Cilka's Journey(10)

Having established their place, Cilka nudges Josie and they move toward the stove, hands outstretched. Cilka senses she has made some enemies already, on day one.

Josie is shoved in the back by a large, tough-looking woman, her age indeterminate. Josie sprawls forward, smashing her face on the hard, wooden floor. Blood seeps from her nose.

Cilka helps Josie to her feet, pulling the girl’s shirt up to her face, covering her nose, staunching the blood.

“What did you do that for?” a voice asks.

“Watch it, bitch, or you’ll get the same,” the bully says, getting in the other girl’s face.

The other women observe the exchange.

Cilka wants to react, to defend Josie, but she still needs to know more about how the place works, and who these women are, whether there’s a possibility of them all getting along.

“It’s all right,” Josie splutters to the girl who defended her, a young, slight woman with fair skin and blue eyes. “Thank you.”

“Are you all right?” the girl asks in Russian-accented Polish. She keeps touching her own shaved head.

“She will be,” Cilka answers.

The girl examines Josie’s face with concern.

“I’m Natalya.”

Josie and Cilka introduce themselves.

“You are Russian?” Josie asks.

“Yes, but my family was living in Poland. For many decades. Only now they decide that is criminal.” She lowers her head for a moment. “And you?”

Josie’s face crumples. “They wanted to know where my brothers were. And they wouldn’t believe me when I told them I didn’t know.”

Cilka makes soothing sounds to Josie.

“I’m sorry,” Natalya says. “Perhaps let’s not talk about it now.”

“Or ever,” the bully says from her bed, turned away from the rest of them. “It’s all just variations on the same sob story. Whether we did something or not, we have been branded enemies of the state and we are here to be corrected through labor.”

She stays facing away from them. Sighs.

The fire crackles in the stove.

“Now what?” someone asks.

No one is prepared to suggest an answer. Some of the women wander back to their chosen beds and curl up, going deep into their own silent thoughts.

Cilka takes Josie by the arm and leads her to her bed. Pulling the blanket back she urges the girl to take off her shoes and lie down. Her nose has stopped bleeding. Cilka goes back to the stove. Natalya is carefully placing more coal from a nearby bucket into the red-hot cavity, using the end of her coat to open and close the door.

Cilka looks at the coal pile. “There’s not enough to get us through the night,” she says, as much to herself as to Natalya.

“I’ll ask for more,” Natalya says in a softly spoken whisper. She is rosy-cheeked and delicate-limbed, but looks strong. Cilka can see in her eyes she thinks everything is going to work out. Cilka knows how quickly that feeling can be taken away.

“We could perhaps just watch and see what they do. Ask for nothing and you lessen the risk of a beating.”

“Surely they won’t let us freeze,” Natalya says, hands on hips. The whisper is gone. Several other women push themselves up onto an elbow in the beds where they lie, listening to the conversation.

Cilka takes a moment to look around at all the faces now turned to her. She can’t accurately tell all the women’s ages but thinks she and Josie are among the youngest. She remembers her own words spoken only a matter of hours ago. Don’t stand out, be invisible.

“Well?” is thrown at her from the bully at the front of the hut.

All eyes are on her.

“I don’t know anything more than you. I’m just guessing. But I think we should go easy on what coal we have left in case we don’t get any more today.”

“Makes sense,” says another woman, who lies back down and turns her head away.

Cilka slowly walks back to the end of the hut to her bed. The small drop in temperature from the middle of the room to the end, only a matter of a few meters, has Cilka rethinking the decision she made in placing perceived privacy over warmth. She checks Josie, who appears to be asleep, before lying down.

The sunlight goes on and on. Cilka has no idea what time it is. She watches as Natalya approaches the fire, which is cooling, throwing a small amount of coal into the stove. Funny how people naturally fall into roles.

She falls asleep at some point, while it is still light, or light again … she’s not sure.

Cilka is startled awake by the loud clanging outside. The door to the hut opens and the brigadier, Antonina Karpovna, is back.

“Up and get out, zechkas.” She gestures with her head, her hands staying firmly entrenched in the pockets of her coat.

Cilka knows the drill. She is the first to stand but doesn’t move, hoping those at the front of the hut will leave first. She knows that standing somewhere in the middle is the safest place to be. She helps a drugged-looking Josie to her feet and pulls the blankets up on their beds.

Pushing her way forward, she guides Josie along with her and out of the building.

They see others like them exiting the huts all around. Where were they when we arrived? The women from Cilka’s hut huddle together outside in a ramshackle manner until they observe orderly rows of women walking around them. Copying, they form into two rows of ten.