Mrs. Rimas tried to negotiate advance rations for the impending storm.
Ivanov laughed. “If there’s a storm, you won’t work. Why should you get a ration?”
“But how will we survive without bread?” asked Mrs. Rimas.
“I don’t know. How will you?” said Ivanov.
I pilfered wood from the NKVD barracks. There was no other way. We would need a lot for the storm. I went back for more. Snow began to fall.
That’s when I saw it.
Mother stood, talking to Ivanov and Kretzsky behind the NKVD barracks. What was she doing? I stepped out of sight and squinted to see. Ivanov spit on the ground. He then leaned close in to Mother’s face. My heart began to pound. Suddenly, he lifted his gloved hand to his temple, mocking a gun firing. Mother flinched. Ivanov threw his head back and laughed. He walked into the NKVD barracks.
Mother and Kretzsky stood motionless, snow falling all around them. Kretzsky reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. I saw his lips moving. Mother’s knees buckled. He caught her by the waist. Her face contorted and fell against his chest. She pounded his shoulder with her fist.
“MOTHER!” I screamed, running toward her. I tripped over the firewood tumbling from under my coat.
I grabbed her from Kretzsky, pulling her to me. “Mother.” We fell to our knees.
“Kostas,” she sobbed.
I stroked her hair, hugging her to me. Kretzsky’s boots shifted. I looked up at him.
“Shot. In Krasnoyarsk prison,” he said.
The air crushed in around me, pushing my body deep into the snow. “No, you’re wrong,” I said, my eyes searching Kretzsky’s. “He’s coming to get us. He’s on his way. He’s wrong, Mother! They think he’s dead because he has left. He got my drawings. He’s coming for us!”
“No.” Kretzsky shook his head.
I stared at him. No?
Mother wept, her body chugging into mine.
“Papa?” The word barely escaped my lips.
Kretzky took a step closer, reaching to help Mother. Loathing purged from my mouth. “Get away from her! Stay away. I hate you. Do you hear me? I HATE YOU!”
Kretzsky stared at Mother. “Me, too,” he said. He walked away, leaving me on the ground with Mother.
We sank deeper, snow blanketing us, the wind sharp against our faces like needles. “Come, Mother. A storm is coming.” Her legs couldn’t carry her. Her chest heaved with every step, throwing us off balance. Snow whirled around us, limiting my sight.
“HELP ME!” I screamed. “Somebody, PLEASE!” I heard nothing but the wail of the winds. “Mother, match my steps. Walk with me. We must get back. There’s a storm.”
Mother didn’t walk. She just repeated my father’s name into the falling snow.
“HELP!”
“Elena?”
It was Mrs. Rimas.
“Yes! We’re here. Help us!” I cried.
Two figures emerged through the wall of wind and snow.
“Lina?”
“Jonas! Please!”
My brother and Mrs. Rimas came through the snow, their arms extended.
“Oh dear God, Elena!” said Mrs. Rimas.
We dragged Mother into our jurta. She lay facedown on a wood plank, Mrs. Rimas at her side, Janina peering over her.
“Lina, what is it?” said Jonas, terrified.
I stared blankly.
“Lina?”
I turned to my brother. “Papa.”
“Papa?” His face fell.
I nodded slowly. I couldn’t speak. A sound came out of my mouth, a twisted, pitiful moan. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. Not Papa. I had sent the drawings.
I saw Jonas’s face rewind before me. He suddenly looked his age, vulnerable. Not like a young man fighting for his family, smoking books, but like the little schoolboy who ran into my bedroom the night we were taken. He looked at me, then at Mother. He walked over to her, lay down, and carefully put his arms around her. Snow blew through a crack in the mud, falling on their hair.
Janina wrapped her arms around my legs. She hummed softly.
“I’m sorry. So sorry,” said the repeater.
76
I COULDN’T SLEEP. I couldn’t speak. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Papa’s face, battered, peering down from the bathroom hole on the train. Courage, Lina, he said to me. Exhaustion and grief inched heavily into every fiber of my body, yet I was wide awake. My mind flickered as if on short circuit, spitting never-ending images of anguish, anxiety, and sorrow at me.
How did Kretzsky know? There was a mistake. It was another man, not Papa. It was possible, right? I thought of Andrius, searching the train cars for his father. He thought it was possible, too. I wanted to tell Andrius what had happened. I put my hand in my pocket and clutched the stone.
My drawings had failed. I had failed.
I tried to sketch but couldn’t. When I started to draw, the pencil moved by itself, propelled by something hideous that lived inside of me. Papa’s face contorted. His mouth pulled in agony. His eyes radiated fear. I drew myself, screaming at Kretzsky. My lips twisted. Three black snakes with fangs spurted out of my open mouth. I hid the drawings in Dombey and Son.
Papa was strong. He was a patriot. Did he fight? Or was he unaware? Did they leave him in the dirt like Ona? I wondered if Jonas had the same questions. We didn’t discuss it. I wrote a letter to Andrius, but it became smudged with tears.
The storm raged. The wind and icy snow created a deafening roar of white noise. We dug a path out the door to collect our rations. Two Finns, lost in the blizzard, couldn’t find their jurta. They squeezed into ours. One had dysentery. The stench made me gag. My scalp was crawling with lice.
On the second day, Mother got up and insisted on shoveling the door. She looked drawn, like a part of her soul had escaped.
“Mother, you should rest,” said Jonas. “I can dig through the snow.”
“It does no good to lie here,” said Mother. “There is work to be done. I must do my part.”
On the third day of the storm the man who wound his watch directed the two Finns back to their jurta.
“Take that bucket outside. Wash it out in the snow,” the bald man told me.
“Why me?” I asked.
“We’ll take turns,” said Mother. “We’ll all have to do it.”
I took the bucket out into the darkness. The winds had retreated. Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. The moisture in my nostrils had frozen. This was only November. The polar night would last until the beginning of March. The weather would get worse. How could we withstand it? We had to make it through the first winter. I hurried with my bucket duty and returned to the jurta. I felt like Janina, whispering to Papa at night like she whispered to her dead doll.
November 20. Andrius’s birthday. I had counted the days carefully. I wished him a happy birthday when I woke and thought about him while hauling logs during the day. At night, I sat by the light of the stove, reading Dombey and Son. Krasivaya. I still hadn’t found the word. Maybe I’d find it if I jumped ahead. I flipped through some of the pages. A marking caught my eye. I leafed backward. Something was written in pencil in the margin on page 278.
Hello, Lina. You’ve gotten to page 278. That’s pretty good!
I gasped, then pretended I was engrossed in the book. I looked at Andrius’s handwriting. I ran my finger over his elongated letters in my name. Were there more? I knew I should read onward. I couldn’t wait. I turned through the pages carefully, scanning the margins.
Page 300:
Are you really on page 300 or are you skipping ahead now?
I had to stifle my laughter.
Page 322:
Dombey and Son is boring. Admit it.
Page 364:
I’m thinking of you.
Page 412:
Are you maybe thinking of me?
I closed my eyes.
Yes, I’m thinking of you. Happy birthday, Andrius.
77