Words on Fire, page 16
From there, we trekked through the night, and the city of Tilsit came into view by early morning. Along the way, Lukas pointed out various places where it was safe to rest or to load sacks to smuggle back into Lithuania. “This territory has been claimed by Germany,” Lukas explained, “and so it’s still not our own land, as it should be. But Germany likes anything that makes life more difficult for Russia. They’re usually quite happy to overlook their own smuggling laws on this side of the border.”
I giggled and let Lukas take me on a tour of the town, though it wasn’t much of a tour. Half the time, I thought he only decided which road to lead me down when I was already on it ahead of him. Then he’d point to various landmarks and buildings and make up stories about them that couldn’t possibly be true, not unless fairies had built the bakeries and trolls had paved the roads. At least the stories kept me awake until the print shop was finally open.
Lukas greeted the printer by name. We were told that Ben had paid for the order already, but he was glad that two of us had come, for there were several books to be carried.
“Several books?” Lukas glanced sideways at me. “That’s too many. Only one of us is carrying the books back.”
That didn’t make sense to me. I wouldn’t trudge along beside him while he did all the work. So I shook my head. “If you can carry them, so can I.”
He nodded at the printer to give us a moment alone, then pulled me to a corner of the room and frowned.
“I’ll take half the books,” I said. “I’m strong enough.”
Lukas sighed. “You don’t understand, Audra. I’m the only one going back. You’re staying here.”
“What?” Pressure began building inside me. “You tricked me into crossing the border?”
“I had to! If I’d told you that I was getting you out of Lithuania for good, what would you have done?”
“The same thing I’ll do now—refuse to listen! I’ll make my own decisions. I don’t need your help, or Ben’s—”
“Do you know what Ben risked, what Ben paid in bribes to get that shoulder bag to you in the prison? And now you’ll thank him by ignoring his orders?”
“I’ll thank him by helping with the cause he still risks his life for!”
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” the printer said, wheeling out a cart piled high with what had to be thirty or forty books. “But Ben actually has more books waiting here than he might have remembered. I can’t continue to store them. Our police tend to look the other way when we print illegal books, but if things are getting so dangerous over there that a young girl’s life is in danger, then I don’t want that trouble following me here. You’ll take these books or I’ll have to dispose of them.”
Lukas had been eyeing the books, his jaw falling open as the printer spoke. Finally, he mumbled, “I can’t carry all of these.”
“No,” I said, smugger than I ought to have been. “You can’t. Not if you’re crossing alone.”
Lukas sighed. “Just this once, Audra. And when Ben yells at you for returning with me, I’m going to tell him that I tried to stop you.”
“I’m going to tell him a few things as well.”
We loaded the books into four canvas sacks the printer gave to us, carrying one over each shoulder as we left the shop. But we hadn’t gone far before I knew I was going to have trouble hauling them all the way back into Lithuania.
Testing the weight again, I told Lukas, “I’m worried that I’ll fall into the river and ruin these books.”
“And drown,” Lukas said with a wink.
I didn’t see why he would wink. I could swim well enough, but not if I had to keep hold of a pile of wet books.
“We’re not going back on the rope,” Lukas continued. “The books would make our shoulder packs hang too low and we would easily be seen.”
“Then how?” My eyes widened. “Ben wasn’t serious about the barrels?”
Lukas pressed his brow low. “Ben is serious about everything, Audra. You know that.”
By then, we had arrived at a barn that Lukas said was owned by an elderly Lithuanian couple. “They’ve devoted their lives to helping with book carrying on this side of the border,” he explained. “Good folks.”
From inside an empty stall, Lukas rolled out two wooden barrels, each the size of a small traveling trunk. Either end had a rope handle attached. I shook my head.
“We’ll still drown.”
“Not if you hold on.” He opened the lid and began setting his books inside. “The lid will keep the water out, and the barrels will float, so don’t let go of the handle. We’ll enter the river in a quiet place and you must be sure to exit in a quiet place, the sooner the better so that we can find each other again. But even if it means we exit a kilometer or two apart, stay in the river tonight until the area feels safe.”
“Tonight? When it’s dark … of course when it’s dark.” I arched an eyebrow. “What should we do until then?”
He pointed to the upper loft. “We sleep. And if we’re lucky, when we wake up, there’ll be a raging rainstorm. That’ll triple our chances of a safe crossing!”
“And get us soaked!”
Lukas chuckled. “Trust me, we’re going to get soaked tonight. I’d rather be soaked than be seen.”
With a frown, I asked, “Tell me the truth. Do we really have any chance of getting back safely?”
Lukas leaned against the barn wall and considered his answer for a moment, then finally said, “In the story of Rue, who is it that is constantly giving her trouble?”
I’d have preferred that he gave me a direct answer, but since that clearly wasn’t going to happen, with a sigh, I said, “The snake gives her trouble.”
“Yes, and I’ll grant you, it’s a dangerous thing to have a snake for one’s enemy. Snakes are fast and they strike hard, often killing their prey. You may not see or hear the snake coming until it’s too late, and if you are not careful when you fight back, with a single turn of its body, in an instant, you might be its victim.”
