Above Us Only Sky (9 page)

There were no cigarettes and no blindfolds, and it's doubtful that, as much as Freddie the hippie would like to think his grandfather had a song in his head, Petras Vilkas was thinking about anything but his family's fate. His beautiful wife. His daughters and son. From the pines, Frederick saw that his father still had his pocket watch. It glinted, sandwiched between his bound wrists, in the morning sun. Frederick watched as his father and eighty-three other Lithuanian men were shot in the backs of their necks and booted face-first into the mass grave. Some of the soldiers were laughing and smoking like this was all in a day's work. Frederick wanted to look away, but he didn't. Some of the men in the pit were still alive, but the dirt came just the same. It covered ministers and machinists. It dusted blacksmiths, accountants, and doctors. It fell in rich clumps over lawyers, shop clerks, poets, teachers, and musicians. It didn't discriminate. The rich Lithuanian soil tended by its people was being used to conceal their deaths.

More trucks arrived. More men died. In shock, Frederick watched. He did not blink. The image of mass murder, of his father's death, was stamped, a black stain, into memory. It was on this day that Frederick first became an old man.

When the soldiers were gone, he crept from his hiding place. Because it seemed like the most important thing to do, the Old Man clawed through the dirt to find his father. The Old Man was an innocent. Despite witnessing his father's demise, he never thought a bloody fate would befall his mother or sisters, who were surely safe at home. Like his future son, he believed,
Men don't butcher women.

As the Old Man dug, he heard moaning and pleas for help. He was able to pull some men, half-alive, to the surface. One man, a local poet, helped him dig for and uncover his father.

Petras's body was face down, another corpse across the back of his knees. Just the same, for a second, the Old Man was able to raise his father's torso enough to see his face, his expression one of horror and disbelief. Even as his life had been snuffed, his gold watch, lodged between his wrists, kept time. The Old Man vomited in the pit. He hoped that the single bullet had killed his father. This was better than imagining him suffocating to death, the Lithuanian soil filling his lungs.

The Old Man rubbed the dirt off the gold watch and pressed it to his lips. The poet, who was named Arturas, thanked the Old Man for saving his life. Likewise, the Old Man thanked him for helping to find his father. They grasped hands, each man crying, wishing the other luck. There was nothing else to do. The Old Man secured the watch in his coat pocket, careful to push it down deep and button the flap. Then, he ran home as fast as he could to tell his mother and sisters that Petras was dead. They would have to flee, but he didn't know where they would go.

The Old Man had no concept of how long it had taken to help three men to the grave's surface, or how much time had elapsed since he'd followed the Russian truck. When he arrived home, his mother was on her way to Siberia. His sisters were gone. According to the neighbor, their bodies had been removed, heaved into the back of a truck. Nothing remained of his family, nothing but bloody bedcovers. That day, the Old Man lost any optimism that he might've inherited from his father. The Old Man looked around his empty boyhood home, picked up the family portrait they'd recently had taken, and sliding it from the silver glass frame, put it in his pocket where the watch was secured. Without his family, the house was a tomb.

On the back stoop, he surveyed the land and wondered,
What do I do?
Where do I go?
He considered seeking refuge at the university. He didn't know that his professors had been the first men and women rounded up. He sat on the back stoop, staring at the forest. His mother had told stories about the trees marching to protect the Lithuanian freedom fighters. She told stories about black bears, reincarnated freedom fighters protecting the pines and the people. He stared unblinkingly at the forest.
Fairy tales.
His body was caked with death and dirt. When he saw his next-door neighbor Nelly Stra
ż
running toward him, he didn't move. She was sixteen, the same age as his sister Daina. “You have to hide,” she said. Frederick didn't acknowledge her. He had no will. She told him, “They'll come back for you.”

Nelly took his hand and tried pulling him off the stoop. He didn't budge. “Come with me,” she begged. Frederick stared into space.

“They killed your sisters! You have to get out of here.”

The Old Man was angry that he'd believed in the brave bears and marching pines. It was useless.

Nelly pleaded, “Come on. Get up now! We have to get out of here!”

