Miri couldn’t move until the train’s exhaust clouds faded to gray. She told herself there was an invisible thread connecting her to her grandmother, that the thread was stretching, not breaking. Finally, she turned to Sasha. He stood there with his good arm out to her, and even as she knew she shouldn’t, she dropped her head on his chest and sobbed. He smelled like Vanya’s shaving cream and Babushka’s lavender. She expected him to urge her to hurry. He would have been right to do so—it was dangerous for him to show his face around so many soldiers, to wear Grekov’s coat, and as much as she knew they should run to their own train, she couldn’t. Not yet. Sasha gave her all the time she needed. And he didn’t flinch at her being so close.
Another train pulled up to the platform. Not theirs. What if Vanya and Yuri were both already dead? “We can only try, child,” her grandmother would say.
“We’ll go day by day,” Sasha whispered. Miri reached into her pocket for one of Babushka’s embroidered handkerchiefs. She ran her fingernail over the tight, neat stitches. “When I left my family, I felt the same,” Sasha continued.
“When did you leave?”
“Five years ago.” He opened his mouth to say more but something caught his eye. He wrapped his hand around her arm and pulled. “We need to go.”
“What is it?”
“Someone recognized the coat. I heard him say Grekov.”
They walked back toward the station, the only way out, moving as fast as they could, dodging soldiers and marble columns. Under the massive, girded ceiling it was dark. Sparse light flecked with dust streamed through high windows. “Grekov! Captain Grekov!” a man called behind them. They walked faster but the man was gaining on them. There was no question he’d catch them. Miri’s heart pounded so fast she didn’t hear anything around her, only the blood in her ears. The soldiers. The supplies were a blur.
“Faster,” she said. But they couldn’t. With the crowd, they couldn’t get away. How was that man gaining on them? Sasha pulled Miri behind a pile of burlap grain sacks likely destined for the front. They smelled like sawdust. He was bent over, out of breath like her. “Miriam, run,” Sasha said. The scar across his cheek blazed red.
“Who was it? Who recognized you?”
“I don’t know, but anyone who stops me is dangerous. Go.”
“Grekov!” the same voice yelled. “Halt, I say!”
Sasha shoved Miri toward the door. She tripped and when she caught her balance, she saw him stepping out from behind the stacks of grain to meet their pursuer, a short, square-shaped soldier with rows and rows of medals pinned to his chest. His decorations jingled with every step. He had a mustache and pursed lips that made him look like a rodent.
“Grekov! The fool who challenged Radkievich,” the man called. Sasha cupped his chin with his hand, a habit Miri had learned meant he was nervous. “Where are your Jewish dogs?” the officer laughed, a cackle that ricocheted off the marble. Sasha replied. Miri couldn’t hear him but she saw his shoulders sag. Soldiers zigzagged around them ferrying crates toward the train. “Your coat should read Durak. Fool!”
Miri took a deep breath and stood as tall as she could. Stepped forward. She knew that the more ridiculous the lie, the more likely it is to be believed. She threaded her arm through Sasha’s, felt him trembling. “Thank you for making my cousin slow down. I’d been begging him to let me rest,” she said, tilting a hip to the side, trying to be as charming as she could.
The officer’s dark eyes scurried from Miri to Sasha and back again. A grin broke over his face, and his thick eyebrows sprouted so far forward they looked like moving fur. “You devil,” he said to Sasha. “I’m sure if Radkievich knew you had such a beautiful cousin, he’d never have sent you to the Jewish dogs. He’d have arranged a dinner.” Sasha should have laughed but he was frozen, staring at Miri. At least the crowd of soldiers surrounding them meant they weren’t standing in excruciating silence, but it was nearly as bad.
“She’s been crying, your cousin?” the officer asked. “A broken heart?”
“What else makes a woman cry?” Miri asked. Did she sound convincing?
