Between Shades of Gray

by Ruta Sepetys

  “Lina.” Mother stood in front of me now and lifted my chin. “I know. This is horrible,” she whispered. “We must stay together. It’s very important.” She kissed my forehead and turned me toward the train car.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Do we have to be in these cattle cars?”

  “Yes, but I’m sure it won’t be for long,” said Mother.

  9

  THE INSIDE OF THE car was stuffy and full of personal smells, even with the door open. People were wedged in everywhere, sitting on their belongings. At the end of the car, large planks of wood approximately six feet deep had been installed as shelves. Ona lay on one of the planks, peaked, the baby crying on her chest.

  “OW!” The bald man smacked my leg. “Watch it, girl! You almost stepped on me.”

  “Where are the men?” Mother asked Miss Grybas.

  “They took them away,” she replied.

  “We’ll need men in this car to help with the injured,” said Mother.

  “There aren’t any. We’re sorted into groups of some kind. They keep bringing people and shoving them in. There are some elderly men, but they haven’t any strength,” said Miss Grybas.

  Mother looked around the car. “Let’s put the little ones on the top plank. Lina, move Ona on that bottom plank so we can fit some more of the children.”

  “Don’t be a fool, woman,” barked the bald man. “If you make room, they’ll just cram more people in here.”

  The librarian was shorter than me and stocky. She was strong and helped move Ona. “I’m Mrs. Rimas,” she said to Ona.

  Mrs. ... She was married, too. Where was her husband? Perhaps with Papa. The baby gave a blistering yell.

  “Is your little one a boy or a girl?” asked Mrs. Rimas.

  “A girl,” said Ona weakly. She shifted her bare feet on the wooden plank. They were cut and full of dirt.

  “She’ll need to eat soon,” said Mrs. Rimas.

  I looked around the car. My head felt detached from my body. More people pushed into the small space, including a woman with a boy my age. I felt a tug.

  “Are you going to sleep now?” asked a small girl with hair the color of pearls.

  “What?”

  “You’re in your nightgown. Are you going to sleep?” She thrust a tattered doll toward me. “This is my dolly.”

  My nightgown. I was still in my nightgown. Jonas was still in my baby blue coat. I had completely forgotten. I pushed toward Jonas and Mother. “We need to change our clothes,” I said.

  “There’s no room to open our suitcases,” said Mother. “And there’s nowhere to change.”

  “Please,” said Jonas, pulling my coat tightly around him.

  Mother tried to move toward the corner of the car but it was useless. She bent down and opened my suitcase a slight crack. Her hand dipped in and out, searching for something. I saw my pink sweater and a slip. Finally, she pulled out my dark blue cotton dress. She then searched for pants for Jonas.

  “Excuse me, madam,” she said to a woman sitting in the corner of the car. “Could we trade places with you so my children can change their clothes?”

  “This is our spot,” announced the woman. “We’re not moving.” Her two daughters looked up at us.

  “I realize it’s your spot. It would just be for a moment, so my children have a bit of privacy.”

  The woman said nothing and folded her arms across her chest.

  Mother thrust us near the corner, almost on top of the woman.

  “Hey!” said the woman, throwing up her hands.

  “Oh yes, so sorry. Just for a bit of privacy.” Mother took my coat from Jonas and held it up to shield us. I changed quickly and then used my nightgown to make an additional changing curtain for Jonas.

  “He peed,” said one of the girls, pointing at my brother. Jonas froze.

  “You peed, little girl?” I said loudly. “Oh, poor thing.”

  The temperature in the car had risen steadily since we had climbed in. The wet scent of an armpit hung in front of my face. We forged our way near the door, hoping for some air. We stacked our suitcases and Jonas sat on top, holding the bundle from our cousin Regina. Mother stood on her toes, trying to look out onto the train platform for Papa.

  “Here,” said a gray-haired man, putting a small case on the floor. “Stand on this.”

  “That’s very kind,” said Mother, accepting.

  “How long has it been?” he asked.

  “Since yesterday,” she said.