The Old Man looked disappointedly at the forest. Of course, his mother told fairy tales. That's what mothers do. Nothing mattered anymore. He rose, letting Nelly lead him across the field toward her house. She said, “There's a bed in the basement. Mother's got a pot of soup on to boil.” She patted his hand. “You'll be all right.” She said it again, “You'll be all right.” She said this as though she were the one who needed convincing. She was sixteen, the Old Man was twenty, and the world was mad, terribly, horribly so.

Within a few days, the Germans, who'd made a pact with the Soviets, broke this pact. Hitler decided that he wasn't going to let the Soviets keep Lithuania, or Estonia, or Latvia. Or Finland or part of Poland either. The German tanks rolled north and east. The Soviet tanks retreated.

The Stra
ż
family who hid the Old Man in their basement were Jewish­—as the Old Man constantly reminded Ingeburg. In 1940, when Soviet tanks rolled into Lithuania, the Stra
ż
family had waved a Russian flag. They figured they had a better chance of surviving a Soviet regime than a Nazi one. But many of the Lithuanian families who hated the Soviets equally hated the Jews for waving their Russian flags. As the Germans marched into Lithuania, these families waved Nazi flags, hopeful that Hitler would be better than Stalin. There was no lesser of two evils.

Less than a month after the Old Man went into hiding from the Russians, the Nazis came to the front door of the Stra
ż
house. They informed the Stra
ż
family that they needn't pack anything. They wouldn't be gone long, just long enough to register as Jews. There were public documents testifying to their Judaism, and additionally, their neighbors had reported them as Soviet sympathizers.

They were certainly Jewish, but first and foremost, the Stra
ż
family was Lithuanian.

The Gestapo found Frederick in the basement and, grabbing him by his overcoat, pulled him up the stairs. He wasn't registering with the others. They already knew who he was, and he wasn't a Jew. They seemed to know everything. It was unnerving. One of the Nazis, a man twice Frederick's age, punched him playfully in the arm. “You hid among the vermin.” The Nazi smiled before he spit on the Stra
ż
family room floor. The Old Man slid his finger into his trouser pocket to check for his watch and his photograph. They were safe. “Where's Nelly?” he asked.

“Where's Nelly?” the soldier mocked. “Never you mind.”

The Germans advised the Old Man that he would be serving the Führer and the German people in the war effort. Words failed the Old Man. It was astonishingly clear that he was as significant as a nit on someone's scalp, irritating because he was there, but ultimately inconsequential.

On the eighth day of the Old Man's march toward Germany, the Stra
ż
family was exterminated, a bullet to each brain at the Ninth Fort, a former Soviet prison. They were Sasha, thirty-eight, Ibrahim, forty, Nelly, sixteen, Andrew, fifteen, and Yana, eight. Sasha and Ibrahim tried to barricade their children from the bullets, to no avail. Like the Old Man's family, they were guilty of nothing.

The Old Man marched, a young man caught between monsters. As he walked, he remembered his family's music: his mother's voice, his father's violin, his sister's flute, and he breathed in time with his memory. He was an old man hobbling over rocky terrain toward a foreign land. The Germans told him that Hitler had saved him, that he owed his life to the Führer. They were liars. All of them! The Nazis and the Reds. His feet were tired. As a boy, he'd been taught that good triumphs over evil, but it hadn't. It didn't.

The Germans searched him for weapons. Surprisingly, they let him keep his watch and his photograph. As a group, the soldiers were well fed and well ordered. Amid such insanity, it was uncomfortably
wrong
that there was the pretense of humanity.

The Old Man counted the days like beats. He tried to put the image of his father and the other men out of his mind, but it was impossible. No amount of steps or days would accomplish that feat. Nothing would ever be one note, one chord, or one pitch again. Not forgetting, not believing, and definitely not living. With the greatest clarity, he pictured his mother rubbing her throat, opening her mouth to sing, the songbirds perched around their summer home on the coast of Palanga. The Old Man kept this sweet blue memory lodged in his parched throat, like a robin's egg, making it difficult to swallow.

10

Prudence

N
ight after night, the rest of the world slept under a blanket of dark clouds, their window units buzzing and hiccupping, and I went alone to the pier. To Wheaton, I pretended that I'd given up on seeing the ghost of a girl, but I hadn't. She and I were connected. I needed to know if there were others like us. At first, Wheaton did not understand that this had nothing to do with him. This was about me. This was mine, and I plainly told him so.

