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

Thoughts swam through my brain. I couldn’t process one before another stepped over it. We were being punished while Joana’s family lived comfortably in Germany. We had given up our lives for theirs. Mother was angry that the bald man had told me. She had trusted him with the secret. He had given it up for five minutes of mittens. Hadn’t Mother and Papa thought to trust us ? Did they consider the consequences before they helped them escape? I scratched at the back of my head. Lice were biting a trail down the nape of my neck.

“How selfish! How could they do this to us?” I said.

“They had to give up things, too,” said Jonas.

My mouth fell open. “What do you mean?” I asked. “They gave up nothing! We gave it all for them.”

“They gave up their home, Uncle gave up his store, Joana gave up her studies.”

Her studies. Joana wanted to be a doctor as much as I wanted to be an artist. Although I could still draw, she could not pursue medicine with a war raging in Germany. Where was she? Did she know what had happened to us? Had the Soviets managed to keep the deportations a secret from the world? If so, how long would that last? I thought of the American supply ship, sailing away. Would anyone think to look for us in the Siberian Arctic? If Stalin had his way, we’d be entombed in the ice and snow.

I got my paper. I sat near the firelight of the stove. Anger sizzled within me. It was so unfair. But I couldn’t hate Joana. It wasn’t her fault. Whose fault was it? I drew two hands clutching on to each other, yet pulling apart. I drew a swastika on her palm and the hammer and sickle on top of my hand, the Lithuanian flag shredded and falling in between.

I heard a scraping sound. The man who wound his watch carved a small piece of wood with his knife. The logs popped, spitting ashes out of the barrel.

“It looks scratched,” said Jonas. He sat cross-legged on my bed, looking at one of the Munch prints I had received from Oslo.

“It is. He used his palette knife to scrape texture into the canvas,” I said.

“It makes her look… confused,” said Jonas. “If it weren’t scratched, she would look sad. But the scratches make confusion.”

“Exactly,” I said, using long strokes to comb through my warm, clean hair. “But to Munch, that made the painting feel alive. He was a confused man. He didn’t care about proportion, he wanted it to feel real.”

Jonas flipped to the next print. “Does this feel real to you?” he said, his eyes wide.

“Definitely,” I told him. “That’s called Ashes.”

“I don’t know about real. Maybe real scary,” said Jonas as he got up to leave. “You know, Lina, I like your paintings better than these. These are too weird. Good night.”

“Good night,” I said. I took the papers and flopped down on my bed, sinking into my puffy goose-down duvet. A comment in the margin from an art critic read, “Munch is primarily a lyric poet in color. He feels colors, but does not see them. Instead, he sees sorrow, crying, and withering.”

Sorrow, crying, and withering. I saw that in Ashes, too. I thought it was brilliant.

Ashes. I had an idea. I grabbed a stick from next to the stove. I peeled back the outer skin to reveal the pulp. I separated the fibers, forming bristles. I grabbed a handful of snow from outside the door and carefully mixed in ashes from the barrel. The color was uneven, but made a nice gray watercolor.

NOVEMBER CAME. Mother’s eyes lacked their wink and sparkle. We had to work harder for her smile. It came only when her chin rested on the heel of her hand or when Jonas mentioned Papa in our evening prayers. Then she would lift her face, the corners of her mouth turned up with hope. I worried for her.

At night, I closed my eyes and thought of Andrius. I saw his fingers raking through his disheveled brown hair, his nose tracing a line down my cheek the night before we left. I remembered his wide smile when he teased me in the ration line. I saw his tentative eyes, handing me Dombey and Son , and his reassurance as the truck pulled away. He said he’d find me. Did he know where they had taken us? That they laughed and wagered upon our deaths? Find me , I whispered.

The man who wound his watch looked at the sky. He said a storm was coming. I believed him, not because of the pale gray of the sky, but because of the bustle of the NKVD. They shouted at us. Their “davais” pushed with an urgency. Even Ivanov was upon us. Normally, he shouted orders from afar. Today, he hastened to and from the barrack, coordinating every effort.

Mrs. Rimas tried to negotiate advance rations for the impending storm.

Ivanov laughed. “If there’s a storm, you won’t work. Why should you get a ration?”

“But how will we survive without bread?” asked Mrs. Rimas.

“I don’t know. How will you?” said Ivanov.

I pilfered wood from the NKVD barracks. There was no other way. We would need a lot for the storm. I went back for more. Snow began to fall.

That’s when I saw it.

Mother stood, talking to Ivanov and Kretzsky behind the NKVD barracks. What was she doing? I stepped out of sight and squinted to see. Ivanov spit on the ground. He then leaned close in to Mother’s face. My heart began to pound. Suddenly, he lifted his gloved hand to his temple, mocking a gun firing. Mother flinched. Ivanov threw his head back and laughed. He walked into the NKVD barracks.

Mother and Kretzsky stood motionless, snow falling all around them. Kretzsky reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. I saw his lips moving. Mother’s knees buckled. He caught her by the waist. Her face contorted and fell against his chest. She pounded his shoulder with her fist.

“MOTHER!” I screamed, running toward her. I tripped over the firewood tumbling from under my coat.

I grabbed her from Kretzsky, pulling her to me. “Mother.” We fell to our knees.

“Kostas,” she sobbed.

I stroked her hair, hugging her to me. Kretzsky’s boots shifted. I looked up at him.

“Shot. In Krasnoyarsk prison,” he said.

The air crushed in around me, pushing my body deep into the snow. “No, you’re wrong,” I said, my eyes searching Kretzsky’s. “He’s coming to get us. He’s on his way. He’s wrong, Mother! They think he’s dead because he has left. He got my drawings. He’s coming for us!”

“No.” Kretzsky shook his head.

I stared at him. No?

Mother wept, her body chugging into mine.

“Papa?” The word barely escaped my lips.

Kretzky took a step closer, reaching to help Mother. Loathing purged from my mouth. “Get away from her! Stay away. I hate you. Do you hear me? I HATE YOU!”

Kretzsky stared at Mother. “Me, too,” he said. He walked away, leaving me on the ground with Mother.

We sank deeper, snow blanketing us, the wind sharp against our faces like needles. “Come, Mother. A storm is coming.” Her legs couldn’t carry her. Her chest heaved with every step, throwing us off balance. Snow whirled around us, limiting my sight.

“HELP ME!” I screamed. “Somebody, PLEASE!” I heard nothing but the wail of the winds. “Mother, match my steps. Walk with me. We must get back. There’s a storm.”

Mother didn’t walk. She just repeated my father’s name into the falling snow.

“HELP!”

“Elena?”

It was Mrs. Rimas.

“Yes! We’re here. Help us!” I cried.

Two figures emerged through the wall of wind and snow.

“Lina?”

“Jonas! Please!”

My brother and Mrs. Rimas came through the snow, their arms extended.