"You traitor! You pathetic old man!" I said.

"Pathetic, and yet I survive. Surely, my survival is my punishment. That has to be it. This woman closes her eyes and she is gone. I've wished for death since the first day, and yet I survive. Can it really be so hard to die?"

81.

I WOKE, UNEASY. The night had been unkind. I slept next to Mother's body, muffling my sobs so as not to scare Jonas. My beautiful mother-I would never see her smile again, feel her arms around me. I already missed her voice. My body felt hollow, like my sluggish heartbeat was bouncing and echoing through my vacant, aching limbs.

The bald man's questions kept me awake in thought. Was it harder to die, or harder to be the one who survived? I was sixteen, an orphan in Siberia, but I knew. It was the one thing I never questioned. I wanted to live. I wanted to see my brother grow up. I wanted to see Lithuania again. I wanted to see Joana. I wanted to smell the lily of the valley on the breeze beneath my window. I wanted to paint in the fields. I wanted to see Andrius with my drawings. There were only two possible outcomes in Siberia. Success meant survival. Failure meant death. I wanted life. I wanted to survive.

Part of me felt guilty. Was it selfish that I wanted to live, even though my parents were gone? Was it selfish to have wants beyond my family being together? I was now the guardian of my eleven-year-old brother. What would he do if I perished?

After work, Jonas helped the man who wound his watch make a coffin. Mrs. Rimas and I prepared Mother.

"Is there anything left in her suitcase?" asked Mrs. Rimas.

"I don't think so." I pulled Mother's suitcase from under the board she lay on. I was wrong. Inside were fresh, clean clothes. A light dress, silk stockings, shoes without scuffs, her tube of lipstick. There was also a man's shirt and tie. Papa's clothes. I began to cry.

Mrs. Rimas brought her hand to her mouth. "She really intended to return home."

I looked at Papa's shirt. I lifted it to my face. My mother was freezing. She could have worn these clothes. She kept them, to return to Lithuania in a clean set of clothes.

Mrs. Rimas pulled out the silk dress. "This is lovely. We'll put this on her."

I took Mother's coat off of her. She had worn the coat since the night we were deported. Stitch marks and stray threads pocked the inside where she had sewn in our valuables. I lifted the fabric of the lining. A few papers remained.

"Those are deeds to your home and property in Kaunas," said Mrs. Rimas, looking at the paperwork. "Keep them safe. You'll need them when you go home."

There was another small piece of paper. I unfolded it.

It was an address in Biberach, Germany.

"Germany. That has to be where my cousin is."

"Probably, but you mustn't write to that address," said Mrs. Rimas. "It could get them in trouble."

That night, Jonas and I stole shovels and ice picks from outside the NKVD barracks. "It has to be someplace we'll remember," I told him. "Because we're taking her body back to Lithuania with us." We walked to a little hill near the Laptev Sea.

"This has a nice view," said Jonas. "We'll remember this."

We dug all night, chipping away at the ice, digging as deep as we could. As morning approached, Mrs. Rimas and the man who wound his watch arrived to help. Even Janina and the bald man came to dig. The ice was so hard, the grave was fairly shallow.

The next morning Mrs. Rimas slipped Mother's wedding band off her finger. "Keep this. Bury it with her when you take her back home."

We carried the coffin out of the jurta and walked slowly through the snow toward the hill. Jonas and I held the front, Mrs. Rimas and the man who wound his watch held the center, and the bald man carried the back. Janina trailed beside me. People joined us. I didn't know them. They prayed for Mother. Soon, a large procession walked behind us. We passed the NKVD barracks. Kretzsky talked with guards on the porch. He saw us and stopped talking. I looked ahead and walked toward the cold hole in the ground.

82.

I PAINTED A MAP to the gravesite using the ash mixture and a feather from the owl. Mother's absence left a gaping hole, a mouth missing its front tooth. The eternal grayness in camp became a shade darker. Amidst the polar night, our only sun had slipped under a cloud.

"We could drown ourselves," said the bald man. "That would be easy, right?"

No one responded.

"Don't ignore me, girl!"

"I'm not ignoring you. Don't you understand? We're all tired of you!" I said.

I was so very tired. Mentally, physically, emotionally, I was tired. "You always talk of death and of us killing ourselves. Haven't you figured it out? We're not interested in dying," I said.

"But I'm interested!" he insisted.

"Maybe you don't really want to die," said Jonas. "Maybe you just think you deserve to."

The bald man looked up at Jonas and then at me.

"You think of nothing but yourself. If you want to kill yourself, what's keeping you?" I said. Silence sat between our stares.

"Fear," he said.

Two nights after we buried Mother, there was a whistle on the air. A storm would arrive the next day. I bundled in all that I could find and set out into the blackness to steal wood from the NKVD building. Each day, when chopping and delivering wood, we dumped extra behind the pile. It was understood that if someone was brave enough to steal it, it was there. A man in group twenty-six got caught stealing wood. They sentenced him to an additional five years. Five years for one log. It could have been fifty. Our sentences were dictated by our survival.

I walked toward the NKVD barrack, making a wide circle to arrive at the back, close to the woodpile. My face and ears were wrapped in a cloth, with only my eyes exposed. I wore Mother's hat. A figure scurried past me, carrying a large plank of wood. Brave. The planks were leaned up against the barracks. I turned near the back of the woodpile. I stopped. A figure in a long coat stood behind the giant stacks of wood. It was impossible to see in the darkness. I turned slowly to leave, trying not to make a sound.

"Who's there? Show yourself!"

I turned around.

"Group number?" he demanded.

"Eleven," I said, backing away.

The figure moved closer. "Vilkas?"

I didn't respond. He stepped toward me. I saw his eyes under the large fur hat. Kretzsky.

He stumbled and I heard swishing. He carried a bottle.

"Stealing?" he asked, taking a swig.

I said nothing.

"I can't arrange for you to draw a portrait here. No one wants one," said Kretzsky.

"You think I want to draw for you?"

"Why not?" he said. "It kept you warm. You got food. And you drew a nice, realistic portrait." He laughed.

"Realistic? I don't want to be forced to draw that way." Why was I even talking to him? I turned to leave.

"Your mother," he said.

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."