Lukas didn’t answer his father, but Rusakov walked closer to him, almost forgetting me. He said, “You were there that night, when the village of Venska burned. I was sure I saw you with this girl. I tried to get her to reveal your name … Lukas … so that I could find you.”
“If you’d looked for me with the other Lithuanians, you would’ve found me.”
“You are Russian—”
“Half-Russian, and I never even felt that much. I remember once seeing my friends reading a Lithuanian book, and when they realized I’d seen it, they dropped the book and ran from me in fear. From me, Father, simply because of the language of the book! I picked it up, determined to understand why those words were so dangerous to the tsar. Do you know what it was? A simple fairy tale of a girl named Rue,” Lukas said.
“Perhaps all of Lithuania is a fairy tale! An imagined place that refuses to acknowledge its position in the real world!” Rusakov shouted.
“If Lithuania has a place in the real world, then it deserves its own language, its own culture,” I said. “We deserve our own books.”
Rusakov gestured to the soldiers and villagers behind us, still fighting. “Then you deserve what will happen to all of you tonight. Freedom is never given as a gift; if you want it, then people will die for it. Why can’t you just accept the occupation and live in peace with us?”
But before he could say anything more, a rifle fired into the air and the area went quiet. A soldier nearer to the front of the church shouted, “Enough of this! Go to your knees if you want to live! Stay on your feet and you’ll be shot!”
Several people immediately obeyed the order, though more remained on their feet, either still trying to escape, or worse, trying to fight back, using pitchforks against bayonets. It didn’t help that those who had knelt were immediately assaulted by the soldiers, their cries for mercy returned with beatings on their backs or heads. One woman had fallen to her knees, her fists clutching the frostbitten grass, praying for a miracle fr
om the God she was trying to defend. But a soldier yanked her to her feet by one arm, told her she was being arrested, and began leading her away. Even then, I saw her lips still moving, still praying.
Other soldiers continued to order the crowd to their knees. But why would they think anyone else would obey now, only to receive that same treatment?
“Get the people out of here,” a soldier ordered.
His men began herding those who were still on their feet down the hill away from the church. Halfway down, a woman slipped and might’ve been trampled if others nearby hadn’t stopped to help her up, receiving beatings of their own as repayment for their mercy.
“We’ve got to help them.” Lukas’s tone deepened, and then I knew he had been addressing his father. “I’m going to help them and you will not stop me. You know this is wrong.”
Rusakov hung his head. “Then go. Do what you must, but remember that I have no more authority among these soldiers. I cannot save you.”
“Perhaps having no authority is the first step to saving yourself,” Lukas said.
Rusakov nodded grimly, then I grabbed Lukas’s arm and we began running down the hill to keep us ahead of where the people were still being forced to march away from the church. As we ran, I glanced back at Lukas. “Tell me you still have some matches left.”
He began patting at his pockets and withdrew his matchbox. “Only a couple. Will that be enough?”
No, it wasn’t. We had four smoke bombs, and now at best we would only be able to light two of them. I had always counted on using all four.
But two would have to be enough. We rounded a corner where a crooked wooden home offered Lukas some cover to hide. I took the matches from Lukas, then darted to the opposite side of the road, though there wasn’t much here to protect me. Lukas would have to do most of the work.
“What is your plan?” Lukas hissed.
I shushed him. The Cossacks were still pushing the people closer to us. I had to concentrate. My timing had to be perfect. I hoped Lukas would know what to do when the right moment came.
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.”