In May 1989, my father kept his word to his parents and drove his Chevette, lovingly called a “shit-vette,” north. I'm sure that he nervously rehearsed what he would say to the Old Man when they came face-to-face. Although he hadn't seen his father since leaving home, he had seen my Oma. She told me that they'd met secretly at a coffee shop in the Wall Street district while the Old Man sat in their Brooklyn brownstone, smoking his cigars, thinking Ingeburg was out shopping or getting her hair done or doing any number of things women do. Things he needn't be bothered with.

During their clandestine mother-son meetings, my Oma encouraged Freddie to file for custody of me. She didn't know that Freddie and Veronica were still married or that as much as he loved me, he couldn't ask Veronica to give me up. Even though she'd walked out on him, he felt guilty. Music had been his first love. Then it was me and music second. Freddie didn't suspect anything would change the order of things he loved. Veronica would always come third.

During their secret visits, my Oma held back judgment while Freddie talked about possible recording deals. She humored him by asking for specifics, but she didn't imagine a man who could love an instrument before a woman would have much luck in life, not at anything, even a musical career. It seemed to my Oma that a profound love was necessary to make beauty from any art, musical or otherwise. I can picture my Oma during these coffee-shop meetings with her chipped tooth and the pink scarf that always covers her set curls.

Then in 1989, the secret meetings ended. Freddie was coming to them. He was driving to Brooklyn. My father and grandfather were going to meet face-to-face. My Oma anticipated meeting her granddaughter shortly thereafter. She was as anticipatory as anyone. Myself included.

Freddie drove through the night, stopping only for gas. He remembered a song:
I don't care if it rains or freezes, long as I got my plastic Jesus.
He smiled. Music was his way of praying.

The brownstone had not changed. Downstairs, he smelled lemon-scented liquid Pledge. Upstairs, mothballs. His mother was hysterical, hugging him and retreating, hugging him and retreating. She covered her mouth, her chipped tooth. “I've missed you so much, Freddie. Sit down, or you can stand, but have a seat. Relax. It's so good to see you.” She hugged him again. She couldn't stop. “When your father said that you are coming, I never believed it.”

The Old Man was waiting in the downstairs study, playing Shostakovich's Violin Concerto no. 1. Seeing Freddie, he stopped. “I can't play how I used to because of the arthritis.”

Ingeburg said, “Your father is fine. He exaggerates.”

Freddie said, “It sounded good, Dad.”

“You play, Freddie. Put down your guitar case, and you play for your father.” He extended the violin to his son.

“Maybe later.”

“Why not now? Play now.”

Freddie didn't want it to be this way.

The Old Man said, “Don't you practice?”

“I'm beat, Dad.”

His father pointed the bow at him. “You do nothing but what is best for Freddie. Always, and you never change.”

Freddie looked at his mother. “It was a long drive.”

“Go rest. Your room is nice for you.”

At dinner, the Old Man sopped his plate with a hunk of bread. “Your mother is not going to fly in an airplane, so I arranged for a car to rent. It is settled.”

“Nothing's settled,” Freddie said.

The Old Man looked to Ingeburg. “Tell your son.”

“We're going to meet her,” she told Freddie, “with or without you.”

The Old Man added, “It's time. We should've done this sooner. For this, I have regret.”

Freddie had never gone against his mother, and he realized that he never would. He put his napkin beside his plate and cleared his throat. A change of heart. “I'll drive.”

“We are taking a rental car. Do you have a valid license?”

“Of course.”

“How do I know this?” the Old Man asked.

My Oma reached for Freddie's hand, feeling the striations on his fingertips. “Thank you.” He was a good boy. Always, he'd been a good boy.

When Freddie called Veronica from his parents' house, he locked their bedroom door to use the phone. He was prepared to face his estranged wife's wrath. He could admit that he was a deadbeat dad, but he couldn't deny his mother her wish to meet her granddaughter—not anymore.

“You're not coming here,” Veronica told him. “They're not coming here.”

It happened on this particular night, with so much at stake, that I felt my wings emerge once more, slicing like paring knives through my back. Outside, the crickets chirped, and inside, my invisible wings expanded, making a hushed sound that only I could discern. I felt this sensation like fingertips tinkling my flexed back. I stood near my mother, hoping she could sense them, the wings in the room. They were lush and majestic. I remember. Veronica told Freddie, “I am her mother. You can come, but this is on my terms.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling like that angel or fairy or butterfly Wheaton had mentioned when we were seven. God, I loved Wheaton. I don't know how I would've survived without him.

