mrs. Rimas brought her hand to her mouth. “She really intended to return home.”

I looked at Papa’s shirt. I lifted it to my face. My mother was freezing. She could have worn these clothes. She kept them, to return to Lithuania in a clean set of clothes.

Mrs. Rimas pulled out the silk dress. “This is lovely. We’ll put this on her.”

I took Mother’s coat off of her. She had worn the coat since the night we were deported. Stitch marks and stray threads pocked the inside where she had sewn in our valuables. I lifted the fabric of the lining. A few papers remained.

“Those are deeds to your home and property in Kaunas,” said Mrs. Rimas, looking at the paperwork. “Keep them safe. You’ll need them when you go home.”

There was another small piece of paper. I unfolded it.

It was an address in Biberach, Germany.

“Germany. That has to be where my cousin is.”

“Probably, but you mustn’t write to that address,” said Mrs. Rimas. “It could get them in trouble.”

That night, Jonas and I stole shovels and ice picks from outside the NKVD barracks. “It has to be someplace we’ll remember,” I told him. “Because we’re taking her body back to Lithuania with us.” We walked to a little hill near the Laptev Sea.

“This has a nice view,” said Jonas. “We’ll remember this.”

We dug all night, chipping away at the ice, digging as deep as we could. As morning approached, Mrs. Rimas and the man who wound his watch arrived to help. Even Janina and the bald man came to dig. The ice was so hard, the grave was fairly shallow.

The next morning Mrs. Rimas slipped Mother’s wedding band off her finger. “Keep this. Bury it with her when you take her back home.”

We carried the coffin out of the jurta and walked slowly through the snow toward the hill. Jonas and I held the front, Mrs. Rimas and the man who wound his watch held the center, and the bald man carried the back. Janina trailed beside me. People joined us. I didn’t know them. They prayed for Mother. Soon, a large procession walked behind us. We passed the NKVD barracks. Kretzsky talked with guards on the porch. He saw us and stopped talking. I looked ahead and walked toward the cold hole in the ground.

I PAINTED A MAP to the gravesite using the ash mixture and a feather from the owl. Mother’s absence left a gaping hole, a mouth missing its front tooth. The eternal grayness in camp became a shade darker. Amidst the polar night, our only sun had slipped under a cloud.

“We could drown ourselves,” said the bald man. “That would be easy, right?”

No one responded.

“Don’t ignore me, girl!”

“I’m not ignoring you. Don’t you understand? We’re all tired of you!” I said.

I was so very tired. Mentally, physically, emotionally, I was tired. “You always talk of death and of us killing ourselves. Haven’t you figured it out? We’re not interested in dying,” I said.

“But I’m interested!” he insisted.

“Maybe you don’t really want to die,” said Jonas. “Maybe you just think you deserve to.”

The bald man looked up at Jonas and then at me.

“You think of nothing but yourself. If you want to kill yourself, what’s keeping you?” I said. Silence sat between our stares.

“Fear,” he said.

 

Two nights after we buried Mother, there was a whistle on the air. A storm would arrive the next day. I bundled in all that I could find and set out into the blackness to steal wood from the NKVD building. Each day, when chopping and delivering wood, we dumped extra behind the pile. It was understood that if someone was brave enough to steal it, it was there. A man in group twenty-six got caught stealing wood. They sentenced him to an additional five years. Five years for one log. It could have been fifty. Our sentences were dictated by our survival.

I walked toward the NKVD barrack, making a wide circle to arrive at the back, close to the woodpile. My face and ears were wrapped in a cloth, with only my eyes exposed. I wore Mother’s hat. A figure scurried past me, carrying a large plank of wood. Brave. The planks were leaned up against the barracks. I turned near the back of the woodpile. I stopped. A figure in a long coat stood behind the giant stacks of wood. It was impossible to see in the darkness. I turned slowly to leave, trying not to make a sound.

“Who’s there? Show yourself!”

I turned around.

“Group number?” he demanded.

“Eleven,” I said, backing away.

The figure moved closer. “Vilkas?”

I didn’t respond. He stepped toward me. I saw his eyes under the large fur hat. Kretzsky.

He stumbled and I heard swishing. He carried a bottle.

“Stealing?” he asked, taking a swig.

I said nothing.

“I can’t arrange for you to draw a portrait here. No one wants one,” said Kretzsky.

“You think I want to draw for you?”

“Why not?” he said. “It kept you warm. You got food. And you drew a nice, realistic portrait.” He laughed.

“Realistic? I don’t want to be forced to draw that way.” Why was I even talking to him? I turned to leave.

“Your mother,” he said.

I stopped.

“She was a good woman. I could see she used to be very pretty.”

I spun around. “What do you mean? She was always pretty! It’s you that’s ugly. You couldn’t see her beauty, or anyone else’s for that matter!”

“No, I saw it. She was pretty. Krasivaya.”

No. Not that word. I was supposed to learn it on my own. Not from Kretzsky.

“It means beautiful, but with strength,” he slurred. “Unique.”

I couldn’t look at him. I looked at the logs. I wanted to grab one. I wanted to smash him across the face, like the can of sardines.

“So, you hate me?” He laughed.

How could Mother have tolerated Kretzsky? She claimed he had helped her.

“I hate me, too,” he said.

I looked up.

“You want to draw me like this? Like your beloved Munch?” he asked. His face looked puffy. I could barely understand his slurred Russian. “I know about your drawings.” He pointed a shaky finger at me. “I’ve seen them all.”

He knew about my drawings. “How did you know about my father?” I asked.

He ignored my question.

“My mother, she was an artist, too,” he said, gesturing with the bottle. “But she is with yours—dead.”

“I’m sorry,” I said instinctively. Why did I say that? I didn’t care.

“You’re sorry?” He snorted in disbelief, tucking the bottle under his arm and rubbing his gloves together. “My mother, she was Polish. She died when I was five. My father is Russian. He remarried a Russian when I was six. My mother wasn’t even cold a year. Some of my mother’s relatives are in Kolyma. I was supposed to go there, to help them. That’s why I wanted to leave the barge in Jakutsk. But now I’m here. So, you’re not the only one who is in prison.”

He took another long swig of the bottle. “You want to steal wood, Vilkas?” He opened his arms. “Steal wood.” He waved his hand toward the pile. “Davai.”

My ears burned. My eyelids stung from the cold. I walked to the woodpile.

“The woman my father married, she hates me, too. She hates Poles.”

I took a log. He didn’t stop me. I began to pile wood. I heard a sound. Kretzsky’s back was turned, the bottle hanging from his hand. Was he sick? I took a step away with the logs. I heard it again. Kretzsky wasn’t sick. He was crying.

Leave, Lina
.
Hurry! Take the wood. Just go.
I took a step, to leave him. Instead, my legs walked toward him, still holding the wood. What was I doing? The sound coming from Kretzsky was uncomfortable, stifled.