Three Sisters (The Tattooist of Auschwitz #3)(16)

‘Your number is only one ahead of mine,’ Livi says. She wipes away the dried blood so Cibi can see the butchered number: 4559.

When all the girls from Vranov have returned to their room their kapo enters, accompanied by four emaciated men struggling to carry two cauldrons, a crate of small metal mugs and another containing bread.

‘Form two lines and come and get your food. You haven’t done anything today so you will only have half a cup of soup and one piece of bread. Anyone who pushes or complains will get nothing,’ the kapo roars.

Taking their mugs and bread back to their mattress, the girls compare the contents of their ‘soup’.

‘I have a piece of potato,’ Cibi says. ‘Do you?’

Livi stirs the weak, brown liquid, shaking her head. Cibi pulls the potato out of her mug, and takes a small bite. She plops the rest into Livi’s mug. They spend the remaining time before lights out picking the fleas from each other’s necks and ears. The old-timers return after dark. On their way to bed they smile at the new girls, and shake their heads in sympathy.

*

Another 4 a.m. wake-up call. ‘Raus! Raus!’ is screamed into the room, accompanied by the hammering of a baton on the walls. After a visit to the bathroom to wash away as many fleas and bedbugs as they can, Cibi and Livi receive their first breakfast in Auschwitz: a ration of bread the size of their palms, and a drink of lukewarm liquid they were told was coffee, but which bears no resemblance to any coffee they have tasted before.

‘Soup and bread for dinner, coffee and bread for breakfast,’ Livi mutters, forcing the coffee down her throat.

‘Remember what I said when we arrived – we will eat stones and nails, whatever we are given,’ Cibi replies.

‘We should have kept the linden tea,’ Livi tells Cibi, as if they had had a choice in the matter; as if they should have asked the guards to wait a moment until they had removed the precious leaves from their suitcases before leaving them behind in the cattle wagon.

Outside, a flurry of snow attempts to carpet the road on which the girls now stand in rows of five. Livi and Cibi shiver, their teeth chattering.

Cibi reaches for Livi’s hand in an attempt to comfort her. She feels the soft touch of fabric and carefully pries apart Livi’s fingers. ‘How have you got this, Livi?’ she whispers.

‘Got what?’ Livi is holding a small pouch containing a sacred coin their mother had sewn into both girls’ vests on the night of their departure.

‘Where did this come from?’ Livi asks, oblivious to the fact it is in her hand.

‘You tell me. How have you held on to it?’

‘I-I don’t know.’ Livi doesn’t take her eyes off the coin. ‘I didn’t know I had it.’

‘Listen to me.’ Cibi’s voice is harsh, and Livi startles. ‘When we start moving, you have to drop it. Just let it go. We can’t be caught with it.’

‘But it’s from Mother; she gave it to us to keep us safe. The rabbi blessed it.’

‘This coin will not keep us safe, it will only get us into trouble. Will you do as I say?’ Cibi insists. Livi hangs her head and nods. ‘Now, hold my hand and when I let go, that’s when you drop it.’

For two hours the girls stand in line as their numbers are called out. Cibi realises that the numbers are the ones etched into their swollen arms. She pulls up her sleeve to memorise hers and instructs Livi to do the same. This is their identity now.

Finally, their numbers are called. Once they have been assigned to their work details, Cibi and Livi march out of the gates, past the station, towards the town of Oswiecim. Outside the camp, empty fields surround them; in the distance, smoke billows from small farmhouses, and unseen horses neigh their presence. The SS stride up and down the rows, those with dogs encourage them to bark and snap at the girls.

Cibi slows down until the girls behind catch them up. Glancing around to make sure none of the guards are nearby, Cibi gently lets go of Livi’s hand. She hears the soft thud of the pouch as it hits the muddy slurry on the ground. She takes hold of Livi’s hand once more, squeezing gently, to communicate the message that they have done the right thing.

They enter a street of houses without roofs, some without walls. Mounds of rubble line the empty road. The old-timers move towards the brick ruins; others clamber up onto the rooftops and begin to throw down bricks and tiles. Those on the ground weave and duck to avoid the falling missiles, not always succeeding.

‘You two!’

Cibi looks around to see their kapo staring at her and her sister.

‘Come here!’ she instructs, and the girls hasten towards her.

‘See that?’ She is pointing to a four-wheel cart a hundred metres away. There are a couple of girls strapped to the front of the wagon in a harness, dragging it along. As though they are horses, Livi thinks. ‘They will show you what to do.’

The girls hurry away to once again come face to face with the blank eyes of prisoners who have been here far longer than they have.

‘You’re on the back,’ one girl says.

Livi and Cibi move to the back of the cart and await further instruction.

The girls at the front begin pulling the cart towards a newly demolished house, where bricks are piled in long rows near its foundations. Several girls stand by, waiting. Livi and Cibi start pushing.

When they reach the rubble, the girls start to load the bricks into the cart.