Words on Fire, page 21
That was all I could do, to hope he knew me well enough to guess what was in my head. This wasn’t much of a plan, but without Lukas, it had no chance to succeed.
I did nothing while the first dozen people passed us by, each of them so terrified and distressed they didn’t even notice we were there. Then I crouched behind a willow tree and lit the first match, cursing under my breath as it was extinguished in the night air. Now at least twenty people had passed us, and the nearest soldier was only seconds away, driving the people forward like cattle. I put my back against the breeze and struck the match closer to my body, then immediately lit the smoke bomb that I had made with the saltpeter, hoping that I had read my father’s instructions correctly.
Instantly, thick gray smoke began pouring from it, and I tossed it into the center of the road, already choking on its fumes.
“Fire!” someone yelled.
“Keep going!” a man’s voice replied in Russian.
The soldier who had been near us on the road must have stopped just short of the smoke to push others forward. If there was a fire ahead, he obviously had no problem with my people having to face it. At the point of his bayonet, they were forced through the smoke, faces buried against their arms or nuzzled into their shirts or aprons. As soon as I saw each one come through, I’d grab them and pull them off the road with me, then tell them to run. On his side of the road, Lukas did the same.
The smoke didn’t last long, not nearly as long as I’d hoped, before the tendrils began to thin. If we had planned better, I’d have had enough matches for the other three smoke bombs we carried. If we had planned this at all, we would have already been running away with the people we’d saved, for I had no idea how visible I’d become.
From behind me, a soldier’s arm wrapped around my neck and began dragging me backward, with a voice saying, “You’ll pay for that.”
I kicked at the ground and beat at his arm, anything to force him to loosen his grip, but nothing worked. Lukas had seen this man take me, I was sure he had, but he wouldn’t be able to help me, nor should he. If he tried, he’d only share in whatever punishment I was about to receive.
Before I knew it, the soldier had dragged me across a field and toward a river where I heard other voices somewhere nearby. I couldn’t see them, but I knew the other people here were in as much trouble as I was.
The soldier pulled me into the river and threw me under the water, which was icy cold and deeper than it looked. His grip on my arm was like a vise, so I couldn’t get away, nor could I stand. I turned my head against the current, hoping to get a few sips of air, but every draw brought more water into my lungs.
Then I understood. That was the soldier’s intention. The people they had captured, the ones we had failed to save, they were being drowned here.
And I would be among them.
When it became clear what was about to happen, I began fighting the soldier more fiercely than ever. More fiercely than I believed I was capable of fighting. Oddly, I didn’t feel like myself in that moment, but rather, I felt like Rue, the character from the stories that Lukas had told me all these months. I’d once been timid and fearful, but now I was much more like Rue: strong and confident and forceful. And if she would not give in to this fight, nor would I.
I yanked my father’s bag off my shoulder and swung it at the soldier’s face. Water had filled the leather satchel now, so the smack against his jaw caused him to stumble, enough that he loosened his grip on my arm. I wrenched free but, in doing so, lost the bag, which floated downstream out of my reach. I dove for it and failed to notice the soldier had lunged for me, grabbing my arm again. This time, his pistol was out.
My gut twisted. I had no defense against that. And with the river more than waist deep, I couldn’t fight him off again.
“Back away!” The soldier raised his pistol, even while keeping a hold on me. But his head was up, speaking to someone else, someone ahead of him in the water. Who was it?
Not Lukas. The last I’d seen him, he was on the bank of the river, some ways behind me.
“I said back away!” the soldier repeated.
The voice that answered became muffled against all the water splashing around me, but I did get a few bits of phrases.
“… would’ve been your commander.”
“… this is wrong …”
“… I will stop you by force if—”
That was the last I heard before the pistol fired and the soldier released me. Exhausted, half-frozen, and choking on water, I drifted downstream, only vaguely aware of Lukas shouting. Was it my name? It didn’t sound like my name.
Seconds later, someone pulled me from the water and dragged me back onto the riverbank, turning me to the side and pounding on my back to force the water from my lungs.
“You’re so concerned with saving others you never think to save yourself first.” That was Ben’s voice. “I’m not letting you die here, so you get some air into your body, Audra, or else. You start breathing, hear me?”
I coughed out water and drew in air with it, beautiful, breathable air. I lay there on my side until Ben’s face came into focus, his expression grim.
“There are others downstream who still need help.” Ben pointed up the riverbank to some brush that somehow was still holding on to most of its leaves. “Can you get up there to hide until this is over?”
“Where is Lukas?”
“I don’t know. He jumped into the river to attack the man who was holding you. That’s all I saw before I grabbed you.”
Then I had to do more than crawl to a hiding place. I had to find Lukas and make sure he was all right. While Ben went in one direction, I continued coughing out water, then staggered to my feet, bracing myself with anything I could find along the way to keep stumbling forward.
The trouble at the church wasn’t over—I heard cries and shouts everywhere around me—but I couldn’t think about that. I had to find Lukas.
