Words on Fire, page 11
“Did you write this?” she asked again.
I shrugged. “It’s only a story.”
I was attempting to write a fairy tale, adding my own thoughts to Lukas’s story of Rue. Except in many ways, Rue was simply me … or the me I wished I were. I wanted to be her, and somehow, writing about a strong character made me feel stronger too.
Milda smiled and sat down in one of the chairs near me. “Do you imagine stories in your head? Tales of adventure and danger and friendship?”
Slowly, I nodded, not sure of why she was asking such an odd question.
Milda glanced at my papers. “These characters in your story—do you hear them speak to you, a voice in your head that wishes to come alive on paper?”
Ashamed, I lowered my head and nodded again. Milda only pretended to be mad, to keep the soldiers away. But in admitting this, I was sure she would think I was truly as unbalanced as she pretended to be. And maybe I was.
I knew the characters who spoke in my head weren’t real, of course. But thinking of them kept me company at night before I fell asleep, and sometimes they would whisper the words they wanted me to put into their stories. Sometimes I’d wake up in the night and search my alphabet book for the way to write those words. And then the characters would whisper even more.
Milda seemed to understand that. “You are a writer, Audra. You are meant to create with words, not simply absorb them.”
I shook my head. “I’m not very good.”
“You are good enough to have characters come alive in your mind, and that is no small thing,” Milda said. “I wonder how you must feel to know that these characters belong to you, and to you only. How it must be when they visit your imagination in hopes that you might bring them to life for the rest of the world.”
I glanced up. “By writing them on paper?”
“Yes.” Milda handed me my story. “You brought these characters alive for me, and now they are my friends too. But until I read your words, they never existed. You were born for books, Audra. To read them, to create them, and to save them.”
A short silence followed while I stared at my papers and thought of all that Milda had said. I didn’t know if she was right, that I was born for books, but I certainly was coming to love them. Perhaps one day I would create a Lithuanian book that could be shared all over the country, a story that would do for others what Milda’s books had done for me.
Until then, I had other work to do.
“I want to deliver books again,” I said. “Please, Milda.”
Now her smile faded. “It’s not safe. There has been a greater Cossack presence in town this month. I cannot stop those who come into my shop to buy them, but to deliver one …”
“If people are going to get the books anyway, let’s do it the safest way possible for everyone. Let me deliver them.”
She sighed. “All right. Get your father’s bag. No one should pay any attention to that. Perhaps it’s time to start again.”
I couldn’t have raced up the ladder fast enough.
At first, she let me take only one or two at a time, simple deliveries around the village, and never to anyone’s home. Instead, I’d leave the books at prearranged drop sites, at the base of an overgrown gravestone or behind a loose rock in a stone wall, or inside the hollow of a tree. I never knew who came to pick up the books and I never asked. I didn’t want to know, just as I didn’t want them to know my name.
But we were still left with the problem of a diminishing supply of books. Milda’s collection was half what it had been when I first met her.
“Is there no word from Ben or Lukas?” I asked.
“None,” Milda said. “Let’s hope it means they’ve been busy.”
“Then why aren’t they asking for my help? Autumn is passing fast and soon it will be too cold for smuggling.”
“We hope so!” Milda saw my surprised reaction and added, “We want ice on the soldiers’ noses if they go out, deep snow they must trudge through on their patrols. We want freezing rain that makes them so miserable that they stay in their barracks, or near the public fires in the villages.”
“But if we smuggle, then there’s ice on our noses, or freezing rain on our clothes!”
Milda grinned. “Aren’t we lucky to be stronger than the soldiers?”
“We can’t wait for winter. Another month and your books will be gone!” Almost without thinking, I added, “If Ben won’t bring the books, I’ll go to Prussia and get them myself.”
Milda drew back, her eyes wide with alarm. “You have no idea how dangerous a border crossing can be, Audra. The soldiers know where our books come from, so they watch the Prussian border with the eyes of an eagle, always listening carefully for the smuggler’s footsteps or following his tracks. No one may ever have the talent for it that your father did, not even Ben. Let’s be patient awhile longer. More books will come.” Milda set her hands on her lap and let out a sigh. “I do have one more request. It was for a prayer book, the one with the green fabric binding. There is one last copy below. Will you get it?”
Of course I would. I lifted the hidden stairs and raced down the ladder to find the book. I didn’t need Milda to describe it for me any longer. I could read the titles well enough now to know what I was grabbing. I held up a candle and passed it from book to book, looking for a match for the letters forming inside my head.
Except I didn’t find it. Or rather, before I found it, I came across the book I had delivered to Milda after my parents’ arrest, the one with the aged black leather binding and the lock on the end. I pulled it off the shelf and sat down on the stool, using the candle to better examine the lock.
When I’d given it to Milda, she’d asked for the key to the book, and Lukas had even shaken out the bedsheet to be sure it hadn’t fallen inside. There was no key. But the package had traveled some distance in my arms, being used as a pillow, breaking my fall when I’d jumped into the ravine, and nearly toppling with me into the river. If there had been a key, I easily could have lost it. And I’d never find it again. Which meant this book would never be opened, not unless I broke the lock, and I couldn’t stand the thought of doing that.
