Between Shades of Gray(53)

They shoved a few more people into our car before slamming the door. A woman with two boys and an older man climbed in. A tall man stepped in and looked around nervously. A woman and her daughter were hoisted up. Jonas nudged my arm. The girl looked as yellow as a lemon, her eyes nothing more than swollen slits. Where had she been? The mother spoke in Lithuanian to her daughter.

“Just another short trip and we’ll be home, dear,” said the girl’s mother. Mother helped the woman with her luggage. The girl hacked and coughed.

We were lucky. We had only thirty-three people in our car. We had room and light this time. We gave the lemon girl a plank to sleep on. Mother insisted that Jonas have one as well. I sat on the floor, next to the girl with the dolly, whose hands were now empty.

“Where’s your doll?” I asked.

“Dead,” said the girl, with a hollow look in her eyes.

“Oh.”

“The NKVD killed her. Remember how they shot the woman with the baby? That’s what they did to Liale, except they threw her in the air and shot her head off. Kind of like a pigeon.”

“You must miss her a lot,” I said.

“Well, I missed her at first. I kept crying and crying. A guard told me to stop crying. I tried, but I couldn’t. He clobbered me in the head. See my scar?” she said, pointing to a thick red fold on her forehead.

Bastards. She was only a child.

“You couldn’t stop crying either?” she asked.

“What?”

She pointed to the scar above my eyebrow.

“No, they hit me with a can of sardines,” I said.

“Because you were crying?” she said.

“No, just for fun,” I answered.

She curled her finger toward me, beckoning me closer. “Want to know a big secret?” she asked.

“What’s that?”

She leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Mama says the NKVD are going to hell.” She leaned back. “But you can’t tell anyone. It’s a secret, okay? You see, Liale, my dolly, she’s up in heaven. She talks to me. She tells me things. So that’s a secret, but Liale said I could tell you.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” I said.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Lina,” I said.

“And your brother?”

“Jonas.”

“My name is Janina,” she said, continuing to chatter. “Your mama, she looks old now. My mama does, too. And you like the boy who was waiting near the truck.”

“What?”

“The one who put something into your pocket. I saw. What did he give you?”

I showed her the stone.

“It’s so sparkly. I think Liale would like it. Maybe you could give it to me.”

“No, it was a present. I think I better hold on to it for a while,” I said.

Mother sat down next to me.

“Did you see the present Lina’s boyfriend gave her?” asked Janina.

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

Was he my boyfriend? I wanted him to be my boyfriend. I showed Mother the stone.

“I see it made its way back to you,” she said. “That’s good luck.”

“My dolly’s dead,” announced Janina. “She’s in heaven.”

Mother nodded and patted Janina’s arm.

“Someone shut that kid up,” said the bald man. “You, the tall one. What do you know of the war?”

“The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, they bombed,” said the man.

“Pearl Harbor? They bombed America?” said Mrs. Rimas.

“When?” asked the bald man.

“Months ago. Around Christmas, yes, Christmas.” He repeated his words, a nervous tic.

“So the United States has declared war on Japan?” asked Mother.

“Yes, along with Britain. Britain has also declared war.”

“Where did you come from?” asked the bald man.

“Lithuania,” said the man.

“I know that, idiot. Where did you come from today?”

“Kalmanka,” said the man. “Yes, Kalmanka.”

“Kalmanka, eh? Was it a prison or a camp?” asked the bald man.

“A camp, hmm, a camp. A potato farm. You?”

“A beet farm near Turaciak,” replied Mother. “Were there all Lithuanians in your camp?”

“No, mostly Latvians,” said the man. “And Finns. Yes, Finns.”

Finns. I had forgotten about Finland. I remembered the night Dr. Seltzer came to the house looking for Papa. The Soviets had invaded Finland.

“It’s only thirty kilometers from Leningrad, Elena,” Dr. Seltzer had told Mother. “Stalin wants to protect himself from the West.”

“Will the Finns negotiate?” asked Mother.

“The Finns are strong people. They’ll fight,” said Dr. Seltzer.





64


THE TRAIN CHURNED forward. The rhythm of the rails tormented me, screeching and banging. They pulled me away from Andrius, further into an unknown. The metal lamp swayed above like a pendulum, illuminating hollow faces, throwing shadows throughout the carriage. Janina whispered to the ghost of her dead doll, giggling.

The yellow girl hacked and wheezed next to Jonas. She spit up blood all over his back. Mother snatched Jonas off the plank. She tore off his shirt and threw it down the bathroom hole. It didn’t seem necessary. We were all breathing the same air as the yellow girl. Phlegm and blood on a shirt couldn’t be any more contagious.