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

THE TRAIN WITH the Russian soldiers rolled away. The doors were opened, and Jonas jumped out with the buckets.

I looked over to Ona. She was forcing the dead child toward her breast.

“No,” she said through gritted teeth, rocking back and forth. “No. No.”

Mother moved toward her. “Oh, my dear. I’m so sorry.”

“NO!” Ona screamed, clutching her baby.

Hot tears stung my parched eyes.

“What are you crying for?” complained the bald man. “You knew it was going to happen. What was the baby going to eat, lice? You’re all imbeciles. The thing is better off. When I die, if you’re smart you’ll eat me if you all want to survive so badly.”

He prattled on, grating, infuriating. The words distorted. I heard only the timbre of his voice thumping in my ears. Blood pumped through my chest and rose up my neck.

“DAMN YOU!” Andrius screamed and lurched toward the bald man. “If you don’t shut your mouth, old man, I’ll tear out your tongue. I’ll do it. I’ll make the Soviets look kind.” No one spoke or tried to stop Andrius. Not even Mother. I felt relief, as if the words had come from my own mouth.

“You’re concerned only with yourself,” Andrius continued. “When the Germans kick the Soviets out of Lithuania, we’ll leave you here on the tracks so we don’t have to put up with you anymore.”

“Boy, you don’t understand. The Germans aren’t going to solve the problem. Hitler’s going to create more,” said the bald man. “Those damn lists,” he muttered.

“No one wants to hear from you, understand?”

“Ona, dear,” said Mother. “Give me the baby.”

“Don’t give her to them,” begged Ona. “Please.”

“We will not give her to the guards. I promise,” said Mother. She examined the baby one last time, feeling for pulse or breath. “We’ll wrap her in something beautiful.”

Ona sobbed. I moved to the open door to get some air. Jonas returned with the buckets.

“Why are you crying?” he asked, climbing up.

I shook my head.

“What’s wrong?” he pressed.

“The baby’s dead,” said Andrius.

“Our baby?” he asked softly.

Andrius nodded.

Jonas put down the buckets. He looked over toward Mother holding the bundle and then at me. He knelt down and took the small stone out of his pocket, making a mark on the floorboards next to the others. He paused for a few moments, motionless, and then began slamming the stone against the markings, harder and harder. He beat the floorboards with such force that I thought he might break his hand. I moved toward him. Andrius stopped me.

“Let him do it,” he said.

I looked at him, uncertain.

“Better that he gets used to it,” he said.

Used to what, the feeling of uncontrolled anger? Or a sadness so deep, like your very core has been hollowed out and fed back to you from a dirty bucket?

I looked at Andrius, his face still warped with bruising. He saw me staring. “Are you used to it?” I asked.

A muscle in his jaw twitched. He pulled a cigarette butt from his pocket and lit it. “Yeah,” he said, blowing a stream of smoke into the air, “I’m used to it.”

People discussed the war and how the Germans might save us. For once, the bald man said nothing. I wondered if what he said about Hitler was true. Could we be trading Stalin’s sickle for something worse? No one seemed to think so. Papa would know. He always knew those sorts of things, but he never discussed them with me. He discussed them with Mother. Sometimes at night I’d hear whispers and murmurs from their room. I knew that meant they were talking about the Soviets.

I thought about Papa. Did he know about the war? Did he know we all had lice? Did he know we were huddled together with a dead baby? Did he know how much I missed him? I clutched the handkerchief in my pocket, thinking of Papa’s smiling face.

“Hold still!” I complained.

“I had an itch,” said my father, grinning.

“You did not, you’re just trying to make this difficult,” I teased, trying to capture his bright blue eyes.

“I’m testing you. Real artists must be able to capture the moment,” he said.

“But if you don’t hold still, your eyes will be crooked,” I said, shading in the side of his face with my pencil.

“They’re crooked anyway,” he said, crossing his eyes. I laughed.

“What do you hear from your cousin Joana?” he asked.

“Nothing lately. I sent her a drawing of that cottage in Nida she liked last summer. I didn’t even get a note back from her. Mother said she received it but is busy with her studies.”

“She is,” said Papa. “She hopes to be a doctor someday, you know.”

I knew. Joana spoke often of medicine and her hopes of being a pediatrician. She was always interrupting my drawing to tell me about the tendons in my fingers or my joints. If I so much as sneezed, she would rattle off a list of infectious diseases that would have me in the grave by nightfall. Last summer she had met a boy while we were on vacation in Nida. I’d wait up every night to hear the details of their dates. As a seventeen-year-old, she had wisdom and experience, as well as an anatomy book that fascinated me.

“There,” I said, finishing the drawing. “What do you think?”

“What’s that?” asked my father, pointing to the paper.

“My signature.”

“Your signature? It’s a scribble. No one will recognize it’s your name.”

I shrugged. “You will,” I said.

WE TRAVELED FARTHER SOUTH and passed through the Ural Mountains. Miss Grybas explained that the Urals were the boundary between Europe and Asia. We had crossed into Asia, another continent. People said we were on course for southern Siberia, or possibly even China or Mongolia.

We tried for three days to sneak Ona’s baby out, but the guard stood near whenever the doors were open. The smell of rotting flesh had become unbearable in the hot car. It made me retch.

Ona finally agreed to drop the baby down the bathroom hole. She knelt over the opening, sobbing, holding the bundle.

“For God’s sake,” moaned the bald man. “Get rid of that thing. I can’t breathe.”

“Be quiet!” Mother yelled to the bald man.

“I can’t,” whimpered Ona. “She’ll be crushed on the tracks.”

Mother moved toward Ona. Before she reached her, Miss Grybas snapped the bundle from Ona and threw it down the hole. I gasped. Mrs. Rimas cried.

“There,” said Miss Grybas. “Done. It’s always easier for someone unattached.” She wiped her hands on her dress and adjusted her hair bun. Ona fell into Mother’s arms.

Jonas clung to Andrius, spending nearly every minute by his side. He seemed angry all the time and so distant from his usual sweetness. Andrius had taught him a few Russian slang words I had heard the NKVD use. It made me furious. I knew I’d have to learn a bit of Russian eventually, but I hated the thought.

One night, I saw the glow of a cigarette illuminate Jonas’s face. When I complained to Mother, she told me to leave him be.

“Lina, every night I thank God he has Andrius, and you should, too,” she said.

My stomach ate itself. Pangs of hunger came at relentless intervals. Although Mother made an effort to keep us on a schedule, I lost track of time and sometimes dozed off during the day. My eyelids were drooping when I heard it.

“How could you? Have you gone mad?” A female voice shrieked through the train car.

I sat up, squinting to make out what was going on. Miss Grybas hovered over Jonas and Andrius. I tried to make my way over.