Cilka's Journey(31)

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All too soon, the women wake to frost on the ground. The air is thick and wet in their throats. Cilka has now been here a year. Their scarves are put away, their hats and heavy coats retrieved from under their mattresses where they have spent the past two months.

Hannah does not yet seem to have decided on her “price” for keeping quiet. But she reminds Cilka frequently, with a look or a gesture, of what she knows. Cilka tries, most of the time, to block from her mind her fear of the women finding out.

The transition from autumn to winter is swift. Seasonal rain dampens the ground and the mood. The evening strolls in the camp end and the women struggle to adjust to only having their own company once again.

The rain becomes sleet, the sleet becomes snow. There is constant darkness.

The hut feels small and close with Hannah’s knowledge.





CHAPTER 9


A day for making plans. A day for thinking ahead. For most people, but not for Cilka.

For the first time today, she writes in a patient’s file:

January 1, 1947.

Patient making good progress, expected discharge tomorrow.

She hears the words spoken by the doctor, transcribes them, forces a smile as she looks at the man lying in the bed in front of her, his eyes full of tears.

“Please, just a little longer. Can I stay a little longer? Two, three more days. I am still weak.”

The doctor looks at the man without compassion. Turning to Cilka—“What do you think, Cilka? Shall we let this malingering piece of shit take up a bed some ailing fellow prisoner should have? Or kick his sorry arse out of here tomorrow?”

Cilka has learned the game some of the doctors like to play, involving her. Making her the person who determines whether or not a patient gets another twenty-four hours in a warm hospital bed with nourishing food. She has also learned which doctors might agree to her suggestion that a patient may have a day longer, and which will do the opposite.

This doctor often agrees with whatever Cilka says. She carefully grants days to the sick and infirm that she never could in her old life. Though in all of these places, it is always one person for another. One person’s comfort, one person’s food. Nothing is fair.

“It is the first day of a new year. Perhaps in the spirit of this”—she glances at the file in her hands—“Georgii Yaroslavovich would benefit from an extra day with us. Shall I amend his file to say discharge in two days?”

“Amend.” The doctor walks away.

Cilka glances up at the poster on the wall above the bed. A smiling worker in a sunny field. Liberation through honest toil.

She amends the file.

“Thank you, Cilka Klein, thank you, thank you. You are an angel sent from heaven.”

Cilka winks at him. This time her smile is genuine, “It’s all right, Georgii Yaroslavovich, you know I’ll take care of you.”

As she walks back to the desk to drop off Georgii’s file and collect another, Yelena is waiting, having watched the game play out.

“Cilka, I have some good news for you.”

The smile returns to Cilka’s face. She’s almost too scared to ask what. She waits.

“I’ve spoken to the head of the hospital and convinced him you now qualify to be called a nurse.”

“Really? That’s wonderful, thank you so much,” Cilka says. But she feels numb. Her position makes a marginal difference to her hut-mates’ lives, but still she wishes she could do more. Behind Yelena, outside the frosted window, there is howling darkness. “I don’t know what else to say.”

“You don’t have to thank me. You did the hard work—you’ve earned the right to be recognized for it.”

There is a churning deep down inside her. Something like shame. Would Yelena feel differently if she knew everything about Cilka’s past?

“I won’t let you down,” Cilka says.

“I know you won’t. And, Cilka, one more thing.” She hands a note to Cilka. “Give this to Antonina Karpovna tonight. It is my request for Josie to start work here tomorrow as a clerical assistant. She will learn some of your old duties to free you up for nursing.”

Taking the note with a shaking hand, Cilka turns away to compose herself. Finally. She has been agitating for this to happen for as long as she has been in the hospital. She stuffs the note in the pocket of her hospital apron. With a nod of thanks she picks up another file and walks briskly, with purpose, to another patient.

For the first time in a long while Cilka arrives back at her hut before the others. She paces the small room, her nose still aching from the cold of the walk, waiting for Josie, for Antonina, to share her news. It is, not the news that she is to be called a nurse that excites her so; it is that Josie will no longer be working outdoors but in the comfort and warmth of the hospital. She knows it comes from a selfish place—she wants to be closer, physically, to Josie. So she can watch over her.

The women enter the hut in a state of fear and panic. Cilka’s first thought is of Hannah, what she knows—or thinks she knows. Has she told the women and are they going to attack her? But then she realizes it is something else entirely. One of the women is sobbing and groaning at the same time. She is being supported by two others, each holding her up by one arm as the woman doubles over in pain. The others are in a fluster, issuing instructions on what to do with no one listening, no one taking control.