Cilka's Journey(88)
One day they stop outside a cluster of buildings that include food storage and laundry supplies. They are met and waved into a section Cilka hasn’t been in before but quickly identifies as the sewing room. Long tables with barely room between them for someone to sit in front of the machine.
Cilka looks around and sees a hand waving at her and Kirill and Fyodor.
“Over here.”
Cilka walks over and jumps at a gentle tap on her shoulder. “Hello, stranger,” a beaming Elena says.
“Elena!” The two women hug. Cilka doesn’t give Elena a chance to answer any of her questions, firing one after another. “How is Anastasia? How is Margarethe?”
“Slow down, let me look at you.”
“But—”
“Anastasia is fine, Margarethe is well. Everyone misses you so much but we know you can only be safe away from us. You look well.”
“I miss you all so much. I wish—”
“Cilka, we have a patient here, will you take a look at him?”
Cilka registers Fyodor and Kirill attending to the man lying on the floor, groaning, clutching his chest.
“What’s wrong with him?” she says, walking over but holding on to Elena’s hand, to bring her with her, to spend as much time with her as possible.
“Chest pains,” Fyodor replies.
Cilka crouches down, Elena with her, and introduces herself to the patient and asks some general questions. His answers indicate there is nothing she can do but get him to the hospital as quickly as possible for the doctors to assess.
“Load him up,” she tells the men. She lingers over a last hug from Elena, then follows the stretcher outside, jumping into the back of the ambulance. She glances one more time at her friend before giving the patient her full attention. She again asks the questions she knows the doctors will want her to answer on arrival.
On her way back to her living quarters that afternoon she stops and picks as many flowers as she can carry. Placed in pots, jugs and someone’s mug, they greet the other nurses as they return.
* * *
The white nights are back. Cilka and the nurses take their evening walks outside. Occasionally, Cilka thinks about risking a visit to the general compound to see her friends, to wander between the huts, share in the laughter that only comes at this time of year. And could she, finally, find the words? Something within her still closes over at the thought. She knows that she would be recognized by some of the men and boys, that she is still not safe, and so she stays away. She does not see Alexandr on those evenings—perhaps their shifts are out of sync—but she often glances to the administration building anyway, just in case.
She is almost grateful when the winds return, the sun goes down and her temptations are no longer a threat. But then winter arrives with a vengeance. With the new concessions gained at the expense of dozens of lives in the fateful uprising a year ago, work grinds to a halt on many days as prisoners are no longer expected to work in the bitter cold, with temperatures well below freezing, and constant darkness. Many days, the prisoners cannot leave their huts—the snow piled so high throughout the camp that even walking to the mess for meals is not possible. The road between the camp and the mine is blocked, making it difficult for either trucks or the train to collect the coal needed throughout the Soviet Union.
Futile attempts are made by prisoners to shovel snow away from their huts and create a path to the mess. Some succeed, but many give up as more snow arrives faster than they can clear it.
Paths are created between the medical and nursing staff quarters and the hospital.
The injuries presenting for Cilka and the others to treat now often arise from brutal beatings as bored men and women forced to stay indoors for days on end release whatever energy they have in physical violence. Cilka hears of, and sees, some beatings that are so severe the loser doesn’t survive. Like caged animals with nothing to live for, the prisoners turn on each other. Cilka’s gently flowering optimism starts to shrink back down inside her. This is always, she thinks, the way people will treat each other.
Poor sanitation, as the prisoners become reluctant to venture outside for the most basic of human bodily functions, leads to illness and this also fills the ward. The doctors often lament that they are wasting their time treating patients who will return all too soon with the same symptoms, the same ailments. And then the weather lifts and the temperature rises the few degrees needed for the prisoners to be sent back outside, to work.
* * *
“Ambulance going out,” Fyodor shouts.
“Coming,” Cilka replies, grabbing her coat and the new, softer scarf Raisa gave her recently.
“Where are we going?” Cilka asks as the ambulance turns away from the front gates.
“Not far, just to the other side of the administration building,” Kirill tells her.
“Another heart attack. One of the commandants doing it with someone he shouldn’t have?” Cilka jokes.
Fyodor and Kirill stare at her, taken aback.
Several men stand around, blocking their view of the patient. As Cilka walks toward them she notices a piece of timber lying nearby, covered in blood.
“Get out of the way,” Kirill calls.
They step aside and Cilka sees a man lying on the ground, not moving, the blood draining from him turning the white snow all around him an ugly shade of red. As Fyodor and Kirill advance toward the man, Cilka freezes, fixated on the blood-stained snow.