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

Two boys walked to shore, looking out at us.

“A bit late for a swim, isn’t it?” said the tall boy.

“Not at all,” I said.

“Oh, really, do you always go swimming after dark?” he asked.

“I go swimming whenever I feel like it,” I said.

“And what about your older sister there? Does she always go swimming at night?”

“Why don’t you ask her yourself?” I said. Joana kicked me underwater.

“You should be careful. You don’t want someone to see you without clothes.” He grinned.

“Really? You mean like this?” I jumped and stood up in the water. My wet dress clung to me like melted taffy to paper. I flung my arm in the water, trying to get them both wet.

“Crazy kid.” He laughed, dodging the water.

“C’mon,” said his friend. “We’ll be late for the meeting.”

“A meeting? What sort of meeting is going on at this hour?” I asked.

The boys dropped their heads for a moment. “We have to go. Good-bye, older sister,” said the tall boy to Joana before turning to walk down the beach with his friend.

“Bye,” said Joana.

We laughed so hard I thought surely our parents would hear us. We jumped out of the water, grabbed our sandals, and ran back through the sand onto the shadowy path. Frogs and crickets chirped and warbled all around us. Joana grabbed my arm, pulling me to a stop in the dark. “Don’t tell our parents.”

“Joana, we’re soaking wet. They’ll know we went swimming,” I said.

“No, I mean about the boys… and what they said,” she said.

“All right, older sister, I won’t tell,” I said, grinning. We ran through the dark, laughing all the way back to the cottage.

What did Joana know about the boys and their meeting that I didn’t?

The laughter had died. “Lina, let’s go, dear,” said Mother.

I looked back to the hole. What if we were digging our own grave?

I FOUND A STICK and snapped it in half. I sat down and used it to draw in a patch of hard dirt. I drew our house, garden, and the trees before it was time to return to work. I pushed small stones into the earth with my thumb, creating a pathway to our front door, and lined the roof with twigs.

“We must prepare,” said Mother. “The winter will be beyond anything we’ve experienced. Temperatures will be below freezing. There will be no food.”

“Winter?” I said, leaning back on my heels. “Are you joking? You think we’ll still be here when winter comes? Mother, no!” Winter was months away. I couldn’t bear the thought of living in that shack, digging holes for months, and trying to avoid the commander. I glanced over to the blond guard. He was looking at my drawing in the dirt.

“I hope not,” said Mother, lowering her voice. “But what if we are? If we’re not prepared, we’ll surely freeze or starve.” Mother had the grouchy woman’s attention.

“The snowstorms in Siberia are treacherous,” said Mrs. Rimas, nodding.

“I don’t know how the shacks withstand it,” said Mother.

“Why don’t we build our own building?” I asked. “We can build a log house like the kolkhoz office, with a chimney and a stove. We can all live together.”

“Stupid girl. They’ll never give us time to build something of our own, and if we did build something, they’d take it for themselves,” said the grouchy woman. “Keep digging.”

It began to rain. Water plopped on our heads and shoulders. We opened our mouths to drink.

“This is insanity,” said Mrs. Rimas.

Mother shouted over to the blond guard. The butt of his cigarette glowed under the shelter of the tree branches.

“He says we must dig faster,” said Mother, raising her voice as the rain poured down in sheets. “That the soil will be soft now.”

“Bastard,” said Mrs. Rimas.

I looked over and saw our house melting in the dirt. My drawing stick rolled away, propelled by the wind and rain.

I put my head down and dug. I jabbed the small shovel into the earth, harder and harder, pretending the soil was the commander. My fingers cramped and my arms shook with exhaustion. The hem of my dress was ripped, and my face and neck were sunburned from the morning sun.

When the rain stopped, we marched back to the camp, covered in mud up to our waists. My stomach convulsed with hunger. Mrs. Rimas slung the canvas over her shoulder and we dragged along, our hands cramped, still locked on to the shovel blades we had gripped for nearly twelve hours.

We entered the camp near the back. I recognized the bald man’s shack with its brown door and was able to direct Mother toward ours. Jonas was inside waiting for us. Every pot was brimming with water.

“You’re back!” he shouted. “I was worried you wouldn’t find the hut.”

Mother wrapped her arms around Jonas, kissing his hair.

“It was still raining when I got back,” explained Jonas. “I dragged the pots outside so we could have water.”

“Very smart, love. Have you had some to drink?” asked Mother.

“Plenty,” he said, looking at me in my bedraggled state. “You can have a nice bath.”

We drank from a large pot before washing our legs off. Mother insisted I drink more, even when I felt I couldn’t.

Jonas sat cross-legged on the boards. One of Mother’s scarves was spread out in front of him. In the center was a lonely piece of bread, with a small flower next to it.

Mother looked down at the bread and the wilted flower. “What sort of banquet do we have here?” she said.

“I received a ration coupon for my work today. I worked with two ladies making shoes,” said Jonas, smiling. “Are you hungry? You look tired.”

“I’m so hungry,” I said, staring at the solitary piece of bread. If Jonas received bread for working indoors on shoes, we must certainly be getting an entire turkey, I thought.

“We are each entitled to three hundred grams of bread for our work,” explained Jonas. “You have to collect your ration coupon at the kolkhoz office.”

“That’s… that’s all?” asked Mother.

Jonas nodded.

Three hundred grams of dry bread. I couldn’t believe it. That’s all we got after digging for hours. They were starving us and would probably dump us into the holes we dug. “It’s not enough,” I said.

“We’ll find something more,” said Mother.

Fortunately, the commander wasn’t at the log building when we arrived. We were given our coupons without having to beg or dance. We followed the other workers into a nearby building. The bread was weighed and distributed to us. I could almost close my palm around the entire ration. On the way back, we saw Miss Grybas in back of her shack. She waved us over. Her arms and dress were filthy. She had been working in the beet fields all day. Her face twisted with revulsion when she saw us. “What are they doing to you?”

“Making us dig,” said Mother, pushing her mud-encrusted hair away from her face. “In the rain.”

“Quickly!” she said, pulling us toward her. Her hands trembled. “I could be in awful trouble taking risks like this for you. I hope you know that.” She reached into her brassiere and pulled out a few small beets and passed them quickly to Mother. She then raised her dress and took two more from her underwear. “Now hurry, go!” she said. I heard the bald man yelling in the shack behind us.

We scurried back to our hut to begin our feast. I was too hungry to care that I hated beets. I didn’t even care that they had been transported in someone’s sweaty underwear.