I rounded the bend in the river and was relieved to see him kneeling on the bank, but not alone. A man lay in front of him and seemed to be bleeding. Lukas had his hands pressed on the wound, I realized.
Wasn’t this the officer that had just tried to drown me? Why would he—
No, it wasn’t. This was Officer Rusakov, Lukas’s father.
The man who had tried to save me. He’d been the one shot by the pistol.
I knelt beside Lukas. His father was alive and conscious, but bleeding from a wound in his leg.
“Let’s get him into the forest,” I said. “Where we sent the others. I saw people go into a barn there.”
Rusakov shook his head. “They won’t take me in.”
“They will, or we’ll smuggle you in,” I said. “But we’ve got to get you somewhere to bind that injury, and we’ll all become ill if we stay out here in these wet clothes.”
Together we helped Rusakov to his feet, then Lukas braced his father’s weight while I kept watch ahead. Slowly we made the trek into the patch of trees where a barn stood as silent as the night should have been.
At first I wondered if anyone was in there—from the outside it looked as abandoned and quiet as before, but when I opened the doors, I saw it filled with people.
Their eyes widened in alarm at seeing Rusakov with us, but Lukas said, “This is my father, and he saved our lives.”
They made way for us and let us lay Rusakov on the ground, then a woman came forward and tore at her apron to create a bandage for his leg.
Only then did I look around at who was in this barn with us. We had a little light filtered in through the slats to illuminate our barn, and I welcomed the sight of every person here.
We hadn’t saved all these people. Several of them must have escaped here on their own, though I noticed many injuries, some more serious than Lukas’s father’s. Tears streamed down their faces as they held one another and desperately looked out the barn windows in hopes of seeing even one more person join us.
Ben.
I hoped if there was one more person, it might be Ben.
We waited there for the rest of the night, huddled together for warmth, until in the early morning hours the priest of the church entered the barn with only a small candle to guide him. His face was grim.
“How bad is it?” one man asked.
“At least a hundred and fifty arrests,” the priest said. “We’ll appeal to the authorities for their release. I hope we’ll have some success, given what else happened tonight.”
But it wasn’t only arrests, or else his face would not seem so pale now, so haunted.
“What else?” Lukas asked.
It took the priest a long time to answer, but as gently as he could, he said, “Some who tried to escape were recaptured and beaten. Another thirty or forty are seriously injured from the initial attack.” The priest drew in a deep breath as he looked around our solemn group. “And we have at least six dead, driven to the river and drowned.”
The news was met with an eerie silence. No one moved or spoke, and if they cried, it was with silent tears and mouthed words of comfort. But no sounds.
I vaguely realized Lukas’s arm was around me, and I leaned my head on his shoulder to cry. I knew we were both thinking the same thing, that Ben had not returned. Would not return.
And he never did return.
It felt like an entire month of silence passed before people began moving again, speaking again. I watched them as if through a fog, as if seeing each person through the same thick smoke that had brought them here in the first place. If only I could have lit the rest of our smoke bombs, or made one that lasted longer. If I’d done just a little more, maybe another ten or twenty or thirty people could have gotten through it. Maybe more people might still be—
“I’m alive because of you.”
I looked up to see a woman staring down at me, her plump cheeks and kind smile reminding me of Milda. Tears still creased the corners of her eyes, but I wondered if maybe a little gratitude was mixed in with her sorrow.
The woman took my hand in hers and gave it a firm squeeze. “You, dear girl, I don’t know how you did what you did for us, but I’m alive because of it. We all are.”
“Thank you,” a man behind her echoed. He hoisted a young boy with curly hair into his arms, probably his son. “Thanks from us both.”
“And from us,” said a girl who was standing with her arm around a woman I hadn’t noticed earlier, maybe her mother. “We were among the first you pulled from the smoke.”
“Thank you,” a voice in back called, then another voice repeated the words, and another. The sun broke through the loft window that morning to warm us, but it was nothing compared to the warmth bursting in my chest. Yes, we had losses, and yes, the night had given us a terrible tragedy. But once again, my people had proved that we would never stop fighting, never stop resisting.
And we would never forget who we were.
The priest stepped toward me and smiled. “You’re the book carrier who does magic.”
I shook my head, aware that everyone had gone silent, waiting for my answer. Suddenly, I was that shy girl again, the one who never wanted to speak if there was any way to avoid it, the one who was certain she had nothing worthwhile to say.
But I also knew that I’d been wrong before, staying silent when I had something important to say. I couldn’t fade into the shadows, nor would I whisper my words to Lukas so that he could say them for me. The words in my mind had to be spoken by me.
“I don’t do magic,” I said. “I do tricks that my father taught me. That was how he earned money for our family, but that wasn’t his purpose in life, nor my mother’s. My parents sacrificed everything they had, everything they loved, and maybe even their own lives, for the true magic. It’s our books. Our language, our culture, our identities are inscribed in every word. As long as we have our books, we cannot be crushed, we cannot be forgotten. Because of our books, we will not be erased from our own history. We will remember who we are, all that we stand for, and all that we will fight for and continue fighting for until the day we see the last Cossack soldier leave this land. If you want revenge for what they have done here, then tonight gather your family around you by the firelight and read. Learn. Create ideas of your own and spread them to others. It will be proof that we are winning.”
