Cilka's Journey(85)

She is startled awake. Several men in uniform storm into the ward, guards hurrying behind them.

“Who’s in charge?” one of them bellows.

Yelena approaches them. “I am.”

“I want to know the name of every zek in here. Get me the list.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t have a list. We’ve been too busy treating them, saving their lives, to ask them their names.”

Yelena receives a fierce slap to her face, sending her sprawling.

“I’ll be back in an hour and I want the name of every single person.”

Cilka crawls over the floor to get to Yelena as the uniforms leave the ward.

“Are you all right? The bastard. How dare he hit you!”

She helps Yelena to her feet.

“Didn’t see that coming,” Yelena says with a brave smile.

“How can I help?”

“Get paper and a pencil and get the names, please, Cilka.”

“But what if they’re unconscious?”

“Then make them up.”

The Vorkuta Uprising is over. Two weeks of a bloodless standoff ends with dozens dead, hundreds injured.

As Cilka obtains the names of the prisoners who are conscious and makes up names for those who aren’t, she is flooded with conflicting emotions. Talking quietly to the men who can answer her questions, she draws strength from their defiance and attempted resistance. Many of them are proud of the wounds they obtained while fighting for what they see as a just cause—better working and living conditions.

When looking at the severely wounded—many that she knows will probably not survive—she is racked by grief for their failed resistance; grief for the loss of Pavel; grief at the departure of her friends, Josie and Olga. She can only hope they are somewhere safe. Hope that the best efforts of the doctors and nursing staff will save some of these lives that hang in the balance. Hope that one day another uprising will lead to a better outcome and they can all go home.

She gets to the furthest beds and drops down when she sees a familiar face.

“Hannah!”

Hannah looks at Cilka through half-closed eyes.

The doctor nearby looks over. “Bullet wounds, Cilka,” he says, and gives her a sorrowful look.

Hannah croaks, “Help me, Cilka.”

There’s a lot of blood, but Cilka can see the wounds are in Hannah’s arm and chest.

“I’ll be back,” she says, and she runs to the dispensary. She returns with a rubber tourniquet and gauze. She lifts Hannah’s blood-covered arm, causing her to howl, and tightens the tourniquet. Then, with her left hand and the gauze bandages, she applies pressure to the chest wound. She is not sure how long ago Hannah was injured, but she can see why the doctor may have moved on to patients with a better chance of surviving.

Cilka pushes Hannah’s hair back from her forehead. She is covered in cold sweat.

The two women hold each other’s eyes. Despite everything, at this moment Cilka finds herself willing Hannah to live. She knows why she has become brutalized in this place, why she let addiction take hold. Now, lying before her, Cilka can see only her bravery, her humanity.

“Hannah…”

Hannah draws a pained breath over bloodied teeth. “I couldn’t stand by, Cilka, and let the men have all the fun.”

“You are so strong, Hannah,” Cilka says.

There are cries and moans all around them.

Hannah takes short, sharp breaths. She reaches out with her non-injured arm and grasps the front of Cilka’s apron.

“Cilka,” Hannah says, her voice choked with blood, “you are strong too.”

Tears well up in Cilka’s eyes. She takes Hannah’s hand from the front of her apron, curls her fingers around it. With her other hand she keeps the pressure on the chest wound. Trying, failing, to stop the bleeding.

Hannah squeezes her hand back.

“Just keep making sure”—Hannah says, gasping for air—“you do not let them break you.” She pushes these last words through her teeth, fiery and tough. “Please…” she says. “Say goodbye to Elena for me.”

“Hannah…” Cilka says, tears rushing now down her cheeks, her lips. “We need you.”

“I’m not afraid,” Hannah says, and closes her eyes.

Cilka sits with Hannah as her breaths come further and further apart, and then not at all. She cries for the loss of a person of such strength and integrity. Hannah may not have liked Cilka, or been able to understand what it had been like in that other place. But Cilka respected her. Everyone affected by war, captivity, or oppression reacts differently—and away from it, people might try to guess how they would act, or react, in the circumstances. But they do not really know.

Once she has composed herself, and washed the blood from her hands, she picks the list back up and completes her task.

She hands the list of names to Yelena.

“I hope this will do,” she says.

She needs to get back to the hut to break the news.

“Ah, hope, now that’s a word we must use more often here,” Yelena replies. She looks up from the list, at Cilka. She frowns. “Cilka, are you okay?”

Cilka nods. It is too much to explain right now. “I just have to get back to my hut.”

“You may go,” Yelena says.