My mother complained to Freddie about child support, how she'd like to see some of that coming her way. I lit one of her cigarettes. My wings started to sag. I felt them pulling from my skin, at the itchy spot where my scars resided. It seemed like the wings wouldn't be around for very long, like they were too miraculous for me to possess. Veronica continued her treatise, her conditions. “I'm not leaving her alone with them.”

The lushness of my wings was devolving into weightiness, two fists pulling me down.

My father never asked to speak to me.

Veronica put the phone down. My knees buckled from the heaviness of my wings. She said, “They want to meet you because they're old. Because they're going to die one day. Because everybody dies.” It felt like there was a wet blanket draped over my shoulders, like the vinyl flooring and Styrofoam ceiling had conspired to come together and squash me like a bug. Veronica picked up her purse, and checking to see how many cigarettes I had smoked, said, “I'll see you later.” I didn't know where she was going.

She hurried from the house, and I had no idea if she was ever coming back. I was sixteen. I wasn't so old, but I was painfully sad. Wheaton was out of town. He never went anywhere, but on this particular night, he was gone.

I heard the car start. I didn't know Veronica's friends or her boyfriends. I didn't know what she did when she wasn't working. Her life was work. Then she was backing out of our yard. I watched from the den window, where I saw the reflection of my wings in the glass. Somehow their presence only made me sadder. Ghostly wings are as useful as a ghostly girl.

Wheaton had traveled across state to a cheerleading competition with his mother and sister. Even though he'd had no choice, I remember being angry at that moment. Everyone had turned against me. My mother was right: these old people wanted to meet me, but I didn't know them. My father was only coming because
they
wanted him to.
Did any of this have anything to do with me?
I showered, letting the water beat down on my wings. I was still crying, trying to be hopeful, trying to think that someone gave a shit about
me
, but overwhelmed with an indescribable hopelessness, like a bottomless pit. I didn't really have wings. Some doctor had put me under anesthesia and taken them. My parents had let him. I didn't have much of anything. My best friend had visions. He could see this winged girl on the pier, but she wouldn't make herself known to me. I got to my knees, pressing my hands against the algae-stained tiles, the water streaming over the back of my head, my forehead to the drain. I was not and never had been any better or any more special than anyone else.

I didn't try to kill myself. Not that night. Not ever. There are some accounts, police reports, that claim differently, but they are just wrong. I would never take my own life, but there was something that compelled me on that stormy night to venture to the pier. Maybe it was the weight of my wings, the distance between me and my parents, the desire to be free of this place, or the proximity of possibility. Maybe I was afraid that my grandparents would come and then they wouldn't like me. I'd be a disappointment.

I wore a vintage lavender nightgown purchased at the Goodwill. I was barefoot, my hair pulled back in a ponytail. Later, when the police asked me why I went to the pier at midnight, I had no answer for them. I'm still not certain. Something pulled me there. When I stepped off my front stoop, the stars were like a map to the sea. I don't think I ever looked down at the sandspurs, tufts of brown grass, or briars but walked, a straight shot, to the pier. It felt good to have direction.

The rest is murky like Florida's stormy coast that night. I remember two lights blinking and swaying with a gale-force wind blowing out of the east. My nightgown clung to my breasts and legs, ballooning out behind me. The concrete felt good on the bottoms of my feet. I thought I saw the ghost of the girl, but I was squinting my eyes, wishing I had Wheaton's gift of sight, wishing that I understood my destiny. Did I even have one or was everything random? I had the distinct feeling that Freddie was probably telling his parents that he hardly knew me, that I wasn't worth their time or trouble. I remember thinking that my grandparents would hate my thick dark hair, my combat boots and black eyeliner. I wouldn't be the girl they hoped to see. My eyes were green with an orange starburst. My mother's were brown. My father's were a beautiful bright blue. Where did I come from? Who wanted to claim me? I think that if Wheaton had been home on the night of May 15, 1989, I would've gone to him. I would've told him my insecurities, and he would've said, “You have to have faith, Prudence. Wait and see what happens because something is going to happen.”