Cilka's Journey(15)

The SS officer watches, nods to Cilka and walks away. He doesn’t see Cilka bend down and hoist her arm under the girl’s armpit, helping her to her feet.

“Quickly, join the others,” she says more gently.

Cilka sees the SS officer turn back, and screams out at the women.

“Get inside now! I’m staying out here freezing because you’re too slow and lazy to move. Go, go!” she calls.

Turning to the SS officer, she gives him a big smile.

She follows the women inside, shutting the door behind her.

The women have found places to sit or lie down, though there is barely room. Sometimes they spill over into the courtyard, stacked like animals. Gaunt faces stare at Cilka—looks of terror and helplessness. She longs to explain that if she screams at them the SS won’t come in.

The words won’t come.

She is sixteen. Possibly the youngest person in the room at that moment. And she will live longer than them all.

She sees one woman with sick crusted across her cheek. Whatever feeling she let in a moment ago closes back over. She is as flat and blank as the snow, as the walls. As the women’s noises rise—the wailing and crying and the beating of palms on walls, the praying and calling the names of the loved and lost, Cilka turns and goes to the front of the block, into her room, and lies down.



* * *



The days have been long and achingly difficult. Cilka is having to draw on reserves of physical strength she never knew she had. Cilka and Josie have been trialing different methods for how they parcel out their bread ration across the day for best energy efficiency. At night the women often talk about food. When they broach topics of family, home, they stay close to this—of meals shared. Sauerkraut and mushrooms, cottage cheese, sausages, pierogi, fresh fruit. Cilka has to reach back years into her memory to join in, and she has to fight a feeling of envy that comes from knowing these memories are much closer for the women around her.

It doesn’t seem that any of them are ready to go into great detail about their arrests, about recent events, about where their families are now. Or perhaps they haven’t worked out whether they can really trust one another. Though they do wonder aloud about the missing. Margarethe, in particular, a young Russian woman with a round face and dimples who Cilka instinctively likes, cannot stop worrying about her husband. Josie thinks of her brothers; and Olga, though she knows where her children are, worries she will not hear from them, will not know whether they are all right. Cilka thinks about everyone she has lost, but she cannot even begin to express it.

One night, Olga says to Cilka, “Klein … that’s quite common as a Jewish surname, isn’t it?”

Cilka nods. “I suppose it is.” She stands. “I’ll go and get the coal.”

As the women return from work one week into their stay, Elena announces that Natalya is to empty the shit buckets tomorrow, for the second day in a row. The first heavy snow has begun, and as Elena says this, she snuggles down tighter into her coat.

“I’ll do it,” Josie says. “It’s been a while since my turn.”

“I’m in charge here,” Elena says, standing. “I’ll say who does what.”

“No, you’re not,” Josie fights back. “No one put you in charge. We’ll share the work.”

Cilka is surprised when Elena doesn’t continue the exchange. She simply narrows her eyes and sits back down, huddled in the coat.

The women stand around the stove, letting the heat ease their aching muscles, waiting for the clanging on metal to indicate that it’s time to go to the mess for dinner.

From behind, Josie is violently shoved in the back.

She reacts by raising her hand, reaching for something to brace herself against, and it lands on the stove flue. Her scream echoes off the walls.

Josie holds her arm out, like it’s something she wants to shake off. A thousand thoughts run through Cilka’s head, images of sick and injured women and what happens to them. No, not Josie. Cilka grabs her, propelling her out of the building, burying her burned hand in the snow that now covers patches of the ground outside. Josie hisses through her teeth and starts crying audibly.

“Shush now,” Cilka says, a little harsher than intended.

After a few minutes, she pulls the hand from the snow and examines the damage. The palm and all four fingers on Josie’s right hand are an angry red, her thumb the only untouched part.

Cilka pushes the hand back into the snow and turns Josie’s face toward her. It is starkly pale, as white as the ground.

“Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

Cilka storms back inside, pausing, staring at the women gathered around the stove.

A plaintive, “How is she?” goes unanswered.

“Who did this? Who pushed her?” Cilka had only seen the quick movement of Josie ejected from the huddle, falling. She has her suspicions though.

Most of the women look away, but Cilka notices Natalya glance toward the culprit.

Cilka walks up to Elena sitting snug on her bed.

Elena snarls at Cilka, “I could break you in two.”

Cilka understands the difference between an empty threat—a display of power borne of helplessness—and a true intention to harm others.

“Plenty of people scarier than you have tried to break me,” Cilka says.

“And I’ve fought men ten times your size,” Elena says.