His nose twitched. “I see height runs in the family.” He tried to come closer, but a dozen dirt-smeared soldiers marched at them. She and Sasha were forced to step back, to make room. The officer also moved, in the opposite direction. Between them the men pushed a platform on wheels. It was a gun mount, meant for a cannon. The metal squealed as it turned. Miri yanked Sasha. He understood without her saying a word.
They turned and sprinted through the throngs of men as fast as they could, toward the exit. The officer yelled after them, but he was still blocked by the cannon. Miri’s dress caught on a crate and ripped. She didn’t slow down. Fear had her moving faster than she’d ever moved. Any one of the soldiers they passed could have grabbed them, but they didn’t. And as scared as she was, she knew what to do: keep running.
She and Sasha burst through the arched exit, into sparkling sunshine. Out of breath, Miri tried to think even as she hurried down the stairs. Which way? She knew a dozen routes back to her neighborhood but she couldn’t remember where to start. Besides, she no longer had a home to run to. “Through the park.” She pointed ahead. There were crowds. Some soldiers with women on their arms. They could blend in.
Along the gravel path among the trees, Miri tried to look casual, tried to slow her pace, and Sasha followed. She kept her eyes down and saw only boots. Some with holes on the sides, in the toes. Others polished and gleaming. Starlings twittered. “Slower,” she mumbled, trying to make it look as if she and Sasha were no different from the couples around them. She kept her hand tucked into the crook of his elbow, keenly aware that he cradled his bad arm.
“Can you get us to Karmėlava without a train?” Sasha asked under his breath.
“The town east of here?”
“Yes. Can we walk there?”
“It will take a day, maybe more.”
“Good. There’s a coal depot in Karmėlava. We can board a train there. One transfer, in Daugavpils. Then Kiev.” He sounded like Babushka planning an escape. But how did he know the trains so well?
“This way,” Miri said, and pulled Sasha across a street. The cobblestones were slick with pollen. “Do you think they followed us this far?” Miri asked.
“I don’t know. Can we duck into an alley?”
“Soon.” Miri continued to keep her gaze away from the men in uniform who walked past. Only a few weeks earlier there had been half as many soldiers in the streets. How quickly the czar reinforced his forts. If only they could get to America. Sixty paces, she estimated, to the first turn. Please, she thought. Please let us make it. Sasha’s rucksack banged against his thigh. At the apothecary they turned. They passed a store thick with the smell of cologne, where a woman in elegant silks stood in the window, fingering ribbons hanging on rolls from the ceiling. Then they came to a roundabout anchored by a bronze statue of the czar. A pigeon sat on his outstretched finger. Miri felt dozens of eyes following them as they walked, but knew the paranoia was in her mind. The people of Kovno, even the soldiers, were too scared to look up. They slipped into an alley. In the shadows, Miri turned around to see if there were any soldiers in their wake. When she saw they were alone, she gasped great mouthfuls of air. She didn’t even realize she’d been holding her breath. She was covered in sweat. A wagon rolled past the edge of the alley. The tram clacked. Every noise set her further on edge. “You can take off that coat now,” she said.
“No.” Sasha was behind her, pacing. Five steps and he turned, retraced where he’d been. “No soldier would stop an officer. We still need it.”
“But it’s summer. You’re drawing attention.”
“Doesn’t matter. This coat, it’s what got your grandmother onto her train. What will get us onto ours.” He reached up and took off his visor, wiped sweat from his forehead.
“Listen to me,” Miri said. “At the station, when that officer stopped us, you pushed me away. Never do that again.”
“Why not? I was protecting you.”
“If we travel together, we stand together.”
“I wasn’t sure what you’d do.”
“And I knew what to expect from you? At the river, you broke a man’s jaw. If you’d tried the same at the station, we both would’ve been shot. And wasn’t I the one who got us out of that mess?” Her voice was too loud. Someone above opened a window. They walked another block in silence. Finally, Sasha looked at her.
“You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry. We have to trust each other.”