Cilka's Journey(83)
“Do you know why she was here?” Cilka’s voice rises, eliciting a “shut up” from the darkness.
“How could I know why she was here when I don’t even know why you’re here?”
“She was Russian and she fell in love and tried to marry a man from Prague. That is against your laws. For that they were taken away; she ended up here and she has no idea what happened to him but she suspects he is dead.”
“What does that have to do with us?”
“I am from Czechoslovakia and you are Russian.”
“Things can change,” he says plaintively.
“Yes, they can, but right now this is our reality.”
Boris snuggles into Cilka, his passion gone, seeking comfort. Cilka tolerates it.
* * *
Boris’s affection, and his abuse, remain constant; the injured and sick remain constant; the friendships in the hut remain quietly expressed through the sharing of resources, through the consoling of one another over their conditions, their losses. Margarethe, Anastasia, Elena and Hannah remain, but Cilka does not feel as close to them as she had to Josie. Hannah reminds Cilka, whenever possible, that she could disrupt the peace of the hut, that she could reveal all. And Cilka still cannot face that. Cilka remains connected to Yelena, even if it remains mostly unsaid—expressed through looks and gestures across a patient’s bed, across the ward. And though she tries to deny the feeling to herself, Cilka looks out for Alexandr—a figure smoking, his eyes closed in momentary pleasure, near the administration building. In snow, through rain, in brief sun—his face turned up to the light. When she sees him, her heart leaps, but still she hurries on, thinking that to let in such longing can do no good.
All this continues as the seasons change—darkness to light, white nights to long dark winters. Cilka’s nightmares still often wake her: emaciated bodies, whistling doctors, the commandant’s black, shiny boots. She grasps for the good memories, but they are getting further and further away. She fantasizes about Josie and Natia’s life, about Lale and Gita’s. She imagines them safe and warm and holding each other. She endures.
CHAPTER 28
Vorkuta Gulag, Siberia, June 1953
Another white-night summer. The first few Sunday evenings of venturing out “after dark” lack the enthusiasm and enjoyment of summers past. Their eighth summer, eight years of their lives stolen.
There is an echo of restlessness throughout the camp. As summer reaches its peak, Cilka overhears talk on the ward of a strike. Men in one area of the camp are refusing to work. That evening she tells the others what she’s heard.
A level of excitement spreads through the hut at this rumor. Elena has heard nothing in the sewing room where she now has a job, thanks to Olga’s lessons. She and Cilka are entreated to find out all they can.
The next day, Cilka asks Raisa what she knows. In a hushed voice, Raisa tells her she has heard other workers have gone on strike.
Out on the ambulance that day, something Cilka still does along with ward duty, though not as often, she sees several dozen men sitting on the ground outside one of the administration buildings.
Kirill slows down to stare at the extraordinary sight of men sitting around during the day. Several guards stand nearby, watching.
“Well, that’s different,” Fyodor—the ambulance officer Cilka is now often paired with—comments.
“Haven’t you heard?” Cilka says. “They’re on strike. They’re refusing to work.”
“Maybe we should join them. I’ll turn the ambulance around,” Kirill says.
“Keep driving, it’s not as if it’s true hard labor you’re doing,” Cilka fires back.
“I love it when you’re feisty, Cilka Klein. I’m surprised you’re not one of the ringleaders running the strike.”
“How little you know me, Kirill.”
“Oh, I think I know you pretty well.”
“Excuse me, there’s three of us here,” Fyodor chimes in.
* * *
Back on the ward, the staff gossip is all about the growing strike and how the authorities will handle it. The options available to settle the dispute seem limited and likely to end in an increased workload at the hospital. Nobody knows if there is a specific aim to the unrest, or a new group of prisoners influencing the older ones, men still with the energy to protest the way they are treated.
That evening, Elena shares what she knows. The strikers want better living conditions, she says. The women look around their hut, which they have made into the best home they could. An old jug containing a few flowers sits on a nearby table, embroidered artwork is tacked to walls, and they each have a bed, something they know is a luxury.
“What else?” someone asks.
“They want the barbed wire removed from around the camp and they want us to remove the numbers from our uniforms; they say it is degrading.”
This last demand causes Cilka to rub her right hand over the coat sleeve of her left arm, thinking of the number permanently stamped onto her skin.
“Oh, and we should be allowed to write letters home to our families once a month.”
“Anything else?” Margarethe asks.
“I heard something about demands for political prisoners,” chimes in Anastasia, “but I didn’t take much notice.”