  “What does he do?” said the man.

  “He’s provost at the university. Kostas Vilkas.”

  “Ah, yes, Vilkas.” The man nodded. He looked at us. His eyes were kind. “Beautiful children.”

  “Yes. They look just like their father,” she said.

  We all sat together on the velvet settee, Jonas on Papa’s lap. Mother wore her green silk dress with the full skirt. Her yellow hair fell in shiny waves against the side of her face, and her emerald earrings sparkled under the lights. Papa wore one of his new dark suits. I had chosen my cream-colored dress with the brown satin sash and a matching ribbon for my hair.

  “What a handsome family,” said the photographer, positioning his large camera. “Kostas, Lina looks just like you.”

  “Poor girl,” teased Papa. “Let’s hope she grows out of it and ends up like her mother.”

  “One can only hope,” I teased back. Everyone erupted in laughter. The flash went off.

  10

  I COUNTED THE PEOPLE—forty-six packed in a cage on wheels, maybe a rolling coffin. I used my fingers to sketch the image in a layer of dirt on the floor near the front of the train car, wiping the drawings away and starting over, again and again.

  People chattered about our possible destination. Some said NKVD headquarters, others thought Moscow. I scanned the group. Faces spoke to their future. I saw courage, anger, fear, and confusion. Others were hopeless. They had already given up. Which was I?

  Jonas swatted flies away from his face and hair. Mother spoke quietly to the woman with the son my age.

  “Where are you from?” the boy asked Jonas. He had wavy brown hair and blue eyes. He looked like one of the popular boys from school.

  “Kaunas,” said Jonas. “Where are you from?”

  “Šančiai.”

  We looked at each other, silent and awkward.

  “Where is your dad?” blurted Jonas.

  “In the Lithuanian army.” The boy paused. “He’s been gone for a while.”

  His mother looked like an officer’s wife, fancy and unaccustomed to dirt. Jonas continued to chatter, before I could tell him to stop.

  “Our father works at the university. I’m Jonas. This is my sister, Lina.”

  The boy nodded at me. “I’m Andrius Arvydas.” I nodded in return and looked away.

  “Do you think they’d let us get out, even for a few minutes?” asked Jonas. “That way, if Papa is here at the station, he’ll see us. He can’t find us now.”

  “The NKVD won’t let us do much of anything,” said Andrius. “I saw them beat someone who tried to run.”

  “They called us pigs,” said my brother.

  “Don’t listen to them, Jonas. They’re the pigs. They’re stupid pigs,” I said.

  “Shh. I wouldn’t say that,” said Andrius.

  “What are you, the police?” I asked.

  Andrius raised his eyebrows. “No, I just don’t want you to get in trouble.”

  “Don’t get us in trouble, Lina,” said Jonas.

  I looked over toward Mother.

  “I gave them everything I had. I lied and told them he was feeble-minded. I had no choice,” whispered Andrius’s mother. “They would have split us up. Now I have nothing, not even a crumb.”

  “I know,” said Mother, reaching out to the woman. “They did the same with us, and my boy is only ten years old.”

  Ona’s baby wailed. Mrs. Rimas made her
way over to Mother.

  “She’s trying to feed the child, but something’s wrong,” said Mrs. Rimas. “The baby’s mouth won’t latch properly.”

  Hours passed like long days. People cried of heat and hunger. The bald man griped about his pain while others tried to organize the space and luggage. I had to surrender my dirt canvas on the floor and instead used my fingernail to carve drawings on the wall.

  Andrius jumped down from the car to go to the bathroom but was punched and thrown back in by the NKVD. We all cringed with each gunshot or scream. No one dared leave the car again.

  Someone discovered a hole, the size of a plate, in the corner where the stubborn woman sat with her daughters. They had been hiding the hole and the fresh air that came from it. People descended upon her, insisting she move. After she had been dragged off the spot, we all took turns using the hole to go to the bathroom. Some just couldn’t bring themselves to do it. The sounds and smells made my head spin. A young boy hung his head from the car and vomited.

