I followed Lukas to the crest of a hill overlooking the square. Fifty or sixty people were gathered around the bonfire—forced to stand there by the ten Cossack soldiers patrolling the road behind them. The townsfolk had their heads hung low, unable to look at the fire and unwilling to challenge the soldiers. Occasionally I saw a woman or child raise a hand to wipe a tear from their face.
Officer Rusakov ordered the villagers to make way for him, and when he pushed through, he picked up a book that had fallen from the stack and threw it back onto the fire. I recognized it as the same alphabet book that Lukas had given me. Maybe my copy of it, or maybe someone else’s; I didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. A piece of me seemed to die as the book was swallowed up in the flames. Perhaps no other book in that stack was a greater threat to this man and the tsar he served so well.
For that book was where it all began. Those simple letters became words that became our identity. That book was all we had to save our future; I saw that now more than ever before. If we were forced to speak a language that was not our own, then how long could we hold to thoughts that were our own? That was why I had to smuggle. If we failed to deliver books, then the collapse of Lithuania was only a generation away.
Surely this had been the tsar’s intention ever since the press ban began—not to rob the older generation of their traditions, but merely to wait out their lives. And in their place, to raise a new generation, people my age, who didn’t know our traditions had ever existed.
That’s why they had to burn the alphabet books.
Officer Rusakov turned his back to the flames, and the people nearest to him instinctively stepped back. He began walking a circle around the fire, shouting, “You peasants, you fools! Why do you insist on clinging to that which is past, that which is dead? You are Russians now. Accept that and we will have peace.”
He picked up another book, then held it up for the group to see. “Why must you pray in an illegal language? Do you think your God will not listen if your prayers are spoken in my language?” Then that book also went into the fire.
He lifted a third book, holding it against the firelight to read the title, then said, “What need do you have for Lithuanian history now? There is no Lithuania. There is nothing here but Russia.”
An older man stepped forward from the group and spoke in Lithuanian. “No, Officer Rusakov. We are not Russian; we are not one of you. We are Lithuanians, and long after you have been called back home, we will still be here.”
Rusakov smirked. “Some of these people, perhaps. But you will not.” With a distinct tilt of his head, two other soldiers grabbed the man, forced him to his knees, and whacked him across his back with the butt of a rifle. I sucked in a breath, then stood, ready to walk down the hill and defend the man as best as I could.
“No, Audra.” Lukas grabbed my arm and pulled me down behind the bushes with him. “You can’t save him.”
By the time I looked at him again, two soldiers were dragging the man away. Above the gasps and cries of the crowd, Officer Rusakov said, “This is what happens to those who defy the Russian Empire! Everyone, go home. You have twenty seconds to leave the square or you’ll join this man in prison!”
It took less time than that for the square to empty, including the soldiers who were prodding people down the roads, continui
ng to harass and frighten them. Rusakov picked up another book and opened it, shaking his head as he ran his finger down the page; then it was dumped onto the fire as well along with the remaining books. As soon as he’d finished, he shouted out an order that everyone had better get inside their homes and remain there for the night. When calls for help came back to him, he abandoned the fire and went to see what the new trouble was.
Or really, to create even more trouble than what had already been done.
I immediately turned to Lukas. “I’m going down there to save what I can.”
“Are you mad? No, you aren’t.”
“I’m not asking for your permission.”
“And you’re not getting it. If someone sees you—”
“If I’m going to smuggle books, shouldn’t I also save them? There are ones on the edge of the fire that may only be singed.”
Lukas sighed. “All right, but I’ll go with you and keep watch. When I say run, we run. Agreed?”
I nodded, and this time I led the way down the hill with Lukas immediately checking the different roads leading into the square. By the time he whispered that everything seemed safe, I’d already slid four books away from the fire. I couldn’t read the titles in the firelight, but that didn’t matter. Every book had suddenly become a life I could save, something that breathed out ideas as unique to the world as every person was unique.
Right on top of the stack where Rusakov had dumped the last of the books sat a thick book that hadn’t started burning yet, but it soon would. I leaned over the fire as far as I dared and reached for the book, but when I did, a breath of flame licked my arm. I yanked my arm back with a cry, unsure of how bad the burn was, but my skin was already screaming with pain.
“Someone’s coming.” Lukas ran toward me, scooped up the saved books in his arms, then said, “Let’s go!”
I still had the rescued book from the top of the pile, and I hoped whatever it was would be worth the pain in my arm. There was no time for us to run back up the hill, so instead, Lukas pulled me behind a cobbler’s shop. He glanced down at my burned arm. “Oh no, Audra. Does it hurt?”
My arm felt as if it were still on fire, but I couldn’t do anything about that here, nor did I get the chance to answer Lukas’s question. Instead, Rusakov must have returned to the square. In his deep voice, he said to the other soldiers with him, “Wait here until it’s burned down to ashes, then get some peasants to clean it up. If anyone else tries to challenge you, shoot them and make sure this village knows why we had to do it.”
They didn’t have to do it. They had chosen to do all of this, to ruin a wedding, to search the homes of peaceful people, and then to destroy them for the crime of wanting their own language, their own lives. I hated that Rusakov saw himself as any kind of a hero for what he had done here tonight.
“Hurry with this job,” Rusakov added as he began to leave the square. “I’m going for one more arrest—we know where all these books are coming from.”
Milda.
I turned to Lukas, locking eyes with him in silent desperation. Milda was going to be arrested!