Between Shades of Gray(16)

“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.





20


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.

“And Dickens nonetheless. How dare you! You are becoming the animals they treat us as!”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Your brother and Andrius are smoking!” she bellowed.

“My mother knows,” I said.

“Books!” she said, thrusting a hard cover in my face.

“We ran out of cigarettes,” Jonas said softly, “but Andrius had tobacco.”

“Miss Grybas,” said Mother, “I’ll handle it.”

“The Soviets have arrested us because we are knowledgeable, learned people. To smoke pages of a book is just ... What were you thinking?” Miss Grybas asked. “Where did you get this book?”

Dickens. I had The Pickwick Papers in my suitcase. Grandma had given it to me the Christmas before she died. “Jonas! You took my book. How could you?”

“Lina,” began Mother.

“I took your book,” said Andrius. “Blame me.”

“I certainly do blame you,” said Miss Grybas. “Corrupting this young boy. You should be ashamed.”

Mrs. Arvydas slept on the other side of the car, completely unaware of what had transpired.

“You’re an idiot!” I screamed at Andrius.

“I’ll get you a new book,” he said.

“No, you won’t. It was a gift,” I said. “Jonas, Grandma gave me that book.”

“I’m sorry,” said Jonas, looking down at his chest.

“You should be!” I yelled.

“Lina, it was my idea,” said Andrius. “It’s not his fault.” I waved him away. Why did boys have to be such idiots?





21


WEEKS. I LOST TRACK of how long we had been traveling. I stopped watching for bodies to be hurled from the cars. Every time the train pulled away, we left a litter of corpses in our wake. What would people think if they saw them? Would someone bury them, or would they believe they were really thieves and prostitutes? I felt as if I were riding a pendulum. Just as I would swing into the abyss of hopelessness, the pendulum would swing back with some small goodness.