Between Shades of Gray (16 page)

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.

AS THE BALD MAN predicted, we were able to continually bribe the grouchy woman into visiting the post office for us when she went to the village. For two months, our bribes returned nothing. We shivered in our shacks, warmed only by the promise of an eventual envelope carrying news from home. Temperatures lived well below zero. Jonas slept near the little stove, waking every few hours to add more wood. My toes were numb, the skin cracked.

Mrs. Rimas was the first to receive a letter. It was from a distant cousin and arrived mid-November. News traveled fast around the camp that a letter had arrived. Nearly twenty people pushed inside her shack to hear the news from Lithuania. Mrs. Rimas hadn’t returned from the ration line. We waited. Andrius arrived. He squeezed in next to me. He produced stolen crackers from his pockets for everyone. We tried to keep our voices down, but excitement percolated through the packed crowd.

I turned, accidentally elbowing Andrius. “Sorry,” I said. He nodded.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Fine,” he replied. The bald man entered the shack and complained there was no room. People pushed forward. I was smashed against the front of Andrius’s coat.

“How’s your mother?” I asked, glancing up at him.

“As well as can be expected,” he said.

“What do they have you doing these days?” My chin was practically against his chest.

“Chopping down trees in the forest.” He shifted his weight, looking down at me. “You?” he asked. I could feel a wisp of his breath on the top of my hair.

“Hauling bags of grain,” I said. He nodded.

The envelope was handed around. Some people kissed it. It came to us. Andrius ran his finger over the Lithuanian stamp and postmark.

“Have you written to anyone?” I asked Andrius.

He shook his head. “We’re not sure it’s safe yet,” he said.

Mrs. Rimas arrived. The group tried to part, but it was too crowded. I was shoved onto Andrius again. He grabbed me, trying to keep us from pushing the crowd like a line of dominoes. We steadied ourselves. He quickly let go.

Mrs. Rimas said a prayer before opening the envelope. As expected, some lines of the letter were crossed out with thick black ink. But enough was legible.

“‘I have had two letters from our friend in Jonava,’” read Mrs. Rimas. “That has to be my husband,” she cried. “He was born in Jonava. He’s alive!” The women hugged.

“Keep reading!” yelled the bald man.

“‘He said that he and some friends decided to visit a summer camp,’” said Mrs. Rimas.

“‘He finds it to be beautiful,’” she continued. “‘Just as described in Psalm 102.’”

“Someone get their Bible. Look up Psalm 102,” said Miss Grybas. “There’s some sort of message in that.”

We helped decode the rest of the letter with Mrs. Rimas. Someone joked that the crowd was better than a stove for warmth. I stole glances at Andrius. His bone structure and eyes were strong, perfectly proportioned. It appeared he was able to shave from time to time. His skin was wind-burned like the rest of us, but his lips weren’t thin or cracked like the NKVD. His wavy brown hair was clean compared with mine. He looked down. I looked away. I couldn’t imagine how filthy I must have looked, or what he saw in my hair.

Jonas returned with Mother’s Bible.

“Hurry!” someone said. “Psalm 102.”

“I have it,” said Jonas.

“Shh, let him read.”

Someone gasped. Jonas’s voice trailed off. I clutched Andrius’s arm.

“Keep going,” said Mrs. Rimas. She wrung her hands.

The wind whistled and the walls of the hut shuddered. Jonas’s voice grew faint.

“Make him stop,” I whispered to Andrius, dropping my head against his coat. “Please.” But he didn’t stop.

Jonas finally finished. A gust of wind clattered against the roof.

“Amen,” said Mrs. Rimas.

“Amen,” echoed the others.

“He’s starving,” I said.

“So what? We’re starving. I’m withered like grass, too,” said the bald man. “He’s no worse off than me.”

“He’s alive,” said Andrius quietly.

I looked up at him. Of course. He wished his father was alive, even if he was starving.

“Yes, Andrius is right,” said Mother. “He’s alive! And your cousin has probably sent him word that you’re alive, too!”

Mrs. Rimas read the letter again. Some people left the shack. Andrius was one of them. Jonas followed.

IT HAPPENED A WEEK later. Mother said she had seen signs. I saw nothing.

Miss Grybas waved frantically to me. She was trying to run through the snow.

“Lina, you must hurry! It’s Jonas,” she whispered.

Mother said she had noticed that his color had turned. Everyone’s color had turned. Gray had crept beneath our skin, settling in dark trenches under our eyes.

Kretzsky wouldn’t let me leave my work. “Please,” I begged. “Jonas is sick.” Couldn’t he help, just this once?

He pointed back to the stack of grain sacks. The commander walked around, yelling and kicking at us to hurry. A snowstorm was coming. “Davai!” yelled Kretzsky.