Now my sigh became a groan. “Thanks for telling me that, Lukas. But the soldiers ahead of us—”
“No, this story is about Rue and the snake! We’re not thinking of the soldiers right now. You see, although Rue understood the danger of fighting against a snake, she also knew that she had all the advantages. The snake is confined to the ground, able to see only the smallest piece of its world. But Rue can stand taller and higher, and she can see more than the snake even knows exists. She can see how much better her land might be if she could rid it of the snake. The snake has no hands for working, no feet for walking and running, but Rue does. All she needs is a plan.”
I looked down at my father’s satchel, thinking of the recipe I’d found inside his notebook. I needed a plan too.
“We should get some sleep while we can.” Lukas finished sealing the lid on his barrel and reached for my load of books, but I pulled them away.
“Maybe later. Perhaps while I’m waiting to sleep, I can read, just a little.”
It wasn’t just a little. I chose a book of fairy tales, stories not so different from those of Rue and the snake, with words I wouldn’t have been able to read at all a few months ago.Now I flew through them. That night, I devoured one story after another, of heroism, bravery, and nobility, often finding myself looking through the eyes of the characters as if I were the warrior, or the princess, or the trickster. I read until I couldn’t force my eyes to stay open any longer, until they ached from all they were absorbing. Even then, I shook my head, hoping for one more line, one more page.
I loved the feel of the paper between my fingers, the smell of the ink. Every word was a symphony, singing to me of other lands, of other people, of places where new ideas were encouraged, not made illegal.
Not here.
I shook my head again and forced myself to continue reading. Hopefully something in one of these books would tell me what to do when I was about to cross a border so dangerous that it very well might cost me my life.
We only slept until midafternoon, and when I awoke, Lukas bought us some sausages to eat while we made the trek back to the border, hauling the barrels in our arms. My shoulders already ached from the effort, but we couldn’t drag them. They’d leave tracks.
“How often do you do border crossings?” I asked Lukas.
“Twice.”
My eyes narrowed. “Twice a week, or twice a month?”
“No, twice—this is my second time. I crossed for the first time last month.”
I nearly dropped the barrel I was carrying. “You’ve only done this once before now?”
“That’s what ‘this is my second time’ means, Audra.”
“You don’t know the safe places, the border guards to avoid or who can be bribed. I thought I was going with someone who’d done this enough to teach me what to do, not someone who was making up everything as he went along!”
Clearly irritated, with a huff he stopped walking and stared at me. “Every smuggling job is making things up. What works the first time might get you arrested the second time. So here’s what I can teach you: The safe place is where the border guards aren’t. Avoid all of them, attempt bribery as a last resort to being shot. And whatever you can do to get those books into the hands of other Lithuanians and stay alive in the process is the right thing! And, I should remind you, Ben wanted you left behind. I was supposed to be making this return trip alone!”
He was right about that, and probably right about everything else too. I mumbled an apology and while he took a breath to calm himself down, I said, “So we’ll keep going, yes?”
A beat passed. Then, “Yes.”
“Are these books expensive?” I’d seen how little Milda charged for the books that left her place, often nothing at all. But someone had to be paying for the printing.
“The church helps as much as it can,” Lukas said as he munched on one end of his sausage. “And there are Lithuanians here in Prussia who are living in exile. They donate a great deal of money to aid in our work.”
He walked at my side for several minutes more before he said, “I’m not as good at smuggling as I used to be.”
I stopped again. “What? Lukas, you’re very good at it!”
“No, not since I was whipped for it. The choices I make now are too safe, which makes them too predictable. That’s why I wanted to do this border crossing, to prove to myself that I still can. But the truth is, I wanted you to come back with me. I’m sure I’ll need your help.”
After all he’d done for me, I was more than eager to return the favor. I had plenty to prove to myself too. “How can I help?”
“You’re good at this because you think differently than the rest of us. If the logical thing is to turn right, you turn left and then suddenly it makes sense. I’m not here to teach you, Audra. You need to teach me.”
I held his words in my mind until we entered the woods on the Prussian side of the border and found our place to enter the river. From here, we could see the border guards on the other side already gathering for the night, just as Lukas had said. At least until it got darker, they were close enough to see one another and certainly they could hear one another.
Lukas was wrong about the way I made decisions—it wasn’t that I had a different logic than everyone else. It was that I had a different motive. From what I could tell, the object of most smugglers was to avoid, deny, and hide.
Mine was, as always, to distract. To put in plain view what I wanted to be seen, and turn attention away from what shouldn’t be seen. In this case, Lukas and myself.
I looked over at Lukas. “Give me your barrel!”
He did. I opened it and set my books inside next to his, along with my father’s shoulder bag and everything else I had with me, then sealed it up again.
“This won’t float as well, Audra. It’s heavier now.”
“But it will float, right?” When he nodded, I said, “Now give me your coat.”
He removed it and I carried it with me down to the edge of the river next to the tall rock we had passed earlier. I draped the coat over the rock, then set my empty barrel to the side of it, laying one sleeve of the coat on the barrel, as if a hand were holding it.
