Between Shades of Gray (10 page)

“Food is rationed. She said the guards oversee the farm and the workers,” said Mother.

I remembered Papa talking about Stalin confiscating peasants’ land, tools, and animals. He told them what crops they would produce and how much they would be paid. I thought it was ridiculous. How could Stalin simply take something that didn’t belong to him, something that a farmer and his family had worked their whole lives for? “That’s communism, Lina,” Papa had said.

The woman yelled at Mother, wagging her finger and shaking her head. She left the hut.

We were on a
kolkhoz
, a collective farm, and I was to become a beet farmer.

I hated beets.

THE SHACK WAS approximately ten feet by twelve feet. Lodged in the corner was a small stove surrounded by a couple of pots and dirty tins. A pallet of straw sat next to the wall near the stove. There was no pillow, only a worn quilted coverlet. Two tiny windows were created out of bits of glass that had been puttied together.

“There’s nothing here,” I said. “There isn’t a sink, a table, or a wardrobe. Is that where she sleeps?” I asked. “Where will we sleep? Where is the bathroom?”

“Where can we eat?” said Jonas.

“I’m not certain,” said Mother, looking in the pots. “This is filthy. But nothing a little cleaning can’t fix, right?”

“Well, it’s nice to be off that train,” said Jonas.

The young blond NKVD burst through the door. “Elena Vilkas,” he said.

Mother looked up at the guard.

“Elena Vilkas!” he repeated, louder this time.

“Yes, that’s me,” said Mother. They began speaking in Russian, then arguing.

“What is it, Mother?” asked Jonas.

Mother gathered us into her arms. “Don’t worry, love. We’ll stay together.”

The guard yelled, “Davai!” waving us out of the hut.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“The commander wants to see me. I told him we all had to go together,” said Mother.

The commander. My stomach rolled. “I’ll stay here. I’ll be fine,” I said.

“No, we must all stay together,” said Jonas.

We followed the blond guard between battered shacks until we reached a log building in much better condition than the others. A few NKVD gathered near the door smoking cigarettes. They leered at Mother. She surveyed the building and the guards.

“Stay here,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

“No,” said Jonas. “We’re coming in with you.”

Mother looked toward the lusty guards, then at me.

A guard stepped down from the door. “Davai!” he yelled, pulling Mother by the elbow toward the building.

“I’ll be right back,” said Mother over her shoulder before she disappeared through the door.

“We should have gone with her,” said Jonas.

He was right. But I didn’t want to be near the commander. Mother knew it. I should have gone in with her. Now she was alone with them, unprotected, and it was my fault. I tugged Jonas over to the side of the building near a dirty window.

“Stay here so the blond guard can see you,” I told Jonas.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“I’m going to look in the window, to make sure Mother’s all right.”

“No, Lina!”

“Stay there,” I told him.

The blond guard looked no more than twenty. He was the one who had turned away when we took our clothes off. He took out a pocketknife and began scraping underneath his fingernails. I edged over toward the window and stood on my toes. Mother sat in a chair and stared into her lap. The commander sat on the edge of a desk in front of her. He flipped through a file while speaking to Mother. He closed the file and balanced it on his thigh. I looked over at the guard, then stretched a bit higher for a better view.

“Stop it, Lina. Andrius says they’ll shoot us if you make trouble,” whispered Jonas.

“I’m not making trouble,” I said, moving back to my brother. “I just wanted to make sure she was all right.”

“Well, remember what happened to Ona,” said Jonas. What
had
happened to Ona? Was she in heaven with her daughter and my grandma? Or was she floating amongst the trains and masses of Lithuanians, searching for her husband?

Those were questions for Papa. He always listened intently to my questions, nodding and then pausing carefully before answering. Who would answer my questions now?

The weather was warm, despite the cloudy sky. In the distance, beyond the shacks, I saw spruce and pine trees interspersed with farmlands. I looked around, memorizing the landscape to draw it for Papa. I wondered where Andrius and his mother were.

Some of the buildings were in better shape than ours. One had a log fence around it and another, a small garden. I’d draw them—sad and shriveled with barely a spot of color.

The door to the building opened and Mother emerged. The commander walked out and leaned against the door frame, watching her walk. Mother’s jaw clenched. She nodded as she came toward us. The commander called something to her from the door. She ignored him and grabbed our hands.

“Take us back to the hut,” she said, turning to the blond guard. He didn’t move.

“I know the way,” said Jonas, starting off through the dirt. “Follow me.”

“Are you okay?” I asked Mother once we began walking.

