Cilka's Journey(24)
Josie, Cilka and Antonina stand in the doorway surveying the mess.
“Hmm, looks like Klavdiya Arsenyevna has been here,” Antonina says.
Stepping into the hut, Cilka asks quietly, “Are we allowed to clean it up?”
“You can fix your own bed.”
Antonina stands with hands on hips, and Cilka notices how strong she is, though with a small frame. The muscles—arms, chest, thighs—bulge roundly out from her joints.
“What about the others? Can we do them all while we wait for you to bring the women back?”
“It’s probably better they see for themselves what happens without warning.”
“But why? Why has someone done this?”
“Klavdiya Arsenyevna is the senior guard for this hut and the larger brigade; she is looking for things you shouldn’t have.”
“We had everything taken from us; how could we have something we’re not meant to have?” Josie asks.
“She knows that. This is her warning to you. And it might be because she has found out about your job, Cilka. You have access to things others don’t now. If she finds something she doesn’t like you can expect to be sent to the hole for punishment.”
Antonina turns and leaves the hut, letting the door stay open, the icy air being blown in. Josie closes it. But what does Klavdiya not want to find? she thinks. They seem to be allowed to have some possessions. The rules change here day to day, she thinks. And though this camp has a different purpose—to get them to work for the Soviet Union, rather than kill them for being Jewish—in these conditions, and with constant rape, always the threat of violence and the “hole,” Cilka can see that she has gone from one cruel, inhuman place to another.
She goes to the stove and attempts to coax it back to life by gently placing small amounts of coal ash from the bucket on top of the dulling embers. What should they do about the upturned room? she wonders.
“I think she was right,” she says to Josie. “We should leave it for the others to see and we can tell them what Antonina said.”
Josie ignores her and goes to her bed, struggling to right it with one hand.
“Here, let me help,” Cilka says.
“I don’t need your help.”
“Fine,” Cilka says harshly. She looks away from the spectacle.
Eventually she turns around to see Josie buried under the blanket, her back to her.
* * *
Day has turned to night; the stove is pumping out as much heat as Cilka can get from it when the door opens and the other women stagger in. The solitary lightbulb casts eerie shadows over the chaos, making it difficult, at first, for the women to see what they have arrived home to. Slowly, as they each make their way to their beds, it becomes evident. Several of them turn on Cilka, who is standing by the stove.
“What the fuck have you done?” says Elena.
It hits Cilka that she and Josie are about to be blamed.
“No, no, it wasn’t us.” She fights the urge to scream at the woman. “See, my bed is the same. This is how we found the place.”
“Then who did this?” says Hannah.
“It was a guard, a guard named Klavdiya Arsenyevna. Antonina told us about her.”
“And why?”
Cilka quickly explains.
Hannah looks very pale. “Oh no.”
“What is it?” Elena asks her. Hannah throws her sheet and blanket and mattress around, looking for something.
Elena slaps her, hard and sudden. “It was just a crust, Hannah!”
Hannah lets out a sob. “I was saving it for you.”
The other women look away, set about restoring their beds, awaiting their call to dinner.
* * *
After dinner they return to the hut, a reluctance to go to bed obvious in the way the women linger over even the unsavory chores. In the brighter light at the mess Cilka had been able to see other injuries from the night before on the faces of some of the women and noticed one held her right arm limply, supporting a painful wrist.
Josie still avoids Cilka, preferring to talk to Natalya. This fracture in their friendship must be obvious to the other women but no one comments.
“Do you think they will come again?” Olga whispers. She is whipping a needle and thread through a small piece of fabric, with hands crooked from overuse and cold. She will unpick her stitches and do them over, perfecting her work several times before bed.
No one attempts an answer.
With the light off, the outside searchlight throws a diffused shadow that dances around the room as falling snow plays within the beams. The women slowly move onto their own beds. They have learned already the need to be as well rested as possible for the labor they will have to endure tomorrow.
CHAPTER 6
The two weeks of treatment for Josie’s hand pass quickly. It heals, with the ministrations of Yelena Georgiyevna, beyond the point at which she should have returned to normal work. The cold continues to intensify, along with the hours of darkness. The women in Hut 29 have gotten to know each other, or at least, become used to each other. Friendships have formed, and shifted, and re-formed. Fights have taken place. Josie remains distant, and Cilka accepts this. She understands that her role in the hospital might distance her permanently from her hut-mates. She supposes she ought to take the job and survive. The reaction of those around her is just something she has to deal with. Some, like Olga and Margarethe, have expressed gratitude and already say they are relying on the extra bits of food she brings, the bandages and fabric to keep them warmer. So far, only Elena has expressed hostility. But although she has yelled and hissed at Cilka, she hasn’t laid a hand on her. The men still visit at night. The women are raped, abused, injured. And there are other indignities. Two have been sent to the “hole” for misdemeanors, including Hannah, Elena’s hanger-on, for simply looking at the guard Klavdiya Arsenyevna the wrong way. When she returned, for days afterward, she was not even able to speak.