I turned it to its side, but if there had ever been a title, it had worn away. I couldn’t even tell what the book was about.
“What’s taking so long?” Milda called.
I replaced the book on the shelf and then continued to examine the other titles until I found the one Milda had requested. When I brought it back up the ladder, I found her waiting with a crocheted quilt and some ribbon.
“What’s this book for?” I asked.
Milda smiled. “It’s a wedding gift. The book is the gift; the quilt is the disguise!”
I giggled and helped her wrap the quilt around the book, then tie it off with the ribbon. “Where should I deliver the gift?”
Milda glanced back at the clock hanging from her wall. “The wedding will soon begin at the church. Go there and follow the wedding party to the reception. Have a fun evening and enjoy the celebrations, but”—she added as I began to run off—“stay away from the Cossacks. They’ve been good to let us keep our traditions so far, but we must always be careful.”
“I will!” I kissed Milda on the cheek and ran out the door with the package in my arms. I’d never been to a wedding before, which was exciting enough, but the idea of delivering a book to the new couple about to begin their lives together made it even better.
I made it to the church just in time to see the bride entering with a wreath of rue around her head. I paused there and swallowed a lump in my throat. I imagined I could almost hear my father’s voice calling me, “Little Rue, come inside, it’s getting dark!”
“Little Rue,” he’d say before bedtime. “Remember that I love you.”
And what would he say now? “Little Rue, I am waiting to come home. Bring me home soon.”
“I can’t, Papa,” I mumbled beneath my breath. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Then I walked the rest of the way to the church, ducking inside to see the bride already kneeling at the altar beside her groom. The wreath of rue had been replaced with other flowers now, because the bride would be a married woman and rue was symbolic of childhood.
Maybe similarly, I was Little Rue no longer. No longer the innocent child I had once been. And that was a good thing, because I had proven myself strong enough now for so much more.
When the priest pronounced them married, the groom placed a ring on his wife’s finger, kissed her, then led her right past me outside the church and across the road near a barn where the evening’s celebration would continue. It had been decorated with candles and ribbons and lace, and with all the colors of the harvest.
At first, I stood back to watch the families perform their rituals to protect the new couple in their life together. When they’d finished, trays of bread were brought out along with wine and bowls with salt for everyone to eat. It wasn’t particularly tasty—I felt my face scrunch as I tasted the salt—but a woman nearby explained the symbolism. Bread represented the hard work of building a family, salt was for the tears the couple would shed, and the wine was for their celebrations.
“What a lucky coincidence, meeting you here!” I jumped and saw Lukas had snuck up behind me yet again.
I smirked at him. “The last time you surprised me like that, I nearly broke you in half with a stick.”
“Nearly,” he said. “But thankfully, not entirely in half. Would you like to dance?”
I realized I was still holding the quilt with the book inside. I’d wanted to present it to the bride and groom myself, but that seemed absurd, given that other gifts had simply been left on a table near the side of the party.
I walked with Lukas to set the quilt down, but by then, bowls of grain had been brought out to toss at the bride and groom, symbolic of our wishes for the couple to have a rich and successful life together, full of bounteous harvests.
I tossed one handful forward, then felt a splatter of grain on me.
“Sorry,” Lukas said with a wink. “I missed.”
I grabbed another handful and threw it directly in his face, then grinned. “So did I!”
Lukas reached for his next handful, but the music had abruptly stopped playing and the clopping sound of horses could be heard on the road behind us.
Lukas leaned out, then the muscles of his face tightened, and through clenched teeth, he said, “We have to go now.”
I set down the bowl of grain and began to follow him away from the road. But we’d only taken a few steps that way before more Cossack soldiers appeared ahead of us too, and this group was holding torches.
Why were they holding torches?
“Everyone remain where you are,” a man said from behind me. I didn’t need to turn around to recognize the voice of Officer Rusakov. He added, “We’re going to do a search. And you all had better hope that we don’t find anything suspicious.”
Despite Officer Rusakov’s orders, Lukas and I absolutely could not remain where we were. If these soldiers performed even a basic search of the gifts, they would find the book. Surely many guests here had seen me arrive with Milda’s quilt. It would only take one guest to point me out.
Without calling attention to himself, Lukas slowly sank behind a large wooden barrel and directed me to do the same. I shook my head, worried that I’d be spotted. Rusakov called for his soldiers to gather around and receive their orders, and the instant he did, Lukas grabbed my hand and yanked me down.
“In this job, you don’t hesitate,” he hissed. “When I tell you to do something, you do it!”
I wanted to argue and tell him that I had enough sense to take care of myself, but I also knew that if he hadn’t pulled me down here, I’d still be standing up in full view of the soldiers.
Lukas craned his head in the direction he intended for us to go and then began crawling. We weren’t taking the nearest exit—there were too many open spaces we’d have to cross. Instead, we were crawling toward the barn.
