Mine was, as always, to distract. To put in plain view what I wanted to be seen, and turn attention away from what shouldn’t be seen. In this case, Lukas and myself.
I looked over at Lukas. “Give me your barrel!”
He did. I opened it and set my books inside next to his, along with my father’s shoulder bag and everything else I had with me, then sealed it up again.
“This won’t float as well, Audra. It’s heavier now.”
“But it will float, right?” When he nodded, I said, “Now give me your coat.”
He removed it and I carried it with me down to the edge of the river next to the tall rock we had passed earlier. I draped the coat over the rock, then set my empty barrel to the side of it, laying one sleeve of the coat on the barrel, as if a hand were holding it.
“We need something round, for a head!” Lukas whispered, catching on. As quietly as possible, he explored the area, coming back with a rock roughly the size and shape of a human head, and also with some grasses for the hair.
By now it was dark enough to build our rock person, and when we finished and viewed it from a distance, it had a fair resemblance to a human, albeit one who never moved at all.
“You’re rather brilliant, you know,” Lukas commented. “Now what?”
“Now we float together,” I said. “You hold one handle of the barrel and I’ll hold the other. I’ll keep watch for guards while you scout a good location to go to land. When we both agree, we leave the river.” I gave him the barrel, then said, “Go get in the water downriver and wait for me to float past you. Then grab my hand.”
He grinned and began moving downriver. “I think I know what you’re doing.”
“Be sure to grab my hand, Lukas.”
But he only nodded and disappeared into the brush. Meanwhile, I began making noise—not so much as to be obvious but certainly enough to ensure I was being heard. I pounded the lid of the barrel with my fist, then when I heard voices calling from the other side of the river, I went silent, except for a large rock that I threw upriver, one that splashed in with a loud kerplunk.
The voices turned to shouted orders. I caught enough Russian words to know that they were being directed to investigate the sound, well upriver from where Lukas and I would be. Then I quietly slipped into the water.
Instantly, my breath lodged in my throat. It was so much colder than I had imagined, chilling me to my core. I tried to move my limbs, but they were already freezing up. I couldn’t allow that—if I didn’t move, I would drown.
I floated that way downriver for about ten seconds before Lukas grabbed my hand. Although I’d been watching for him, I hadn’t noticed him in the thick brush bending into the water, and at first, the branches and leaves scratched at my face and tangled in my hair. But as he drifted with me into the current, I wished to be back among the brush again. More soldiers were moving down the river, trying to monitor a tall coat-wearing rock that might attempt an illegal crossing at any minute. If they looked carefully enough at the water beside them, they would see us.
We continued floating for another minute until we had passed the soldiers, then began fighting the current to make our way across the river. If I hadn’t been cold enough, I swallowed plenty of icy water, and now I really was chilled from the inside out. My mind cycled between three separate thoughts: Don’t get caught. Don’t stop swimming. And whatever you do, don’t let go of the barrel.
Lukas was nearer to the Lithuanian shore and finally began making firmer tugs toward land. I followed his lead until I was able to touch the muddy bottom, then we remained crouched low in the water, listening for the sounds of any soldiers.
When we agreed it was safe, Lukas nodded, and we rolled the barrel onto land, giving it a chance to drain off as much water as possible before we continued walking. Then we emerged from the water, keeping low while we squeezed excess water from our clothes. The night air turned my clothes icy and my teeth chattered nonstop, but nothing could be done about that now. We had to keep moving.
Lukas pried open the barrel and we took turns grabbing books and stuffing them inside the sacks we’d each wear over our shoulders. Mine was dry and Lukas had rolled his tight, so although there were some wet patches, the books should be all right. We covered the sacks with some sticks poking out the top to look like gathered firewood. It wasn’t much for a disguise, so if we were caught, it would only take the soldiers a few seconds to realize who we were.
And it was entirely possible that we would be caught. After all, we hadn’t yet passed through even the first layer of border security.
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With everything packed, Lukas began to slip the barrel under the bushes, but I motioned for him to pull it out again. After all, it still had some use for us … farther downriver. I placed a few rocks inside it to give it some weight, then sealed it again and sent it on its way. If the barrel was spotted by soldiers, they’d follow it downriver, expecting smugglers to be attached to it. And leave us free to move forward.
My idea must have had some success, for we saw the evidence of Cossack soldiers who had been here only moments before on the first line of defense—their tracks, a cigarette butt still smoking. Not far away was a small wooden building with a Russian flag flying overhead and a pair of boots outside, so I suspected it was where the border soldiers slept. But it seemed empty now, and hopefully would stay that way for a while.
After another two kilometers, we reached the edge of the forest and had to cross a wide cornfield before the next patch of woods. It was still dark but the moon was bright in the sky. So we flattened ourselves on the ground and pushed our sacks in front of us as we crawled through tall green stalks that made for a thick cover, and warmed me a bit. But I was also fighting a sneeze the entire time, finally suppressing one into my sleeve.
Once we reached the next patch of woods, we got a look at each other in the moonlight and nearly burst out laughing. Lukas’s hair was filled with burrs and was wildly tousled in every direction. His clothing was filthy and still damp, and his face had a scratch from some sort of thorn. I was sure I looked no better. Maybe it helped to make us look like the children of a peasant farmer, out in a desperate attempt to sell food.
Maybe it made us look like book smugglers who’d crossed a river and then crawled through a field.
We broke off a few overripe ears of corn, robbing a pig of its feed, but at least not a family of their supper. We stuffed them at the top of our sacks for cover—much better than the twigs had been—then Lukas nodded at me and we continued our walk through the woods. After another hour, Lukas held up two fingers, signaling that we had passed the second level of security. That was good, but we still had the third level to go.
Every step that crunched beneath my feet seemed to ring out like an alarm, for hoarfrost had blanketed the fields overnight. Maybe Lukas and I were covered in the frost, too, which seemed quite likely, cold as I was.
We traveled in near silence for endless kilometers, always on alert, ducking at any sound that could possibly signal a soldier was nearby. Each time we paused, after we were sure it was safe, Lukas and I would signal each other to move on.