by Ruta Sepetys
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.
82
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.
“Nikolai.”
He didn’t look at me.
I stood there, silent. “Nikolai.” I reached out from under the wood. I put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” I finally said.
We stood in the darkness, saying nothing.
I turned to leave him.
“Vilkas.”
I turned.
“I’m sorry for your mother,” he said.
I nodded. “Me, too.”
83
I HAD PLAYED through scenarios of how I would get back at the NKVD, how I would stomp on the Soviets if I ever had a chance. I had a chance. I could have laughed at him, thrown wood at him, spit in his face. The man threw things at me, humiliated me. I hated him, right? I should have turned and walked away. I should have felt good inside. I didn’t. The sound of his crying physically pained me. What was wrong with me?
I told no one of the incident. The next day, Kretzsky was gone.
February arrived. Janina was fighting scurvy. The man who wound his watch had dysentery. Mrs. Rimas and I tended to them as best we could. Janina spoke to her dead dolly for hours, sometimes yelling or laughing. After a few days she stopped speaking.
“What are we to do?” I said to Jonas. “Janina’s getting sicker by the minute.”
He looked at me.
“What is it?” I said.
“I have the spots again,” he said.
“Where? Let me see.”
The scurvy spots had reappeared on Jonas’s stomach. Clumps of his hair had fallen out.
“There are no tomatoes this time,” said Jonas. “Andrius isn’t here.” He started shaking his head.
I grabbed my brother by the shoulders. “Jonas, listen to me. We are going to live. Do you hear me? We’re going home. We’re not going to die. We’re going home to our house, and we’re going to sleep in our beds with the goose-down comforters. We will. All right?”
“How will we live alone, without Mother and Papa?” he asked.
“Auntie and Uncle. And Joana. They’ll help. We’ll have Auntie’s apple cakes and doughnuts with jam inside. The ones you like, okay? And Andrius will help us.”
Jonas nodded.
“Say it. Say, ‘We’re going home.’”
“We’re going home,” repeated Jonas.
I hugged him, kissing the scabbed bald spot on his head. “Here.” I took the stone from Andrius out of my pocket and held it up to Jonas. He seemed dazed and didn’t take the stone.
My stomach sank. What would I do? I had no medicine. Everyone was ill. Would I be the only one left, alone with the bald man?
We took turns going for rations. I begged at other jurtas as Mother had done on the beet farm. I walked into a jurta. Two women sat amongst four people who were covered as if sleeping. They were all dead.
“Please, don’t tell,” they pleaded. “We want to bury them once the storm ends. If the NKVD discover they’re dead, they’ll throw them out into the snow.”
“I won’t tell,” I assured them.
The storm raged. The sound of the wind echoed between my stinging ears. The wind blew so cold, like white fire. I fought my way back to our jurta. Bodies, stacked like firewood, were covered in snow outside the huts. The man who wound his watch hadn’t returned.
“I’ll go look for him,” I said to Mrs. Rimas.
“He could barely walk,” said the bald man. “He probably went to the closest jurta when the winds came. Don’t risk it.”
“We have to help one another!” I told him. But how could
I expect him, of all people, to understand?
“You need to stay here. Jonas is not well.” Mrs. Rimas looked over to Janina.
“Her mother?” I asked.
“I took her to the typhus hut,” whispered Mrs. Rimas.
I sat next to my brother. I rearranged the rags and fishing nets he was covered with.
“I’m so tired, Lina,” he said. “My gums hurt and my teeth ache.”
“I know. As soon as the storm ends, I’ll search for some food. You need fish. There’s plenty of it, barrels. I just need to steal some.”
“I’m s-so cold,” said Jonas, shivering. “And I can’t straighten my legs.”
I heated chunks of brick and put them under his feet. I took a brick to Janina. Scurvy bruisings spotted her face and neck. The tip of her tiny nose was black with frostbite.
I kept the fire going. It did little to help. I could use only a small amount of wood, to save what we had. I didn’t know how long this storm would last. I looked at the empty spot where my mother had lain, Janina’s mother, the man who wound his watch, the repeater. Large gaps had appeared on the floor of the jurta.
I lay next to Jonas, covering him with my body as we had done for Mother. I wrapped my arms around him, holding his hands in mine. The wind slapped against our disintegrating jurta. Snow blew in around us.
It couldn’t end like this. It couldn’t. What was life asking of me? How could I respond when I didn’t know the question?
“I love you,” I whispered to Jonas.
84
THE STORM DREW back a day later. Jonas could barely speak. My joints were locked, as if frozen.
“We have to work today,” said Mrs. Rimas. “We need rations, wood.”
“Yes,” agreed the bald man.
I knew they were right. But I wasn’t sure I had the strength. I looked over at Jonas. He lay completely still on a plank, his cheeks hollow, his mouth agape. Suddenly, his eyes opened with a void stare.
