Cilka's Journey(46)

“Mumma!” she screams.

Cilka pushes herself into the trio, grasping the woman in the middle.

“My baby, my beautiful diev?a!” the woman cries.

The other women are too distraught, blank-eyed, to pay much attention to the reunion.

Cilka helps her mother into her own room, and onto the bed. For a long time they sit there, holding each other, not saying a word.

The clanging of pans and shouts rouses Cilka. The evening rations have arrived. Gently removing her arms from around her mother, Cilka goes to meet those bringing in urns of watery coffee and small rations of stale bread.

She tells the women around her to come and get some food. She knows from experience that those who have the strength will. The others are too far gone.

Back in her room, she places her mother’s portion on the floor as she attempts to prop her up against the wall. When this fails, she places a small piece of bread on her lips, encouraging her to open her mouth. Her mother turns her head away.

“You have it, my darling. You need it more than I do.”

“No, Mumma, I can get more,” Cilka says. “Please, you have to get your strength back, you need to eat.”

“Your hair…” her mother says. It was still there, tucked behind her ears, falling over her shoulders. She reaches up and runs her fingers through it, like she did when Cilka was a child.

Cilka brings the food up to her mother’s mouth and she opens it and allows Cilka to feed her. Pulling herself up, she drinks the foul-tasting liquid Cilka holds to her lips.

Cilka settles her mother on the bed.

“I’ll be right back, just stay here and rest.”

“Where are you going? Don’t leave me.”

“Please, Mumma, I won’t be long, I have to find someone…”

“Nobody can help us, please stay with me. We have so little time.”

“That’s why I have to go and see someone, so we can have more time. I won’t let them take you.”

Cilka reaches the door.

“Cilka, no.” The voice is unexpectedly firm.

Cilka returns to sit on the bed, cradling her mother’s head in her arms. “There is someone who can help us, someone who can have you put into another block where you can get better and we can see each other, be with each other. Please, Mumma, let me go and speak to him.”

“No, my darling daughter. Stay with me, here and now. There are no certainties in this place. Let us have this night together. I know what awaits me in the morning. I am not afraid.”

“I can’t let them take you, Mumma. You and Magda are all I have.”

“My darling Magda! She’s alive?”

“She is, Mumma.”

“Oh … thank Hashem. You must look after each other, as best you can.”

“And you, Mumma, I must look after you.”

Cilka’s mother struggles to free herself from her child’s arms. “Look at me, look at me. I am sick, I am dying. You can’t stop that.”

Cilka runs her hands over her mother’s face, kisses her shaven head. Their tears mingle and fall together onto the bed.

“What about Papa, Mumma—was he with you?”

“Oh, my darling, we were separated. He was in a bad way…”

Overwhelming waves of sadness and hopelessness threaten to drown Cilka. “No. No, Mumma.”

“Lie here with me,” her mother says gently, “and in the morning kiss me goodbye. I will watch over you.”

“I can’t. I can’t let you go,” Cilka sobs.

“You must, it’s not your decision to make.”

“Hold me. Hold me, Mumma.”

Cilka’s mother embraces her daughter with all her might, pulling her down onto the bed. The two become one.

“One day, if Hashem is willing,” her mother says, stroking Cilka’s face, “you will know a child’s love. You will know what I feel for you.”

Cilka buries her face in her mother’s neck.

“I love you, Mumma.”



* * *



The sun has barely risen when Cilka, her mother and the others in Block 25 are roused by the screaming SS and barking dogs.

“Out, out, everybody out.”

Cilka’s head rests on her mother’s shoulder as they slowly leave the room and join the others heading outside to the waiting trucks.

Swagger sticks are being wielded at those too slow or in any way resisting the final few steps onto the trucks. Cilka pauses. A stick is raised in her mother’s direction by a nearby guard.

“Don’t you dare,” she hisses at him.

The baton is lowered as Cilka’s mother takes the final few steps, Cilka still clinging to her arm.

“Mumma, no, don’t get on the truck!”

The guards watch as Cilka’s mother frees herself from her daughter, kisses her on both cheeks, on the lips and runs her fingers through her hair. One last time. She then accepts the hands reaching down from the truck to help pull her up. Cilka can still feel her mother’s lips on her face. She sinks to the ground as the truck starts up and drives away. A guard extends his hand to Cilka and she smacks him away. The truck drives on.





CHAPTER 13


“You, what’s-your-name.”