Cilka's Journey(50)

Lying on their beds one night, with the sun still high in the sky, Cilka says to Josie, “Do you think this is to be my calling?”

“What do you mean?” Josie asks.

It is hard for Cilka to reveal her inner thoughts. She worries about what else might be opened up, might spill out of her. Josie looks at her expectantly. “Am I not to be a mother myself, but someone who helps others who can be?”

Josie bursts into tears.

“Oh, Cilka, I think I’m pregnant.”





CHAPTER 14


To the sounds of snoring, Cilka rolls out of her bed. She pulls the blanket off Josie and runs her hands gently over the swollen body hidden by layers of clothes. She pulls the blanket back under her friend’s chin.

“When did you suspect?” Cilka asks.

“I don’t know, a month ago? Who can keep track of time in this forgotten place?”

“Josie, I felt the baby kick. You are well along. Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

Josie’s body shudders as she sobs, biting down on the blanket.

“I’m afraid, Cilka, I’m afraid. Don’t yell at me.”

“Shhh, keep your voice down. I’m not the one yelling.”

“What am I going to do?” Cilka sees Josie glance at the bed that used to be Natalya’s. “You have to help me, Cilka.”

“You are going to have a baby and I will be there with you. We need to tell Antonina tomorrow. Surely it’s a risk for you to be working around sick people.”

“And the others?”

“They’ll work it out. Don’t worry, we will all help you.” Cilka tries to give Josie a look filled with warmth and hope. “You’re going to be a mumma!”

“What about Vadim? Do I tell him? What do you think he will say?”

“I’m surprised he hasn’t worked it out,” Cilka says. “Surely he felt you were getting bigger around your stomach.”

“He just told me I was getting fat. He’s such a stupid boy—it wouldn’t occur to him.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right, but you need to tell him. Next time he comes.”

“What if he—”

“Just tell him. We will worry about his reaction when we get it. You do know they are not going to let the two of you go off and live a happy family life somewhere, don’t you?”

“They might.”

“They won’t.”



* * *



The next morning after roll call Cilka approaches Antonina with Josie.

“She’s having a baby.”

“Is she now? I wonder how that happened,” Antonina says with disgust.

Cilka chooses to ignore the comment. Josie keeps her head down. Ashamed, humiliated.

“Five months, I’d say,” Cilka tells the brigadier.

“I’ll be the judge of that. Open your coat.”

Josie opens her coat, shivering against the wind and in fear of what she is being publicly subjected to. Rough hands press hard against her obvious baby bump. Feel all around her sides, pushing hard from top to bottom.

Josie cries out in pain. “Stop it, you’re hurting me.”

“Just making sure it’s not rags stuffed up there; wouldn’t be the first.”

Cilka pushes the brigadier’s hands away. “Enough. Satisfied?”

“Get off to work, you. As for the slut here, she can go too, there’s no reason she can’t continue in the soft job she has. I’ll have to tell Klavdiya Arsenyevna about this. She won’t be pleased.”

Cilka and Josie hurry toward the hospital buildings.

“I don’t mind working, it’s not as though it’s difficult and it is a distraction for me, during the day; the nights, however…”



* * *



That evening, Josie is made a fuss of by the women. They want to feel the baby in her belly; some lucky ones receive a kick for their efforts. “You’re carrying just like I did with my boys,” Olga says, her eyes smiling but with tears in them.

Someone remembers Natalya, the only other pregnancy in the hut, and the tragic ending that was.

Olga notices the effect talking about Natalya is having on Josie and quickly changes the subject. She suggests they all get involved in making clothes for Josie’s baby. She is immediately designated the designer; sheets are inspected to see who can afford to lose a foot or two, the embroiderers excited at having something meaningful to create for a new life.

Hannah is sitting at the back of the group, watching all the activity with a look of distaste.

“How do you all have the energy,” she says, “to delude yourselves?”

“Hannah,” Olga says sharply, “finding a little hope in the darkness is not a weakness.”

Hannah shakes her head. “Like a nice fur coat, ha, Cilka?”

The women look at Cilka. Her face burns and there is bile in her throat. She can’t think of any reply—an explanation or a retort. She coughs and clears her throat.

“Hannah’s right though,” Josie says, putting down the strip of sheet in her hand. “It’s silly to forget where we are.”

“I don’t think it is,” Olga says, determinedly unpicking some thread. “I think it helps us to go on.”