Words on Fire

Tears filled my eyes, which was ridiculous, because only a few months ago I’d hated the book, resented it for all that it had cost me. I’d been indifferent to it, I had forgotten it, and now that it was gone … I wanted more than anything to see if my key might open it.

“Could they have burned it?” I asked.

Milda didn’t answer, because maybe she couldn’t. Or maybe she couldn’t bear to tell me the truth. If they had burned it, then I didn’t want her to answer.

Milda kissed me on the forehead, then waved goodbye as Lukas helped me into the coffin. We’d tried to pad the lining, but I still felt the books unevenly layered beneath me. At least they were bound in cloth so the discomfort wasn’t unbearable.

Lukas covered me in burial cloth, including my face, which was what the soldiers would expect if they decided to inspect the coffin. I turned my head toward an air hole, though with a cloth over my face, I didn’t get much fresh air. But it made me feel better to know it was there.

“Don’t die in there,” Lukas said, his idea of a joke.

I answered, “Don’t die out there.” Not a joke.

Minutes later, we rode away. I passed the time trying to add to the story I’d been writing, guessing the spelling of words as they drifted through my mind, making plans for my future with Milda after I returned to Tilsit, thinking of Lukas and how he’d become such a dear friend to me. Thinking of myself and how much I’d changed over the last few months.

Thinking of anything but where I was, and how much was at stake, and hoping Lukas could pull off his role at the border.

I knew exactly when we reached the border, because even from inside the coffin, I heard the shouted orders of the soldiers to stop.

Lukas obeyed and in Russian told the soldiers he had papers and was transporting a body for burial.

“Into Lithuania?”

“Her family’s cemetery plots are here.”

“We need to see the body.”

“Sir, that would be disrespectful.”

“We need to see the body,” the soldier repeated, and heavy footsteps made their way to me.

I turned my head forward, closed my eyes, and tried to appear … well, dead. I waited until the last possible second to suck in a breath of air and hoped I wouldn’t have to hold it for long.

Milda had done my makeup to drain my face of color and to make my eyes and cheeks appear sunken in. But I’d also been sweating a little while in this tight space and I wondered if the makeup had begun to run. If they lifted the thin sheet over my face, they might notice. Even the slightest flutter of my eyelid might give me away, and I wasn’t sure if I could control that.

Relax. I had to relax.

The coffin lid shifted and it was hard not to breathe in the rush of cool, fresh air. I felt the weight of eyes studying me, wondering whether to lift the fabric.

“She seems to be young,” a soldier said to Lukas. “How did she die?”

“Typhus.”

The coffin lid slammed closed and instantly both soldiers were yelling at Lukas and I think one might have hit him with the butt of his rifle.

“Do you want to give us disease?” another man asked.

“No, sirs, of course not. I just didn’t think to tell you. You’ll forgive me. I haven’t had much education.”

“Yet you speak excellent Russian. Where did you learn it?”

Lukas hesitated a few seconds longer than he should have before finding his lie. “I used to work in the home of a Russian family.”

My ears perked up. Was that a lie or not? Something about it rang truer than when I’d heard him lie before.

“How long ago did you work there?” a soldier asked. “Because I thought you looked familiar.”

That worried me. The last thing Lukas needed was to be recognized by anyone, for any reason.