“We need something round, for a head!” Lukas whispered, catching on. As quietly as possible, he explored the area, coming back with a rock roughly the size and shape of a human head, and also with some grasses for the hair.
By now it was dark enough to build our rock person, and when we finished and viewed it from a distance, it had a fair resemblance to a human, albeit one who never moved at all.
“You’re rather brilliant, you know,” Lukas commented. “Now what?”
“Now we float together,” I said. “You hold one handle of the barrel and I’ll hold the other. I’ll keep watch for guards while you scout a good location to go to land. When we both agree, we leave the river.” I gave him the barrel, then said, “Go get in the water downriver and wait for me to float past you. Then grab my hand.”
He grinned and began moving downriver. “I think I know what you’re doing.”
“Be sure to grab my hand, Lukas.”
But he only nodded and disappeared into the brush. Meanwhile, I began making noise—not so much as to be obvious but certainly enough to ensure I was being heard. I pounded the lid of the barrel with my fist, then when I heard voices calling from the other side of the river, I went silent, except for a large rock that I threw upriver, one that splashed in with a loud kerplunk.
The voices turned to shouted orders. I caught enough Russian words to know that they were being directed to investigate the sound, well upriver from where Lukas and I would be. Then I quietly slipped into the water.
Instantly, my breath lodged in my throat. It was so much colder than I had imagined, chilling me to my core. I tried to move my limbs, but they were already freezing up. I couldn’t allow that—if I didn’t move, I would drown.
I floated that way downriver for about ten seconds before Lukas grabbed my hand. Although I’d been watching for him, I hadn’t noticed him in the thick brush bending into the water, and at first, the branches and leaves scratched at my face and tangled in my hair. But as he drifted with me into the current, I wished to be back among the brush again. More soldiers were moving down the river, trying to monitor a tall coat-wearing rock that might attempt an illegal crossing at any minute. If they looked carefully enough at the water beside them, they would see us.
We continued floating for another minute until we had passed the soldiers, then began fighting the current to make our way across the river. If I hadn’t been cold enough, I swallowed plenty of icy water, and now I really was chilled from the inside out. My mind cycled between three separate thoughts: Don’t get caught. Don’t stop swimming. And whatever you do, don’t let go of the barrel.
Lukas was nearer to the Lithuanian shore and finally began making firmer tugs toward land. I followed his lead until I was able to touch the muddy bottom, then we remained crouched low in the water, listening for the sounds of any soldiers.
When we agreed it was safe, Lukas nodded, and we rolled the barrel onto land, giving it a chance to drain off as much water as possible before we continued walking. Then we emerged from the water, keeping low while we squeezed excess water from our clothes. The night air turned my clothes icy and my teeth chattered nonstop, but nothing could be done about that now. We had to keep moving.
Lukas pried open the barrel and we took turns grabbing books and stuffing them inside the sacks we’d each wear over our shoulders. Mine was dry and Lukas had rolled his tight, so although there were some wet patches, the books should be all right. We covered the sacks with some sticks poking out the top to look like gathered firewood. It wasn’t much for a disguise, so if we were caught, it would only take the soldiers a few seconds to realize who we were.
And it was entirely possible that we would be caught. After all, we hadn’t yet passed through even the first layer of border security.
With everything packed, Lukas began to slip the barrel under the bushes, but I motioned for him to pull it out again. After all, it still had some use for us … farther downriver. I placed a few rocks inside it to give it some weight, then sealed it again and sent it on its way. If the barrel was spotted by soldiers, they’d follow it downriver, expecting smugglers to be attached to it. And leave us free to move forward.
My idea must have had some success, for we saw the evidence of Cossack soldiers who had been here only moments before on the first line of defense—their tracks, a cigarette butt still smoking. Not far away was a small wooden building with a Russian flag flying overhead and a pair of boots outside, so I suspected it was where the border soldiers slept. But it seemed empty now, and hopefully would stay that way for a while.
After another two kilometers, we reached the edge of the forest and had to cross a wide cornfield before the next patch of woods. It was still dark but the moon was bright in the sky. So we flattened ourselves on the ground and pushed our sacks in front of us as we crawled through tall green stalks that made for a thick cover, and warmed me a bit. But I was also fighting a sneeze the entire time, finally suppressing one into my sleeve.
Once we reached the next patch of woods, we got a look at each other in the moonlight and nearly burst out laughing. Lukas’s hair was filled with burrs and was wildly tousled in every direction. His clothing was filthy and still damp, and his face had a scratch from some sort of thorn. I was sure I looked no better. Maybe it helped to make us look like the children of a peasant farmer, out in a desperate attempt to sell food.
Maybe it made us look like book smugglers who’d crossed a river and then crawled through a field.
We broke off a few overripe ears of corn, robbing a pig of its feed, but at least not a family of their supper. We stuffed them at the top of our sacks for cover—much better than the twigs had been—then Lukas nodded at me and we continued our walk through the woods. After another hour, Lukas held up two fingers, signaling that we had passed the second level of security. That was good, but we still had the third level to go.
