Рута Шепетис - Ashes in the Snow [aka Between Shades of Gray]

I snapped my umbrella closed, shaking the excess rainwater onto the sidewalk. A gentleman in a suit emerged from a restaurant, stepping quickly away from the drops I was splashing about.

“Oh, sir, I’m sorry!”

“No trouble at all, miss,” he said, nodding and touching the brim of his hat.

The smell of roasted potatoes and spiced meat drifted out of the restaurant. The sun appeared, spreading a golden filter across the concrete and warming the back of my head. Wonderful—the concert in the park wouldn’t be canceled tonight. Mother had planned to pack a hamper with our dinner for a moonlight picnic on the grass.

As I rolled the umbrella and wrapped the closure, I jumped when I saw a face staring at me from the puddle at my feet. I laughed at my disorientation, smiling at myself in the pool of water. The edges of the puddle shimmered beneath the sun, creating a beautiful frame around my face. I wished I could photograph it to draw later. Suddenly, a faint shadow appeared behind my head in the puddle. I turned around. A pastel rainbow arched out of the clouds.

The train slowed. “Hurry, Lina. Do you have the buckets?” asked Mother.

“Yes.” I moved closer to the door. Once the train stopped, I waited for the sound. Boots and clanking. The door jerked open.

“One person! Two buckets. Any dead bodies in there?” the NKVD commanded.

I shook my head, eager to get out. The guard stepped aside and I jumped down. My stiff legs gave way, and I fell to the muddy ground.

“Lina, are you all right?” called Mother.

“Davai!” yelled the guard, along with a series of Russian expletives before he spit on me.

I got up and looked down the length of the train. The sky was gray. Rain fell steadily. I heard a scream and saw the limp body of a child heaved out into the mud. A woman tried to jump out after the corpse. She was smashed in the face by the butt of a rifle. I saw another body thrown out. Death had begun to gather a crop.

“Don’t delay, Lina,” said the gray-haired man from our car. “Be swift with the buckets.”

I felt as if I were dreaming with a high fever. My head seemed airy and my step unsteady. I nodded and looked up at our car. A group of heads stacked upon one another stared back at me.

Dirt and filth clung to their faces. Andrius smoked a cigarette and looked off the other way. His face was still bruised.

Urine streamed through the bottom of the train car. Ona’s baby cried from inside. I saw the wet green field. Come here , it beckoned. Run .

Maybe I should, I thought. Do it, Lina .

“What’s wrong with her?” Voices began chattering from the train car.

Run, Lina.

The buckets flew out of my hands. I saw Andrius limping away with them. I just stood there, looking at the field.

“Lina. Come back in, dear,” pleaded Mother.

I closed my eyes. Rain splashed against my skin and hair. I saw Papa’s face, peering down from the match-lit hole in his train car. I’ll know it’s you… just like you know Munch.

“Davai!”

An NKVD officer hovered over me. His breath reeked of liquor. He grabbed my arms and threw me toward the train.

Andrius returned with buckets of water and gray animal feed. “Hope you enjoyed your bath,” he said.

“What did you see out there, girl?” demanded the bald man.

“I… I saw the NKVD throwing dead bodies off the train into the mud. Two children.” People gasped.

The door to our car slammed shut.

“How old were the dead kids?” asked Jonas quietly.

“I don’t know. I only saw them from afar.”

Mother combed through my wet hair in the dark.

“I wanted to run,” I whispered to her.

“I can understand that,” said Mother.

“You can?”

“Lina, wanting to get away from this is perfectly understandable. But like your father said, we must all stay together. It’s very important.”

“But how can they just decide that we’re animals? They don’t even know us,” I said.

“We know us,” said Mother. “They’re wrong. And don’t ever allow them to convince you otherwise. Do you understand?”

I nodded. But I knew some people had already been convinced. I saw them cowering in front of the guards, their faces hopeless. I wanted to draw them all.

“When I looked up at our train car, everyone looked sick,” I said.

“Well, we’re not,” said Mother. “We’re not sick. We’ll soon be back in our homes. When the rest of the world finds out what the Soviets are doing, they will put an end to all of this.”

Would they?

WE WEREN’T SICK, but others were. Each day when the train stopped, we’d lean out of the car and try to count the number of bodies thrown. It grew every day. I noticed Jonas kept track of the children, making marks with a stone on the floorboard of the car. I looked at his marks and imagined drawing little heads atop each one—hair, eyes, a nose, and a mouth.

People estimated our path traveled south. Whoever was posted at the little window would call out when we passed markers or signs. My feet were numb from the vibration of the floorboards. My head was curdled from the stench, and I itched terribly. Lice were biting down the side of my hairline, behind my ears, and in my armpits.

We had passed through Vilnius, Minsk, Orsha, Smolensk. I wrote the path of cities on my handkerchief in ink. Each day when the door was open to light, I would add more detail and identifying clues that Papa would recognize—our birthdays, a drawing of a vilkas —a wolf. I made markings only in the center, surrounded by a circle of hands touching fingers. I scrawled the words pass along under the drawing of the hands and I drew a Lithuanian coin. When the handkerchief was folded, the writing was undetectable.

“Drawing?” whispered the gray-haired man, winding his watch.

I jumped.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “I won’t tell.”

“I have to get word to my father,” I said, my voice low. “So he can find us. I figured I could pass this handkerchief and that eventually, it will get to him.”

“Very clever,” he said.

He had been kind on the journey. Could I trust him? “I need to give it to someone who will understand the importance and pass it along.”

“I can help you with that,” he said.

We had been rolling for eight days when the train jerked hard and began to slow.

Jonas was at the little window slot. “There’s another train. We’re coming up on a train going in the opposite direction. It’s stopped.”

Our train car dragged, bleeding off speed.

“We’re pulling up alongside it. There are men. The windows are open on their cars,” said Jonas.

“Men?” said Mother. She quickly made her way to the window, swapped places with Jonas, and yelled out in Russian. They replied. The energy in her voice lifted and she began to speak quickly, pulling for breaths in between questions.

“For God’s sake, woman,” said the bald man. “Stop your socializing and tell us what’s going on. Who are they?”

“They’re soldiers,” reported Mother, elated. “They’re going to the front. There is war between Germany and the USSR. Germany has moved into Lithuania,” she shouted. “Did you hear me? The Germans are in Lithuania!”

Morale soared. Andrius and Jonas shouted and whooped. Miss Grybas began to sing “Take Me Back to My Homeland.” People hugged one another and cheered.

Only Ona was quiet. Her baby was dead.