By the time I returned to our shack, Mother was already there. Jonas was lying on her pallet of straw, nearly unconscious.

“What is it?” I asked, kneeling beside her.

“I don’t know.” She pulled up Jonas’s pant leg. His shin was covered in spots. “It may be some sort of infection. He has a fever,” she said, putting her hand on my brother’s forehead. “Did you notice how irritable and tired he has become?”

“Honestly, no. We’re all irritable and tired,” I said. I looked at Jonas. How could I not have noticed? Sores lined his bottom lip, and his gums looked purple. Red spots dotted his hands and fingers.

“Lina, go get our bread rations. Your brother will need nourishment to fight this off. And see if you can find Mrs. Rimas.”

I fought my way through the swirling snow in the dark, the wind stabbing at my face. The NKVD wouldn’t give me three rations. Because Jonas collapsed on the job, they said, he had forfeited his ration. I tried to explain that he was ill. They waved me away.

Mrs. Rimas didn’t know what it was, nor Miss Grybas. Jonas seemed to slip further from consciousness.

The bald man arrived. He loomed over Jonas. “Is it contagious? Does anyone else have spots? The boy could be the angel of death for us all. A girl died of dysentery a few days ago. Maybe that’s what it is. I think they threw her in that hole you dug,” he said. Mother ordered him out of the shack.

Ulyushka yelled at us to take Jonas outside in the snow. Mother yelled back and told her to sleep somewhere else if she was worried about contagion. Ulyushka stomped out. I sat next to Jonas, holding a snow-cooled cloth to his forehead. Mother knelt down and spoke softly, kissing his face and hands.

“Not my children,” whispered Mother. “Please, God, spare him. He is so young. He’s seen so little of life. Please ... take me instead.” Mother raised her head. Her face contorted with pain. “Kostas?”

It was late when the man who wound his watch arrived with a kerosene lamp. “Scurvy,” he announced after looking at Jonas’s gums. “It’s advanced. His teeth are turning blue. Don’t worry; it’s not contagious. But you’d best find this boy something with vitamins before his organs shut down completely. He’s malnourished. He could turn at any point.”

My brother was a rendering from Psalm 102, “weak and withered like grass.” Mother rushed out into the snow to beg, leaving me with Jonas. I laid compresses on his forehead. I tucked the stone from Andrius under his hand and told him that the sparkles inside would heal him. I recounted stories from our childhood and described our house, room by room. I took Mother’s Bible and prayed for God to spare my brother. My worry made me nauseous. I grabbed my paper and began to sketch something for Jonas, something that would make him feel better. I had started a drawing of his bedroom when Andrius arrived.

“How long has he been like this?” he said, kneeling by Jonas.

“Since this afternoon,” I replied.

“Can he hear me?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Jonas. You’re going to be all right. We just need to find you something to eat and drink. Hang on, friend, do you hear me?” Jonas lay motionless.

Andrius took a cloth bundle from inside his coat. He unwrapped a small silver can and pulled a pocketknife from his pants. He punctured the top of the can.

“What is it?” I asked.

“He has to eat this,” said Andrius, leaning toward my brother’s face. “Jonas, if you can hear me, open your mouth.”

Jonas didn’t move.

“Jonas,” I said. “Open your mouth. We have something that’s going to help you.”

His lips parted.

“That’s good,” said Andrius. He dipped the blade of the knife into the can. It reappeared with a juicy stewed tomato on it. The back of my jaws cramped. Tomatoes. I began to salivate. As soon as the tomato touched Jonas’s mouth, his lips began to quiver. “Yes, chew it and swallow,” said Andrius. He turned to me. “Do you have any water?”

“Yes, rainwater,” I said.

“Give it to him,” said Andrius. “He has to eat all of this.”

I eyed the can of tomatoes. Juice spilled off of Andrius’s knife and onto his fingers. “Where did you get them?” I asked.

He looked at me, disgusted. “I got them at the corner market. Haven’t you been there?” He stared, then turned away. “Where do you think I got them? I stole them.” He heaped the last of the tomatoes into my brother’s mouth. Jonas drank the juice from the can. Andrius wiped the blade and juice from his fingers on his trousers. I felt my body surge forward toward the juice.

Mother arrived with one of the Siberian shoemakers. Snow was piled atop their heads and shoulders. The woman ran to my brother, speaking quickly in Russian.

“I tried to explain what was wrong,” said Mother, “but she insisted on seeing for herself.”

“Andrius brought a can of tomatoes. He fed them to Jonas,” I said.

“Tomatoes?” gasped Mother. “Oh, thank you! Thank you, dear, and please thank your mother for me.”