Cilka's Journey(63)
Anastasia looks shocked. “You don’t have to get angry with me. I just asked a question.”
“I’m not angry,” Cilka says. Though she knows she is acting as she has in the past. Some indignation rising up, cracking through the blank surface. “I need you to know your boundaries where I’m concerned. I’ll do all I can to help you, but you need to stay out of my business.”
“I’m sorry, okay? Sorry I said anything.” Anastasia moves away from her. “I just thought if you loved him back that would be really nice.”
Anastasia’s questions rattle Cilka. She knows Boris feels differ ently about her than she does him. She has never considered their arrangement to be anything more than her providing him with comfort and her body. A transaction. Love! She is fond of the women in her hut, and Yelena, Raisa and Lyuba. She cares for them, would do anything for them. When she tries to connect these emotions to Boris she definitely can’t. If he disappeared tomorrow would she miss him? No, she answers to herself. If he asked her to do something that could get her into trouble? Same answer. What he provides for her is safety from gang rape. She knows about being the property of powerful men and the protection it can provide, though she has also never had any choice in the matter. No, she cannot think of love.
“Hey, you, nurse.”
Cilka looks to her right, to where the voice came from, not sure if it is aimed at her.
“Enjoying your walk?”
Cilka freezes. Her hand instinctively pushes Anastasia away, not wanting her to be part of any danger she now feels is imminent. The thug who held a knife to her throat is only a few feet away, surrounded by his shadows, all smirking, some leering at the two girls. The thug pulls his knife from his pocket, waving it at Cilka.
“I’m going back to the hut,” she fires at Anastasia. “Go and find the others and meet me back there.”
“But—”
“Go, Anastasia, don’t ask questions.”
Slowly, Anastasia walks away, toward the rest of the women. The hut is the jurisdiction of Boris and the trusties who protect “their” women, so Cilka thinks they will be safe there.
“What do you want?” she asks, hoping to keep their eyes on her so the other women can get away.
“We just saw you and thought we’d say hello,” he smirks.
Cilka asks them more questions, hoping not to work them up but trying to stall them. She notices Vadim in the distance, watching.
“I am no threat to your … operations,” she says. And starts to walk away, the hairs rising on her neck when she turns her back to them. How easy it would be for the thug to lunge with the knife.
Collapsing on her bed back in the hut, Cilka looks at the bed beside hers, where Anastasia sleeps, the girl who moments ago was placed in danger because of Cilka, the girl who had asked Cilka about love. Still a girl, only sixteen, the age Cilka was when she entered the other place, she realizes. Was that why Cilka had been so upset? Had she been that na?ve at Anastasia’s age? Had she believed in possibilities like love? Yes, she had.
Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1944
Cilka watches as hundreds of naked women file past her. The snow is several inches thick on the ground and continuing to fall, whirling around in the wind. She pulls her coat collar over her mouth and nose, her hat all but covering her eyes. Women march past her to who knows where, their death the only certainty. She is transfixed and cannot move. It’s as if she must bear witness to the horror—she might survive this hell on earth and be the one who has to tell whoever will listen.
A handful of SS guards walk on either side of the rows of women. Other prisoners hurry on, turning away. It is too much to fathom, too much pain.
As the last guard passes Cilka, she sees the commandant from Auschwitz, Anton Taube, walking behind him, his whip smacking against his thigh. He is Schwarzhuber’s senior officer. She recognizes him. He sees her. Before she can turn and run he has grabbed her by the arm, forcing her to walk with him. She doesn’t dare speak or attempt to break free. Taube is the most hated and feared of all the senior officers, even more than Schwarzhuber. Already he has visited her in her room. Already he has let her know he too will come for her whenever it suits.
Out of the gates of Birkenau they march, into a nearby paddock off to the side of the road that separates Auschwitz from Birkenau.
The women are made to stand in a single line, pushed and shoved by guards until they stand shoulder to shoulder, shivering, freezing, weeping. Cilka stands beside Taube, looking at the ground in front of her.
“Walk with me,” Taube says to her.
They stop in front of the first woman. With the tip of his whip Taube lifts her breast. When he releases the whip, it sags down onto her chest. To the guard walking in front of him he indicates for the woman to be pushed back a step, out of line. Cilka watches as the next two woman, after their breasts also sag, join the first on a back row. The fourth woman stays in line, her breasts having bounced back into place.
He is choosing whether they will live or die depending on whether or not their breasts are firm.
Cilka has seen enough. She stumbles along beside Taube, not looking above ground level, refusing to notice whether the next woman has remained in line or taken a step back.
Turning away, she projectile vomits, splattering the pristine white of the snow with her morning coffee and bread.
Taube laughs.