  Mrs. Rimas organized the children and began to tell stories. The young kids scrambled toward the librarian. Even the two daughters left their grouchy mother and sat mesmerized by the fantastic tales. The girl with the dolly leaned against Mrs. Rimas and sucked her thumb.

  We sat in a circle on the library floor. One of the younger boys lay on his back, sucking his thumb. The librarian turned through the picture book, reading with an animated voice. I listened and drew the characters in my little notebook. I drew the dragon and my heart began to beat faster. He was alive. I felt a wave of heat from his fiery breath coming at me, blowing my hair back. Then I drew the princess running, her beautiful golden hair tumbling down the mountainside ...

  “Lina, are you ready to go?”

  I looked up. The librarian hovered over me. All of the children were gone.

  “Lina, are you okay? You’re flushed. You’re not feeling ill, are you?”

  I shook my head and held up my notebook.

  “Oh my word. Lina, did you draw that?” The librarian quickly reached for the pad.

  I nodded, smiling.

  11

  THE SUN BEGAN TO SET. Mother braided my wavy, sweaty hair. I tried to count how many hours we had spent in the prison box, and wondered how many more we had to go. People ate the food they had brought. Most shared. Some didn’t.

  “Lina, that loaf of bread,” Mother began.

  I shook my head. Was that loaf of bread still there, sitting on my desk? “I don’t have the bread,” I replied.

  “All right,” said Mother, taking some food to Ona. Her lips pursed, she was disappointed.

  Andrius sat with his knees drawn up, smoking a cigarette. He was staring at me.

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  “Seventeen.” He continued to stare.

  “How long have you been smoking?”

  “What are you, the police?” he said, and looked away.

  Night came. It was dark in our wooden box. Mother said we should be thankful they left the door open. I wasn’t about to thank the NKVD for anything. Every few minutes I heard their boots marching by. I couldn’t sleep. I wondered if there was a moon out, and if so, what it looked like. Papa said scientists speculated that from the moon, the earth looked blue. That night I believed it. I would draw it blue and heavy with tears. Where was Papa? I closed my eyes.

  Something bumped my shoulder. I opened my eyes. It was lighter in the train car. Andrius stood above, nudging me with his shoe. He put his finger to his lips and motioned with his head. I looked over at Mother. She slept, clutching her coat tightly around her. Jonas was gone. My head snapped around, looking for my brother. Andrius kicked me again and waved me forward.

  I got up and stepped between the human bundles toward the door of the train car. Jonas stood at the opening, clutching the side. “Andrius said that an hour ago, a long train came in. Someone told him it was full of men,” whispered Jonas. “Maybe Papa is on it.”

  “Who told you that?” I asked Andrius.

  “Don’t worry who told me,” he said. “Let’s look for our fathers.”

  I looked down off the train. The sun had just appeared on the horizon. If Papa was at the train station, I wanted to find him.

  “I’ll go and let you know what I find out,” I said. “Where is the train that pulled in?”

  “In back of us. But you’re not going,” said Andrius. “I’ll go.”

  “How are you going to find my father? You don’t know what he looks like,” I snapped.

  “Are you always so pleasant?” said Andrius.

  “Maybe you can both go,” suggested Jonas.

  “I can go by myself,” I said. “I’ll find Papa and bring him to our car.”

  “This is ridiculous. We’re wasting time. I shouldn’t have woken you up,” said Andrius.

  I looked out of the train car. The guard was a hundred feet away, his back to me. I hung down off the edge and dropped quietly to the ground, scrambling under the train. Andrius beat me there. Suddenly, we heard a yelp and saw Jonas jumping down. Andrius grabbed him and we tried to hide behind one of the wheels, peeking under the train. The NKVD officer stopped and turned around.

  I put my hand over Jonas’s mouth. We crouched near the wheel, afraid to breathe. The officer resumed walking.

  Andrius peeked out the other side and waved us on. I crawled out. The back of our train car had Russian writing on it.

  “‘Thieves and prostitutes,’” Andrius whispered. “That’s what it says.”

