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deter them; the soldiers shot barking dogs. They emptied storerooms of food and took farm implements. The people of the countryside no longer wore wristwatches. It was also dangerous to be thoroughly cleaned out by the thieves, because subsequent thieves became angry if they wasted a walk up a farm lane only to find there was nothing left to take.
    More worrisome than theft was the Red Army’s hunger for labour and recruits. Trenches needed to be dug in case the German army counterattacked. And the front was a maw that devoured young men who were thrown at it without arms or training. Since Lithuania had been occupied by the Reds before the German occupation, Lithuanians were deemed Soviet citizens, whose duty it was to fight the Germans. Any who chose not to fight were deemed fascists themselves.
    And so the Petronis boys, Lukas, Vincentas and Algis, went to their uncle’s farm a dozen kilometres away, where the locals did not know them well, and helped to bring in the August rye. The young Petronis men passed for labourers, and whenever Russian cars or press gangs appeared, the women warned them and they hid in the forest or in a pit under the barn floor.
    Lukas and Vincentas found out that university students and seminarians were being given draft exemptions, and so they left their younger brother behind and made their way home. They packed bags with food and clothes to go to Kaunas to have their passports stamped with military exemptions so they could continue their studies.
    The Lithuanian capital had been moved to Vilnius, so many of the buildings in Kaunas were abandoned and some were in ruins. Even so, the streets were full of soldiers and trucks as well as country folk, often women in head scarves, scavenging for lamp oil or aspirin or any other items that were no longer available in the countryside. The Jewish houses were empty and long since sacked.
    Lukas was relieved to be back in Kaunas, relieved to get back to his life. He wanted to get on with things now, to live in a city, to read books and talk in cafés, to see movies and listen to the radio. Above all, he was tired of armies and wars, which had already eaten up enough of his twenty-three years. He was slight and quick, and he liked to laugh. He had been an excellent shot as a hunter and a very good explorer of the Jewish Pine Forest as a boy, but he intended to study literature and teach in a high school, or even the university if he was lucky. Vincentas was not that different from him, and they looked something alike, although Vincentas wore glasses. But the younger brother was otherworldly; he adored vestments and incense and had practically taught himself Latin before he even started high school. Only their brother Algis preferred life in the countryside.
    Having left Vincentas at the nearby seminary, Lukas went to the main office of the university, which hummed with phone calls, secretaries carrying sheaves of papers, and some of the younger professors, huddled in committees, discussing their various tasks to get the university up and running in some fashion for the fall semester. Kuolys, the long-haired Latin professor who had terrorized Lukas in his first year, now looked up, smiled and came over.
    â€œJust in time,” said Kuolys. “Do you have your exemption?”
    Lukas held out his hand.
    Kuolys took his hand and shook it distractedly.“Put your bag in the corner there and go out to check on the library archive for me, will you? I’m on the housing committee and nobody has a place to stay. But I’m worried about the Latin books I’ve stored in the stacks. Who else would care?”
    â€œI don’t have anyplace to stay either,” said Lukas.
    â€œThen come back here after you’re done and camp out with the rest of us. Plenty of us are at loose ends. Is everyone in the family all right?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œIs Vincentas back at the seminary?”
    â€œI just dropped him off