Between Shades of Gray(69)

I stopped.

“She was a good woman. I could see she used to be very pretty.”

I spun around. “What do you mean? She was always pretty! It’s you that’s ugly. You couldn’t see her beauty, or anyone else’s for that matter!”

“No, I saw it. She was pretty. Krasivaya.”

No. Not that word. I was supposed to learn it on my own. Not from Kretzsky.

“It means beautiful, but with strength,” he slurred. “Unique.”

I couldn’t look at him. I looked at the logs. I wanted to grab one. I wanted to smash him across the face, like the can of sardines.

“So, you hate me?” He laughed.

How could Mother have tolerated Kretzsky? She claimed he had helped her.

“I hate me, too,” he said.

I looked up.

“You want to draw me like this? Like your beloved Munch?” he asked. His face looked puffy. I could barely understand his slurred Russian. “I know about your drawings.” He pointed a shaky finger at me. “I’ve seen them all.”

He knew about my drawings. “How did you know about my father?” I asked.

He ignored my question.

“My mother, she was an artist, too,” he said, gesturing with the bottle. “But she is with yours—dead.”

“I’m sorry,” I said instinctively. Why did I say that? I didn’t care.

“You’re sorry?” He snorted in disbelief, tucking the bottle under his arm and rubbing his gloves together. “My mother, she was Polish. She died when I was five. My father is Russian. He remarried a Russian when I was six. My mother wasn’t even cold a year. Some of my mother’s relatives are in Kolyma. I was supposed to go there, to help them. That’s why I wanted to leave the barge in Jakutsk. But now I’m here. So, you’re not the only one who is in prison.”

He took another long swig of the bottle. “You want to steal wood, Vilkas?” He opened his arms. “Steal wood.” He waved his hand toward the pile. “Davai.”

My ears burned. My eyelids stung from the cold. I walked to the woodpile.

“The woman my father married, she hates me, too. She hates Poles.”

I took a log. He didn’t stop me. I began to pile wood. I heard a sound. Kretzsky’s back was turned, the bottle hanging from his hand. Was he sick? I took a step away with the logs. I heard it again. Kretzsky wasn’t sick. He was crying.

Leave, Lina. Hurry! Take the wood. Just go. I took a step, to leave him. Instead, my legs walked toward him, still holding the wood. What was I doing? The sound coming from Kretzsky was uncomfortable, stifled.

“Nikolai.”

He didn’t look at me.

I stood there, silent. “Nikolai.” I reached out from under the wood. I put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” I finally said.

We stood in the darkness, saying nothing.

I turned to leave him.

“Vilkas.”

I turned.

“I’m sorry for your mother,” he said.

I nodded. “Me, too.”





83


I HAD PLAYED through scenarios of how I would get back at the NKVD, how I would stomp on the Soviets if I ever had a chance. I had a chance. I could have laughed at him, thrown wood at him, spit in his face. The man threw things at me, humiliated me. I hated him, right? I should have turned and walked away. I should have felt good inside. I didn’t. The sound of his crying physically pained me. What was wrong with me?

I told no one of the incident. The next day, Kretzsky was gone.

February arrived. Janina was fighting scurvy. The man who wound his watch had dysentery. Mrs. Rimas and I tended to them as best we could. Janina spoke to her dead dolly for hours, sometimes yelling or laughing. After a few days she stopped speaking.

“What are we to do?” I said to Jonas. “Janina’s getting sicker by the minute.”

He looked at me.

“What is it?” I said.

“I have the spots again,” he said.

“Where? Let me see.”

The scurvy spots had reappeared on Jonas’s stomach. Clumps of his hair had fallen out.

“There are no tomatoes this time,” said Jonas. “Andrius isn’t here.” He started shaking his head.

I grabbed my brother by the shoulders. “Jonas, listen to me. We are going to live. Do you hear me? We’re going home. We’re not going to die. We’re going home to our house, and we’re going to sleep in our beds with the goose-down comforters. We will. All right?”

“How will we live alone, without Mother and Papa?” he asked.

“Auntie and Uncle. And Joana. They’ll help. We’ll have Auntie’s apple cakes and doughnuts with jam inside. The ones you like, okay? And Andrius will help us.”

Jonas nodded.

“Say it. Say, ‘We’re going home.’”

“We’re going home,” repeated Jonas.

I hugged him, kissing the scabbed bald spot on his head. “Here.” I took the stone from Andrius out of my pocket and held it up to Jonas. He seemed dazed and didn’t take the stone.

My stomach sank. What would I do? I had no medicine. Everyone was ill. Would I be the only one left, alone with the bald man?

We took turns going for rations. I begged at other jurtas as Mother had done on the beet farm. I walked into a jurta. Two women sat amongst four people who were covered as if sleeping. They were all dead.