Cilka's Journey(87)
Anastasia’s lip wobbles. “Cilka, I will miss you so much, but Elena is right. We will try to see you on the white nights—like Josie, remember?”
Cilka stares at her gruel. Considering.
* * *
Cilka wades through knee-deep snow to the ward after roll call, and seeks out Yelena.
“Can we talk?”
“Of course, Cilka.”
“Can you please move me, now, today, into the nurses’ quarters? I can’t continue sleeping in the hut,” she blurts out.
“Are you hurt?” Yelena asks.
“Not yet, but I might be if I stay where I am. Please help me.”
Cilka still feels terrible about leaving her friends, but it is true that they are all now protected. Her being there won’t change a thing. They don’t need her for extra rations either, as most of them now have better jobs.
“Calm down. Of course we’ll help you. You will go to the nurses’ quarters with Lyuba when you have finished your shift this afternoon,” Yelena says. “Do you want to tell me what happened? I thought the women you live with care for you.”
“They do. It’s not them, it’s Boris.”
“The pig who forces himself on you.”
“Yes. He told me last night he is being released and that other men are lining up to take me.”
“That’s enough, Cilka. No one is taking you. No one will harm you ever again as long as I can help it.”
CHAPTER 30
Living in her new home, with a bed, a small chest of drawers, fresh clothing, makes Cilka’s daily life easier. It is access to a shower that breaks her, reducing her to a sobbing heap crumpled under the water, where Raisa finds her, cradles her, dries, dresses and puts her back to bed.
Each evening, Cilka returns to the barrack that she shares with twelve other nurses, and if she sees a bed unmade, it is soon made. The floor is swept, sometimes several times a day, the personal keepsakes and photos belonging to each nurse dusted and arranged on their drawers. Keeping busy in this way helps with the intense missing of her friends back in the hut and makes her feel she can contribute something to her new living companions.
She has been in Vorkuta for eight years. Eleven years have passed since she left her hometown of Bardejov, bound for Auschwitz, still an innocent child.
Her father, dear Papa, occupies much of her thoughts. Knowing her mother and sister have died has allowed her to grieve, remember them. She is tormented by not knowing if her father is alive or dead. Why can’t I feel his loss, mourn his death; why can’t I rejoice, knowing he is alive waiting for me to come home? Neither of these emotions rests with her. Only the unknown.
A week into her new situation, during a break, Yelena sits down with her. She tells her about a patient she treated a couple of days ago with a burn on her arm. When she asked the patient what happened, she was told it was self-inflicted. The patient identified herself as Elena and asked Yelena to pass on a message to Cilka.
Boris had come looking for Cilka, planning to take her away. When Elena told him Cilka had taken a turn for the worse and was back in hospital and not expected to live, Boris had flown into a terrifying rage and smashed up her empty bed. Elena wanted Cilka to know that the wood had kept them warm that night. Her message was a warning, however: Cilka must stay away from Hut 29. Other men had come looking for her, bad men …
Cilka is horrified that Elena had to do that to herself to get a message to her.
“Did she say any more? Are the women all right?”
“Yes,” Yelena said. “She said not to worry, they are all fine.”
“Am I really safe? Can they not find me here?” Cilka asks.
“You’re safe, none of those men would dare venture near the staff quarters. In all my years here, I’ve never seen anyone cause any trouble. We have our own protection.”
It starts to sink in for Cilka: even on the white nights, she may not ever be able to see her friends. She is safe. They are safe enough. But again, she is separated from those she has become close to. Is there to be no lasting relationship in Cilka’s life?
Not that they ever knew her completely.
“Can I ask how Petre Davitovich is?” Cilka asks, because at least she can know there is the possibility for others, in here, to have something lasting.
She will not let herself entertain the fantasy of the tall, brown-eyed Alexandr.
“Oh, he’s wonderful, he’s—” Yelena catches herself. “What do you know about Petre Davitovich and me?”
“Just what everyone else here knows, that you two see each other, and we are so happy for you.”
“Everyone knows?”
Cilka laughs. “Of course we do. What else do we have to gossip about in here?”
“Break’s finished. Come on, you, back to work.”
* * *
On her ambulance trips throughout that winter, Cilka notices that the number of prisoners working at the mine seems to be dwindling. Fyodor tells her there have been a lot of prisoners released in the past few weeks and not so many new ones coming in. They discuss what this means, and whether they might also be freed—they’ve heard of prisoners being released early. Cilka can barely let in the thought, the hope.
Soon it is spring; the days are lengthening. Cilka notices more flowers than usual. They poke their heads above the snow and ice, waving in the breeze. Cilka’s steady routine, the time passing, and the freshness of spring bring her a level of relative calm, despite the deep ache she still feels for her losses and how much she misses her friends. And her secret longing. The ache is as much a part of her daily life as the harsh elements, hard bread, and the call of “Ambulance going out!”