I finished speaking to warm embraces and more wishes of thanks, and Lukas leaning over and whispering into my ear that we had better leave while we still could.
I nodded back at him. He was right. This had been the worst of nights, but morning had come, and we had work to do.
When the priest told us it was safe enough to leave the barn, most of the people hurried to their homes, eager to report to their loved ones there about who was safe, and who would not be returning home.
One of the men we had saved was a physician, who had Rusakov carried to his home, where he could tend to the wound more properly.
Lukas and I decided to walk back to the church, to see if anything of it remained after the soldiers had carried out their orders. I must’ve looked back a thousand times, hoping to see Ben following us, but Lukas finally said, “He won’t be there, Audra.”
“I know.” But knowing didn’t make it hurt any less.
A few steps later, Lukas said, “When Ben was gruff with you, or tried to get you to go away all those times, it was only because—”
“He just wanted to keep me safe, I understand.”
“It’s more than that. I’ll show you.”
By then, we’d reached the church. The priest was seated on the front steps, looking deeply saddened.
“They’ll call what happened last night a massacre,” he said. “If there was anger in the country before now—”
“The church is still here,” Lukas said.
The priest shrugged. “Yes, but at what price?” For the first time, he seemed to really see us. “You both should get inside where it’s warm.”
We nodded and walked past him to enter the church, which was empty now. I sat on one bench but rather than sit with me, Lukas excused himself, returning a minute later with a wrapped package that he set on my lap.
From its shape, I already had a good idea of what it might be, but I unwrapped it anyway to see the same locked book I had given to Milda five months ago. Except this time, I had the key, somehow still in my apron pocket.
“Ben had this book?” I asked. “Why would he care?”
“Open it, Audra.” While I dug in my apron for the key, Lukas added, “Last night, Ben told me where this book was hidden. He said if he didn’t make it back, that I was to give it to you, but only if he didn’t make it back.”
“Why would that have mattered?” I pushed the key into the lock, though it didn’t seem to want to turn.
“He said that if you knew what was inside, he’d never get you to stop smuggling. But if he didn’t return, he hoped that once you saw the book, you’d listen to his final request and leave the country, go to where it’s safer.”
Finally, the key turned and the lock snapped apart. I opened the book and began thumbing through the papers. Page after page was the same, names connected by lines, many of them with pictures drawn beside the names.
These were family records. I kept turning pages, one after another, wondering why Ben would’ve cared so much about showing this to me.
And knowing in my heart why he did. But I had to see it.
Two-thirds of the way through the book was the last recorded page. Halfway down I read the name “Ben Kagan” and a line across from him with the name of a woman who must have been his wife once.
But for now my eye dipped lower to a drawing of my mother with her name, Lina, below the picture. Across from her was a line with my father’s picture, and his name, Henrikas Zikaris.
A line descended from their pictures, but nothing else was there. This book hadn’t been updated since my birth, but suddenly the reasons for Ben treating me the way he did became clear. Why he hadn’t wanted me to smuggle, why I’d become more headstrong the longer I knew him. Why he wanted to keep me safe.
Ben was my grandfather. He must’ve known, must have ached as much as I did to hear what had happened to my mother, his daughter, but he’d never said a word about it.
“Milda is over the border,” Lukas said. “She needs someone to stay and help her. You’ll still be helping books get into Lithuania, maybe even doing more good there than you could do here.”
I nodded. It was the right thing to do now. It’s what my parents would’ve wanted. What Ben wanted. And if I was being honest with myself, I wanted it too.
Then I looked up at Lukas. “You’ll come with me, won’t you?”
He pressed his lips together. “When my father is well enough to travel, I’ll escort him home. I’ll go home, Audra, at least for now. My father saved your life in that river, and if it means he’s trying to change, well, I’ve got to give him a chance. Maybe I can do some changing of my own, be a tad less stubborn, break fewer laws … that sort of thing.”
Tears filled my eyes. “Then once we say goodbye here, I’ll never see you again.”
Lukas only smiled. “You’ve been writing your own story about Rue and the boy who lived on her land. How does it end?”
I could answer that question now. “They continued to work and to fight against the snake, never once giving up on their dream that Rue’s land would one day belong only to her. And one day, on the day she least suspected it might ever happen …”
“The snake left for good,” Lukas said. “It had to leave. For Rue had grown so strong, so intelligent, that the snake was no threat to her any longer.”
I drew in a slow breath. “What I don’t know about my story’s ending is if Rue will ever see the boy again.”
Lukas smiled, as if the answer was obvious. “Of course she will.”
“I need something to write with,” I said, glancing down at the heavy book on my lap. “Before I finish that story, I want to complete this one.” He must have had a pen ready for he immediately put it into my hand.