“Jonas?” I said, sitting up quickly.
A loud commotion stirred outside. I heard male voices and shouting. Jonas’s legs moved slightly. “It’s okay,” I told him, trying to warm his feet.
The door to our jurta flew open. A man leaned in. He wore civilian clothing—a fur-lined coat and a thick, full hat.
“Any sick in here?” he said in Russian.
“Yes!” said Mrs. Rimas. “We’re sick. We need help.”
The man walked in. He carried a lantern.
“Please,” I said. “My brother and this little girl have scurvy. And we can’t find one of our friends.”
The man made his way over to Jonas and Janina. He exhaled, letting out a string of Russian expletives. He yelled something. An NKVD stuck his head in the door.
“Fish!” he commanded. “Raw fish for these little ones, immediately. Who else is sick?” He looked at me.
“I’m okay,” I said.
“What’s your name?”
“Lina Vilkas.”
“How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
He surveyed the situation. “I’m going to help you, but there are hundreds sick and dead. I need assistance. Are there any doctors or nurses in camp?”
“No, only a veterinarian. But—” I stopped. Maybe he was dead.
“A veterinarian? That’s all?” He looked down, shaking his head.
“We can help,” said Mrs. Rimas. “We can walk.”
“What about you, old man? I need teams of people to make soup and cut fish. These children need ascorbic acid.”
He had asked the wrong person. The bald man wouldn’t help anyone. Not even himself.
He raised his head. “Yes, I will help,” said the bald man.
I looked at him. He stood up.
“I will help, as long as we tend to these children first,” said the bald man, pointing to Jonas and Janina.
The doctor nodded, kneeling to Jonas.
“Will the NKVD allow you to help us?” I asked the doctor.
“They have to. I am an inspection officer. I could make a report to the tribunal. They want me to leave and report that everything is fine here, that I saw nothing out of the ordinary. That’s what they expect.”
His hand moved quickly toward me. I put up my palms, shielding myself.
“I am Dr. Samodurov.” His hand was extended, for a handshake. I stared at it, stunned by his show of respect.
We worked under his supervision. That day we each had a bowl of pea soup and half a kilo of fish. He helped us store fish for the upcoming storms and plot out a burial yard for more than a hundred bodies, including the man who wound his watch. He had frozen to death. The doctor enlisted the help of Evenks, native hunters and fishermen, who lived less than thirty kilometers away. They came on sleds with dogs and brought coats, boots, and supplies.
After ten days he said he had to move on, that there were other camps with deportees who were suffering. I gave him all the letters I had written to Andrius. He said he would mail them.
“And your father?” he asked.
“He died in prison, in Krasnoyarsk.”
“How do you know that?” he asked.
“Ivanov told my mother.”
“Ivanov did? Hmm,” said the doctor, shaking his head.
“Do you think he was lying?” I asked quickly.
“Oh, I don’t know, Lina. I’ve been to a lot of
prisons and camps, none as remote as this, but there are hundreds of thousands of people. I heard a famous accordion player had been shot, only to meet him a couple of months later in a prison.”
My heart leapt. “That’s what I told my mother. Maybe Ivanov was wrong!”
“Well, I don’t know, Lina. But let’s just say I’ve met a lot of dead people.”
I nodded and smiled, unable to contain the fountain of hope he had just given me.
“Dr. Samodurov, how did you find us?” I asked him.
“Nikolai Kretzsky,” was all he said.
85
JONAS SLOWLY BEGAN to heal. Janina was speaking again. We buried the man who wound his watch. I clung to the story of the accordion player and visualized my drawings making their way into Papa’s hands.
I drew more and more, thinking that come spring, perhaps I might be able to send off a message somehow.
“You told me those Evenks on the sleds helped the doctor,” said Jonas. “Maybe they would help us, too. It sounds like they have a lot of supplies.”
Yes. Maybe they would help us.
I had a recurring dream. I saw a male figure coming toward me in the camp through the swirling ice and snow. I always woke before I could see his face, but once I thought I heard Papa’s voice.
“Now, what sort of sensible girl stands in the middle of the road when it’s snowing?”
“Only one whose father is late,” I teased.
Papa’s face appeared, frosty and red. He carried a small bundle of hay.
“I’m not late,” he said, putting his arm around me. “I’m right on time.”
I left the jurta to chop wood. I began my walk through the snow, five kilometers to the tree line. That’s when I saw it. A tiny sliver of gold appeared between shades of gray on the horizon. I stared at the amber band of sunlight, smiling. The sun had returned.
I closed my eyes. I felt Andrius moving close. “I’ll see you,” he said.
“Yes, I will see you,” I whispered. “I will.”
I reached into my pocket and squeezed the stone.
EPILOGUE
