Between Shades of Gray

by Ruta Sepetys

He threw his burning cigarette onto our clean living room floor and ground it into the wood with his boot. We were about to become cigarettes.

You stand for what is right, Lina, without the expectation of gratitude or reward.

“Mother, why are you breaking your beautiful things?” I asked. She stopped and stared at the china cup in her hand. “Because I love them so much.”

The child let out a soft cry and its tiny fists pummeled the air. Its fight for life had begun.

I pictured a rug being lifted and a huge Soviet broom sweeping us under it.

Have you ever wondered what a human life is worth? That morning, my brother’s was worth a pocket watch.

I thought about running, running until I couldn’t run anymore.

I would draw it blue and heavy with tears.

I planted a seed of hatred in my heart. I swore it would grow to be a massive tree whose roots would strangle them all.

How could we stand up for ourselves if everyone cowered in fear and refused to speak? I had to speak. I’d write everything down, draw it all.

Unlike paper, the handkerchief could travel hand to hand without deteriorating. I would use it to draw on for Papa.

Death had begun to gather a crop.

I’ll know it’s you … just like you know Munch.

“But how can they just decide that we’re animals? They don’t even know us,” I said. “We know us,” said Mother. “They’re wrong. And don’t ever allow them to convince you otherwise. Do you understand?”

a sadness so deep, like your very core has been hollowed out and fed back to you from a dirty bucket?

It’s always easier for someone unattached.”

“They won’t stop,” said Andrius, “until they’ve gotten rid of all of us.”

I remembered Papa talking about Stalin confiscating peasants’ land, tools, and animals. He told them what crops they would produce and how much they would be paid. I thought it was ridiculous. How could Stalin simply take something that didn’t belong to him, something that a farmer and his family had worked their whole lives for? “That’s communism, Lina,” Papa had said.

“A guilty conscience is not worth extra food,”

It looked so beautiful; I wanted to be part of it,”

Privacy was but a memory.

“One day, someone will catch your eye, Lina, and hopefully when it happens, you won’t be so critical.”

Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. He called himself Josef Stalin, which meant “Man of Steel.”

Mother said the time went faster if we talked about things that made us happy. She said it gave us strength.

Sometimes there is such beauty in awkwardness. There’s love and emotion trying to express itself, but at the time, it just ends up being awkward.

“Good men are often more practical than pretty,”

Boys were idiots. They were all idiots.

Komorov thought he was torturing us. But we were escaping into a stillness within ourselves. We found strength there.

The bald man told Mother of a secret pact between Russia and Germany. Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, and others were divided between Hitler and Stalin. I drew the two of them, dividing countries like children dividing toys. Poland for you. Lithuania for me. Was it a game to them? The bald man said Hitler broke his agreement with Stalin, because Germany invaded Russia a week after we were deported. When I asked Mother how the bald man knew about the pact, she said she didn’t know.

I was glad that Hitler had pushed Stalin out of Lithuania, but what was he doing there?

“Nothing could be worse than Stalin,” said one of the men at the dining room table. “He is the epitome of evil.”

“There is no better or worse,”

we’re dealing with two devils who both want to rule hell.”

to remain neutral or independent will be impossible,”

pain, love, and despair were links in an endless chain.

Sure, we were safe. Safe in the arms of hell.

hell is the worst place ever and there’s no escape for all eternity.”

if Stalin comes to Lithuania, we’ll all end up there.”

Our country is doomed, don’t you see? Our fate is death, no matter whose hands we fall into,”

“For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as a firebrand.

“Paint it as you see it,”

“Even if it’s a sunny day but you see darkness and shadows. Paint it as you see it.”

“No. Don’t be scared. Don’t give them anything, Lina, not even your fear.”

back. His silhouette became smaller and smaller and then finally, faded into the darkness.

We’d been trying to touch the sky from the bottom of the ocean. I realized that if we boosted one another, maybe we’d get a little closer.

‘From my rotting body flowers shall grow, and I am in them and that is eternity.’ Isn’t that beautiful?”

A wrongdoing doesn’t give us the right to do wrong.

us. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,”

I’ve wished for death since the first day, and yet I survive. Can it really be so hard to die?”

Was it harder to die, or harder to be the one who survived?