“I’m fine,” she said, her voice low.

My shoulders dropped as weight escaped them. “What did he want?”

“Not here,” she said.

“THEY WANT ME to work with them,” said Mother once Jonas had returned us to the shack.

“Work with them?” I said.

“Yes, well, they want me to work
for
them,” she said. “Translating documents, and also speaking with the other Lithuanians who are here,” she said.

I thought of the file that the commander held.

“What will you get for doing it?” asked Jonas.

“I’m not going to be their translator,” said Mother. “I said no. They also asked me to listen to people’s conversations and report them to the commander.”

“To be a snitch?” said Jonas.

“Yes,” said Mother.

“They want you to spy on everyone and report to them?” I asked.

Mother nodded. “They promised preferential treatment if I agreed.”

“Pigs!” I shrieked.

“Lina! Lower your voice,” said Mother.

“They think you would help them after what they’ve done to us?” I said.

“But Mother, maybe you will need the special treatment,” said Jonas with concerned eyes.

“They don’t mean it,” I snapped. “They’re all liars, Jonas. They wouldn’t give her anything.”

“Jonas,” said Mother, stroking my brother’s face. “I can’t trust them. Stalin has told the NKVD that Lithuanians are the enemy. The commander and the guards look at us as beneath them. Do you understand?”

“Andrius already told me that,” said Jonas.

“Andrius is a very smart boy. We must speak only to one another,” said Mother, turning to me, “and please, Lina, be careful with anything you write or draw.”

 

We dug through our suitcases and organized what we could sell if the need arose. I looked at my copy of
The Pickwick Papers
. Pages 6-11 were torn out. Page 12 had a smudge of dirt on it.

I grasped the gold picture frame and took it out of the suitcase, staring at my father’s face
.
I wondered where the handkerchief was. I had to send more.

“Kostas,” said Mother, looking over my shoulder. I handed her the frame. Her index finger lovingly traced my father’s face and then her mother’s. “It’s wonderful that you brought this. You have no idea how it lifts my spirit. Please, keep it safe.”

I opened the tablet of writing paper I had packed.
14 June, 1941. Dear Joana
stood alone on the first page, a title without a story. I had written that nearly two months ago, the night we were taken. Where was Joana, and where were the rest of our relatives? What would I write now if I were to finish it? Would I tell her that the Soviets had forced us into cattle cars and held us prisoner for six weeks with barely any food or water? Would I mention that they wanted Mother to spy for them? And what about the baby that died in our car and how the NKVD shot Ona in the head? I heard Mother’s voice, warning me to be careful, but my hand began to move.

THE ALTAIAN WOMAN returned and clattered around. She put a pot on the stove. We watched as she boiled two potatoes and gnawed on a stump of bread.

“Mother,” said Jonas, “will there be potatoes for us tonight?”

When we asked, we were told we had to work to earn food.

“If you worked for the NKVD, Mother, would they give you food?” asked Jonas.

“No, my dear. They would give me empty promises,” she replied, “which is worse than an empty belly.”

Mother paid the woman for a single potato, then again for the privilege to boil the potato. It was ridiculous.

“How much money do we have left?” I asked.

“Barely any,” she said.

We tried to sleep, huddled against Mother on the floor of bare boards. The peasant woman slurped and snored, sunken in her bed of straw. Her sour breath filled the small room. Was she born here in Siberia? Had she ever known a life other than this? I stared into the dark and tried to paint images with my mind on the black canvas.

I turned my head toward a rustling sound. The Altaian woman waddled to the corner, grunted, and peed into a tin can.

IT WAS STILL DARK when the NKVD began yelling. They ordered us out of the shack, shouting at us to form a line. We scrambled to fall in with the others. My Russian vocabulary was growing. In addition to
davai
, I had learned other important words, such as
nyet
, which meant “no”;
sveenya
, which meant “pig”; and of course
fasheest
, “fascist.” Miss Grybas and the grouchy woman were already in line. Mrs. Rimas waved to Mother. I looked around for Andrius and his mother. They weren’t there. Neither was the bald man.

The commander walked up and down the line, chewing on his toothpick. He looked us over and made comments to the other guards.

“What’s he saying, Elena?” asked Mrs. Rimas.

“He’s dividing us up for work detail,” said Mother.

The commander approached Mother and yelled in her face. He pulled Mother, Mrs. Rimas, and the grouchy woman out of the line. The young blond guard pulled me out of line and pushed me toward Mother. He divided up the rest. Jonas was in a group with two elderly women.