“Hurry!” she said. “Put those things out of sight. The NKVD is rounding everyone up to sign papers.”
I didn’t have a chance to tell Mother about Mrs. Arvydas. We put everything in the bald man’s shack. Mother put her arms around me. Her dress hung on her thin frame, her hip bones protruding at the belted waistline.
“She mailed our letters!” whispered Mother, beaming. I nodded, hoping the handkerchief had passed across hundreds of miles already, ahead of the letters.
It wasn’t five minutes before the NKVD burst into our hut, yelling for us to report to the office. Jonas and I marched along with Mother.
“And drawing the map this afternoon?” she asked.
“Easy,” I said, thinking of the stolen pen hidden in my suitcase.
“I wasn’t sure it was safe,” said Mother. “But I guess I was wrong.” She put her arms around us.
Sure, we were safe. Safe in the arms of hell.
“Tadas was sent to the principal today,” announced Jonas at dinner. He wedged a huge piece of sausage into his small mouth.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because he talked about hell,” sputtered Jonas, juice from the plump sausage dribbling down his chin.
“Jonas, don’t speak with your mouth full. Take smaller pieces,” scolded Mother.
“Sorry,” said Jonas with his mouth stuffed. “It’s good.” He finished chewing. I took a bite of sausage. It was warm and the skin was deliciously salty.
“Tadas told one of the girls that hell is the worst place ever and there’s no escape for all eternity.”
“Now why would Tadas be talking of hell?” asked Papa, reaching for the vegetables.
“Because his father told him that if Stalin comes to Lithuania, we’ll all end up there.”
46
“IT’S CALLED TURACIAK,” Mother told us the next day. “It’s up in the hills. It’s not large, but there’s a post office and even a small schoolhouse.”
“There’s a school?” said Miss Grybas excitedly.
Jonas shot me a look. He had been asking about school since the beginning of September.
“Elena, you must tell them I’m a teacher,” said Miss Grybas. “The children in the camp must go to school. We have to create some sort of school here.”
“Did she mail the letters?” asked the bald man.
“Yes,” said Mother. “And she wrote the post office address on the return.”
“But how will we know if any letters arrive for us?” said Mrs. Rimas.
“Well, we’ll have to continue to bribe someone who signed,” said Miss Grybas with a grimace. “They’ll check for our mail when they take their trips to the village.”
“She said she met a Latvian woman whose husband is in a prison near Tomsk,” said Mother.
“Oh, Elena, could our husbands be in Tomsk?” asked Mrs. Rimas, bringing her hand to her chest.
“Her husband wrote that he is spending time with many Lithuanian friends.” Mother smiled. “But she said the letters were cryptic and arrived with markings.”
“Of course they did,” said the bald man. “They’re censored. That Latvian woman better be careful what she writes. And you better be careful, too, unless you want to be shot in the head.”
“Will you never stop?” I said.
“It’s the truth. Your love letters could get them killed. And what of the war?” asked the bald man.
“The Germans have taken Kiev,” said Mother.
“What are they doing there?” asked Jonas.
“What do you think they’re doing? They’re killing people. This is war!” said the bald man.
“Are the Germans killing people in Lithuania?” said Jonas.
“Stupid boy, don’t you know?” said the bald man. “Hitler, he’s killing the Jews. Lithuanians could be helping him!”
“What?” I said.
“What do you mean? Hitler pushed Stalin out of Lithuania,” said Jonas.
“That doesn’t make him a hero. Our country is doomed, don’t you see? Our fate is genocide, no matter whose hands we fall into,” said the bald man.
“Stop it!” yelled Miss Grybas. “I can’t bear to hear about it.”
“That’s enough, Mr. Stalas,” said Mother.
“What about America or Britain?” asked Mrs. Rimas. “Surely they’ll help us.”
“Nothing yet,” said Mother. “But soon, I hope.”
And that was the first news of Lithuania in months. Mother’s spirits soared. Despite her hunger and blisters from hard work, she was effervescent. She walked with a bounce. Hope, like oxygen, kept her moving. I thought about Papa. Was he really in prison somewhere in Siberia? I recalled the map I had drawn for the NKVD, and then Stalin and Hitler dividing up Europe. Suddenly, a thought hit me. If Hitler was killing the Jews in Lithuania, what had happened to Dr. Seltzer?
The possibility of letters en route made for endless conversation. We learned the names of everyone’s relatives, neighbors, coworkers—anyone who could possibly send a letter. Miss Grybas was sure the young man who had lived next door to her would send a letter.
“No, he won’t. He probably never noticed you lived there,” said the bald man. “You’re not exactly the noticeable type.”
Miss Grybas was not amused. Jonas and I laughed about it later. At night, we’d lie in our straw creating ridiculous scenarios of Miss Grybas romancing her young neighbor. Mother told us to stop, but sometimes I heard her giggling right along with us.
Temperatures dipped and the NKVD pushed us harder. They even gave us an extra ration at one point because they wanted another barrack built before the snow came. We still refused to sign the papers. Andrius still refused to speak to me. We planted potatoes for spring, even though no one wanted to believe we might still be in Siberia when the cold broke.
The Soviets forced Mother to teach school to a mixed class of Altaian and Lithuanian children. Only the children whose parents signed were allowed to attend school. They forced her to teach in Russian, even though many children did not yet fully understand the language. The NKVD would not let Miss Grybas teach. It pained her. They told her if she signed, they would allow her to assist Mother. She wouldn’t sign, but helped Mother with lesson plans in the evenings.
I was happy that Mother was able to teach in a covered shack. Jonas had been reassigned to chopping logs for firewood. The snow had arrived, and he came back each night wet and freezing. The tips of his frozen hair would simply break off. My joints became stiff from the cold. I was sure the insides of my bones were full of ice. They made a cracking, snapping sound when I stretched. Before we could get warm, we’d feel a horrible stinging sensation in our hands, feet, and face. The NKVD grew more irritable when the cold came. So did Ulyushka. She demanded rent whenever she felt like it. I literally wrestled my bread ration out of her hand on several occasions.
Jonas paid Ulyushka our rent with splinters and logs he stole from the cutting. Thankfully, he had made sturdy boots and shoes for us while working with the two Siberian women. His Russian was quickly improving. I drew my little brother taller, his face somber.
I was assigned to hauling sixty-pound bags of grain on my back through the snow. Mrs. Rimas taught me how to pilfer some by moving the weave of the bag aside with a needle and then moving it back, undetected. We were quickly perfecting the art of scavenging. Jonas sneaked out each night to retrieve scraps of food from the NKVD’s trash. Bugs and maggots didn’t deter anyone. A couple of flicks of the finger and we stuffed it in our mouths. Sometimes, Jonas would return with care packages that Andrius and Mrs. Arvydas would hide in the trash. But aside from the occasional bounty from Andrius, we had become bottom-feeders, living off filth and rot.
47