Mother sobbed as my family stepped down from the train leaving the Sakiai, but if my father had any worries he did not show them.
Father carried Jurgis, hastening us along. “Come, we will be best to move as quickly as we can.”
What faced us through the failing light was like a picture I had drawn many times. I imagined the scene before us to be a birthday cake. A huge cake, it might have been either round or square for I could not see its edges. Down the cake’s centre the birthday candles were placed, in two neat rows, marking the boundary fences. At the cake’s top, where the candles flamed, barbed wire curled around in bunches.
The cake was cut, but not in a neat wedge. This slice went right down the middle, searing the cake in two. On each half burned candles and at either side, down