  Thieves and prostitutes. Our mothers were in that car, along with a teacher, a librarian, elderly people, and a newborn baby—thieves and prostitutes. Jonas looked at the writing. I grabbed his hand, thankful he couldn’t read Russian. I wished he had stayed on the train.

  Another line of red cattle wagons sat on tracks behind ours. The doors, however, were closed and locked with large bolts. We looked around, then ran under the other train, dodging the splatters of waste. Andrius knocked on the bottom near a bathroom hole. A shadow appeared.

  “What’s your father’s name?” Andrius asked me.

  “Kostas Vilkas,” I said quickly.

  “We’re looking for Petras Arvydas and Kostas Vilkas,” he whispered.

  The head disappeared. We heard scuffling on the floor of the car. The head reappeared. “Not in this car. Be careful, children. Be very quiet.”

  We scurried from car to car, dodging droppings and knocking. Each time a head disappeared, I felt my stomach tighten. “Please, please, please,” Jonas would say. And then we’d move on, with warnings of caution or messages for loved ones. We reached the seventh car. The man’s head disappeared. It was quiet inside. “Please, please, please,” said Jonas.

  “Jonas?”

  “Papa!” we said, trying not to raise our voices. A match scraped across a wood plank. Papa’s face appeared in the hole. He looked gray, and his eye was badly bruised.

  “Papa, we’re in a car over there,” began Jonas. “Come with us.”

  “Shh...,” said Papa. “I can’t. You shouldn’t be here. Where is your mother?”

  “In the car,” I said, happy yet horrified to see my father’s bludgeoned face. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay,” he said. “Are you okay? Is your mother okay?”

  “We’re okay,” I said.

  “She doesn’t know we’re here,” said Jonas. “We wanted to find you. Papa, they broke into our house and—”

  “I know. They’re attaching our train to yours.”

  “Where are they taking us?” I asked.

  “To Siberia, I think.”

  Siberia? That couldn’t be right. Siberia was half a world away. There was nothing in Siberia. I heard Papa talking inside the train car. His arm came out of the hole holding some scrunched-up material.

  “Take this jacket and these socks. You’ll need them.” More noise came from inside. Papa handed out another jacket, two shirts, and more socks. He then handed down a large piece
of ham.

  “Children, split this. Eat it,” Papa said.

  I hesitated and stared at the ham my father handed through the same hole people used as a toilet.

  “Put it in your mouths right now!” he said.

  I tore the thick piece of ham in quarters and handed some to Jonas and Andrius. I put the last piece in my dress pocket for Mother.

  “Lina, take this and give it to your mother. Tell her it’s okay to sell it, if she has to.” Papa’s hand came down to me, holding his gold wedding band. I stared at it.

  “Lina, do you understand? Tell her it’s in case she needs money.”

  I wanted to tell him we had already traded a pocket watch for Jonas. I nodded and put the ring on my thumb, not able to swallow the ham past the lump in my throat.

  “Sir,” said Andrius, “is Petras Arvydas in your car?”

  “I’m sorry, son, he’s not,” said Papa. “This is very dangerous. You must all get back to your train.”

  I nodded.

  “Jonas.”

  “Yes, Papa?” Jonas said, peering up at the hole.

  “You’re very brave to have come. You must all stay together. I know you’ll take good care of your sister and mother while I am away.”

  “I will, Papa, I promise,” said Jonas. “When will we see you?”

  Papa paused. “I don’t know. Hopefully soon.”

  I clutched the bundle of clothes. Tears began dropping down my cheeks.

  “Don’t cry, Lina. Courage,” said Papa. “You can help me.”

  I looked up at him.

  “Do you understand?” My father looked at Andrius, hesitant. “You can help me find you,” he whispered. “I’ll know it’s you ... just like you know Munch. But you must be very careful.”

  “But,” I started, uncertain.

  “I love you both. Tell your mother I love her. Tell her to think of the oak tree. Say your prayers, children, and I will hear them. Pray for Lithuania. Now run back. Hurry!”