“Yes, she will,” argued Janina.
“No, she won’t. You know why? Because she’s not dead. But maybe there’s still hope for that. America, bah.”
I stared at him.
“My dolly’s dead,” said Janina.
68
WE APPROACHED JAKUTSK.
“Now we shall see. We shall see,” said the repeater, fidgeting. “If we disembark here, we will not go to America. We will not go.”
“Where would we go?” asked Jonas.
“To the Kolyma region,” said the bald man. “To the prisons, maybe Magadan.”
“We’re not going to Magadan,” said Mother. “Stop such talk, Mr. Stalas.”
“Not Kolyma, no, not Kolyma,” said the repeater.
The barges slowed. We were coming to a stop.
“No, please, no,” whispered Jonas.
Mrs. Rimas began to cry. “I can’t be in prison this far from my husband.”
Janina tugged at my sleeve. “Liale says we’re not going to Kolyma.”
“What?” I said.
“She says we’re not going.” She shrugged.
We crowded near the edge of the barge. Some of the NKVD disembarked. Kretzsky was among them. He carried a rucksack. A commander met the guards on the shore. We watched as they checked assignments.
“Look,” said Jonas. “Some of the NKVD are loading supplies onto the boat.”
“So we’re not getting off here?” I asked.
Suddenly, voices rose from the bank. It was Kretzsky. He was arguing with a commander. I understood the commander. He told Kretzsky to get back on the barge.
“Kretzsky wants to stay,” said Jonas.
“Good, let him stay,” I said.
Kretzsky flailed his arms at the commander, who pointed back at the boat.
Mother sighed and looked down. Kretzsky turned back toward the barge. He wasn’t leaving. He was coming with us, wherever we were going.
The passengers cheered and embraced as the barge pulled away from Jakutsk.
A week later spirits were still buoyant. People sang on the deck of the barge. Someone played an accordion. Kretzsky stormed through the crowd, shoving people aside. “What’s wrong with you? Are you all imbeciles? You cheer as if you’re going to America. Fools!” he yelled.
The elation collapsed to murmurs.
“America. America?” said the repeater quietly.
Where were they taking us? It was already August. Temperatures dropped as we sailed northward. It felt like late October, not summer. The forests along the bank of the Lena thinned.
“We’ve crossed into the Arctic Circle,” announced the man who wound his watch.
“What?” gasped Jonas. “How can that be? Where are they taking us?”
“That is correct,” said the repeater. “We’ll go to the mouth of the Lena and get on huge steamships to America. Steamships.”
The barges stopped in Bulun and Stolbai in the Arctic. We watched as large groups were herded off the barge and simply left standing on the deserted shore as we pulled away. We sailed on.
In late August we reached the mouth of the River Lena. The temperature was just above freezing. The icy waves of the Laptev Sea crashed against the barge as it was moored to the shore.
“Davai!” yelled the guards, jabbing us with the butts of their rifles.
“They’re going to drown us,” said the bald man. “They’ve brought us all this way to drown us and get rid of us here.”
“Dear God, no,” said Mrs. Rimas.
The NKVD threw a wooden plank against the side of the barge. They pushed the children down the plank, screaming for them to hurry.
“Hurry, where? There’s nothing here,” said Mother.
She was right. It was completely uninhabited, not a single bush or tree, just barren dirt to a shore of endless water. We were surrounded by nothing but polar tundra and the Laptev Sea. The wind whipped. Sand blew into my mouth and stung my eyes. I clutched my suitcase and looked around. The NKVD made their way to two brick buildings near a cluster of trees. How would we all fit? There were more than three hundred of us.
Kretzsky argued with some of the NKVD, repeating that he had to go to Jakutsk. An NKVD with greasy hair and brown crooked teeth stopped us.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded.
“To the buildings,” said Mother.
“Those are for the officers,” he snapped.
“And where are we supposed to stay?” asked Mother. “Where is the village?”
The guard waved his arms wide. “This is the village. You have the whole village for yourself.” The other NKVD laughed.
“Excuse me?” said Mother.
“What, you don’t like it? You think you’re too good for this? Fascist pig. Pigs sleep in the mud. Didn’t you know that? But before you sleep, you have to finish the bakery and build a fish factory.” He moved closer to Mother. His corroded teeth protruded from under his top lip. “You fascists like fish, don’t you? You pigs disgust me.” He spit on her chest and walked away. “You don’t even deserve the mud,” he yelled over his shoulder.
They made us carry bricks and wood from the barge. We filed in and out of the barge’s deep hold, carrying as many bricks as we could. It took ten hours to unload the barges. In addition to bricks and wood, we carried barrels of kerosene, flour, and even small fishing boats, all for the NKVD. My arms trembled with fatigue.
“Liale says we’re not going to America,” announced Janina.
“No kidding. Did your ghost doll tell you we’d be here?” demanded the bald man. He pointed to a sign, crisped and faded from the weather.
Trofimovsk. The very top of the Arctic Circle, near the North Pole.
69
WE HUDDLED TOGETHER and pulled our coats tight for warmth. I longed for the labor camp, for Ulyushka’s hut, for Andrius. The steamer’s whistle shrieked and pulled the barges back down the Lena. Were they going to pick up more people?
“How will you mail letters to Papa from here?” asked Jonas.
“There has to be a village close by,” said Mother.
I thought of the piece of wood, handed off in Tcheremchov. Something had to have made its way to Papa by now.
“So this is their plan,” said the bald man, looking around. “This is how Stalin will end us? He’ll let us freeze to death. He’ll let the foxes eat us.”
“Foxes?” said Mrs. Rimas. Janina’s mother snapped a glance at the bald man.
“If there are foxes, we can eat them,” said Jonas.
“Have you ever caught a fox, boy?” asked the bald man.
“No, but I’m sure it can be done,” said Jonas.
“He said we have to build a factory for them,” I said.
“This can’t be our destination,” said Mother. “Surely they’re going to transport us somewhere else.”
“Don’t be so sure, Elena,” said the man who wound his watch. “To the Soviets, there is no more Lithuania, Latvia, or Estonia. Stalin must completely get rid of us to see his vision unlittered.”
Litter. Is that what we were to Stalin?
“It’s nearly September,” said the man who wound his watch. “Soon the polar night will be upon us.”
Nearly September. We were freezing. We had learned about the polar night in school. In the polar region, the sun falls below the horizon for 180 days. Darkness for nearly half a year. I hadn’t paid much attention to the lecture in school. I had sketched the sun sinking over the horizon. Now my heart sank into my stomach where the bile began to chew it.
“We haven’t much time,” continued the man who wound his watch. “I think—”
“STOP IT! Stop talking!” shrieked Janina’s mother.
“What’s wrong, dear?” asked Mother.
“Shh ... Don’t draw the attention of the guards,” said Mrs. Rimas.
“Mama, what’s wrong?” asked Janina. Her mother continued shrieking.
The woman had barely spoken during the entire voyage and suddenly we couldn’t make her stop.
“I can’t do this! I won’t die here. I will not let a fox eat us!” Suddenly the woman grabbed Janina by the throat. A thick gurgle came from Janina’s windpipe.
Mother threw herself on Janina’s mother and pried her fingers from her daughter’s neck. Janina caught her breath and began to sob.