I’d thought there was a chance of some of the wedding guests stopping us from leaving. After all, if they were in harm’s way, why shouldn’t we be with them too? But they merely stepped forward or backward as needed to allow us to pass.
Or maybe they were only vaguely aware of us. The soldiers had begun their search, and it was one designed to destroy. Behind me, I saw the flutter of feathers being torn from the pillows the couple had received as gifts, and the crash of a pot on the ground as another gift was tossed heedlessly.
We had barely crossed inside the barn when I heard the thud on the ground. The book.
“What is this?” Rusakov called to his comrades. “What have we here?”
The partygoers had become absolutely silent, not a single person moving. Lukas pulled me to my feet, gesturing that we needed to run out the other end of the barn. But I couldn’t, not yet.
“Who gave this book to the bride and groom?” Officer Rusakov shouted. “Confess and save the others from your punishment!”
I took a deep breath and started to turn, but Lukas pulled me back, sharply shaking his head at me.
I shook my head back at him, desperately trying to communicate my thoughts. He had heard Rusakov as well as I did. Someone was going to be punished for that book and everyone out there was innocent. I couldn’t just stand here and let that happen.
“You have until the count of five,” Rusakov said. “Adeen, dva …”
Lukas tried to tug me away, but I yanked my hand back. He leaned toward my ear and whispered, “Everyone here will be punished anyway. Trust me.”
“Tree, chityri.” Rusakov hesitated, then, “Pyat’.” When still nobody confessed to giving the book, he said, “Search the village. If you find a second book, this town will burn.” Then he added, “Starting with that barn.”
This time, I didn’t need to be pulled. Lukas and I ran for our lives as torches were thrown inside the barn, the dry straw beneath our feet immediately bursting into flames. We raced through the other side and kept going until we had entered the nearest patch of trees. From there, I sank to my knees, sobbing. “That’s our fault, Lukas.”
“That’s the fault of the Cossack occupiers and the foolish laws of their tsar,” he corrected. “We can still help. I know some of the homes that have books. We must get as many out as we can, before the Cossacks get there.”
I stood again, ready to follow him anywhere. “Show me.”
We crept three roads past where the soldiers were searching, and even then, Lukas told me to be extra careful when crossing from one house to the other. We visited the first house together, knocking on the door. When an older gentleman answered, Lukas said, “They’re searching homes.”
The gentleman immediately nodded, thanked us in Lithuanian, then shut the door.
“He didn’t understand the problem!” I said as we hurried to the next house.
“He understood,” Lukas said. “But he was already prepared to hide his own books. He doesn’t need our help.”
No one answered at the second door, so we walked inside a small, single-room home. Lukas said, “Search everywhere the Cossacks would, but we only have two minutes. Hurry!”
There were few furnishings. Against one wall was a thin straw mattress on a rope bed frame, a spinning wheel, and a trunk for clothing. I lifted the mattress to check its weight, but it felt too light to hold any books within its seams. Next, I searched the trunk, and sure enough, at the bottom was the same Lithuanian prayer book I had just given to the new couple. I snatched it into my arms, then turned to see where Lukas had pulled a small pile of Lithuanian newspapers from beneath a stack of wood. He tossed them in the fireplace and lit a match.
I gripped the book in my hands. “You won’t—”
“Burn the book?” Lukas shook his head. “The newspapers are one thing, but I’ll never burn a book. That’s what they do. Take that one with us. We’ll find a better place to hide it and return it when this is over.”
Lukas directed me to the next home while he crossed the road to check the homes there. Word of what the Cossacks were doing must have begun to spread through the town, because I’d only knocked once when a woman opened the door with a stack of eight or nine books and thrust them into my arms. “Take them and go!” she cried.
Lukas had been given a small stack of books, too, and said, “Give your books to me and I’ll take them into the forest. You go and collect more books. Meet me where we were before. I’ll hide them there.”
I gave him my books, then ran another few roads ahead, always conscious of the shouted orders of the Cossacks in the homes not far behind me, fully aware that I could run right into them at any moment. Families in the first three homes I checked either assured me they had no books or that they were properly hidden, and the fourth home was empty, so I entered it to do a search, like before. I found a thin book in the back room and was just standing to leave when the door burst open with an announcement in Russian that a search for illegal items was to be undertaken.
I quickly stuffed the book between my shirt and skirt, then retied my apron tighter, hoping it would hold the weight of the book. It might, if I didn’t move too much. I was still working at the knot when the Cossack entered the room.
“Stoy!” he said. “Did you not hear me?”
He had shouted so loud, I’d heard it vibrate through my heart. He’d interpret my silence as hiding something, which I absolutely was.
So I turned to him and placed a hand in cupping shape behind my ear, then shook my head, suggesting to him that I hadn’t heard him because I could not hear.
His eyes narrowed and he asked my name in Russian. I squinted back and shook my head again. He swept one arm at me, knocking me to the ground and insulting my intelligence. I thought that was rather stupid of him instead, to have believed the inability to hear was somehow linked to one’s intelligence. He could hear fine and didn’t appear any smarter than the common pig.
