Cilka's Journey(29)

When summer arrives, darkness shrinks down until, one day, there is no night at all. There is no need for searchlights in the yard, unless it’s very overcast. Some of the women in the hut from further south in Europe react to this phenomenon with panic—it seems to go against nature. The men enter the hut and now the women have to see them clearly, up close. Several of the women do not hold back, telling them what ugly pigs they are, and are punished for daring to say so.

Sleep becomes difficult for some as they struggle to shut their eyes in light as bright as day. Tempers flare, and the harmony of the hut is shattered with both verbal and physical fights breaking out.

When Cilka is caught with a nodding head by Yelena, the doctor asks how she is coping with the white nights.

“The what?” Cilka asks.

“The white nights. We will be in daylight for twenty-four hours each day for a while. Everyone adjusts differently.”

“I can’t sleep, and when I do fall asleep it’s only for short bursts.”

“And others in your hut?”

“Some are fine, most aren’t. Fights seem to break out over nothing. How do you cope?” Though she imagines, in the staff quarters where Yelena sleeps, there may be adequate curtains.

“Your first summer will be your worst. Well, for many their worst. There are others who never adjust and struggle each year; some simply go mad. They can’t cope with the sleep deprivation, the change in their body rhythms—it does something to their head.”

She seems very casual about this, Cilka thinks. “Could that happen to me?”

“You will be fine, Cilka.” Cilka hasn’t gotten used to Yelena’s enduring faith in her. “You need to make a blindfold and cover your eyes and slowly let your body adjust. Tell the other women to do the same,” she says. “I’m sure if you look in the linen area you will find some old blankets that have been thrown out. Take a break, take a pair of scissors, go there and cut up enough strips for the women. All you can do is offer.”

Cilka doesn’t need to be told twice. In the linen room she experiments with blankets and other materials she finds until she is happy with the comfort level of having something wrapped around her head. Not too itchy, not too smelly. Twenty lengths are cut and stuffed throughout her clothing. It’s incredible to even be using scissors. In the hut, the women sometimes cut material by running a just-blown-out match along it.

That night, a Sunday when they have only had a half day of work, Cilka distributes the blindfolds, and the women start to settle in their beds, the hut still lit up by daylight. The sound of voices talking outside is heard. They wait for the men to arrive but the door stays closed. The voices continue. Several women get out of bed and cautiously poke their heads outside. Elena opens the door and the voices grow louder.

“What’s going on?” Cilka calls out.

“There are people just walking around and talking; it’s like a party out there!”

They all jump out of bed and rush to the door and windows. Everyone fights to get a look. Slowly, they all venture out.

“What’s happening?” Elena asks a group of women walking past, chatting away.

“Nothing. What do you mean?”

“Why are you outside in the middle of the night?” Elena asks.

“It’s not the middle of the night yet, and we’re outside because we can be. Is this your first summer?” one of the women asks.

“Yes,” Elena tells her. “Well, most of us arrived right at the end of the last one.”

“If you have the energy, you may as well enjoy being outside for a while without having someone standing over you forcing you to work.”

“I didn’t think it would be allowed.”

“Rubbish. You stay inside in winter because it’s too cold and too dark to come outside. I could read a book out here, if I had a book to read, so why not enjoy it? It won’t last for long.”

The women wander off.

“I thought…” Josie stammers.

“I guess this is something else our beloved Antonina Karpovna didn’t tell us,” says Elena. “Come on, let’s go for a walk and have a proper look at our prison.”

For the first time in a long while Cilka sees smiles on the faces of some of the women. Despite their exhaustion from the work week, they walk, several arm-in-arm, outside. Cilka supposes this will only happen on Sundays, when the half-day off allows them to be slightly less exhausted. The prisoners gaze at the sky; see the mountains of coal darkening the horizon. They breathe in the fresh air, their enemy in the winter when it sears their throats, burns their lungs. For the first time they see men milling around together in the central area where the men’s and women’s camps meet, not posing a threat to them. Some respond to their smiles with a girlish giggle. A sense of freedom comes over them.

“Come with me, Cilka. We have to find them,” an excited Josie squeals.

“Find who?”

Cilka is surprised by the first face that comes into her mind: the messenger she has seen on the odd occasion at the hospital, the brown-eyed man who had been polite when he accidentally ran into her. They haven’t spoken, though he has nodded hello a couple of times.

“Vadim and Boris. Let’s find them and walk with them. Won’t it be lovely to just walk and talk to them, get to know them, not just—”