Three Sisters (The Tattooist of Auschwitz #3)(26)

So she tries again. Livi, feet numb from cold, can’t sense her toes as they’re crushed into the too-small shoes.

But the uppers are made from canvas, which, after a couple of journeys to and from Auschwitz, gives, at least enough to make the shoes slightly more comfortable. They have ribbed wooden soles, which become packed with snow on the long treks. The girls joke that Livi is getting taller. Livi responds that she is now the big sister. She knocks off the snow from her soles, and returns to her usual size. This twice-daily ritual provides a small oasis of amusement for the sisters.

*

Despite Cibi’s initial reservations, she and Livi grow bolder in the sorting rooms, smuggling extra clothes back to their block, holding on to just enough to provide a little extra warmth in these cold months and giving away the rest. Cibi hides jewels and money in her pockets, makes trips to the toilet pit where she drops them: she would rather they disappeared for good than the Nazis get their hands on them. They are only searched at the end of the day when they leave the Kanada.

The weather is ruthless, however, providing enough of a motivation to cancel out whatever loyalty exists between the women, and often Cibi and Livi return to their bunks to find their own clothing missing. There are no confrontations: everyone is desperate.

New arrivals continue to create tension: fights break out and old allegiances dismantle. The new girls need clothes if they’re to survive and the old-timers won’t share. The SS step up the selections during rollcall, singling out the weak and the sick for extermination. To Cibi and Livi, it feels as though they’re taking place every day, as more and more girls disappear.

Christmas heralds a new outbreak of typhus, hitting their block hard, and Cibi is struck down. Within days she is delirious with fever, but every girl knows that if she remains in the block when the workers leave for work in the morning, she won’t be there when they return.

For the next two weeks, Cibi is half carried to and from Auschwitz. At night, Rita turns a blind eye to Cibi shivering and sweating beneath a pile of donated clothes, as fever wracks her emaciated body. Livi holds her sister’s hand all night, while Cibi thrashes around their bunk. Cibi’s thirst is barely quenched by the sips of water the girls smuggle in. Sometimes she sees Magda’s face, hovering above her own, willing her to get better. At other times it is Magda who feeds her crumbs from the broken biscuits the girls have ‘liberated’ from the sorting rooms.

With an enormous effort, she gathers her strength each time they pass through the gates of Auschwitz or Birkenau, and Livi urges her, just as Cibi had done, to walk unaided past the watchful eyes of the SS. The bad weather often plays in their favour too, as the SS guards have no desire to hang around in the snow.

Cibi’s recovery is slow, but steady. She holds the delirious mirage of Magda in her mind, and that helps, but she makes no mention of her dreams to Livi. If Magda is in her head, her heart, that’s enough.

On Christmas Day the girls are given the day off, but a Christian Christmas means nothing to them. They have missed Hanukkah, have had to work long hours when they should have been lighting the menorah candles in the windows of their homes, reciting the prayers with their families. But for the German guards, the SS and the kapos, Christmas is a day for feasting and drinking, not exterminating.

Christian festival or not, the girls are glad to receive a Christmas present of hot soup with noodles, vegetables and meat. It is an absolute feast, and for Cibi, it is also the first meal she has been able to eat unassisted. She hopes the food will give her the strength to get up the next morning and return to work unaided.

That night, as the sisters curl up with their two other bunkmates, Cibi whispers, ‘Goodnight,’ to Livi.

‘Is that all you’re going to say?’ a perplexed Livi asks.

‘What else is there to say?’ Cibi closes her eyes.

‘Our prayers, Cibi. Our nightly prayers. Even when you were delirious you still prayed before you went to sleep.’

‘There will be no more praying, little sister. No one is listening to us.’

Livi hugs Cibi close and shuts her eyes. But, as exhausted as she is, sleep will not come. She thinks of their mother and what she would say if she knew Cibi had abandoned their faith. They hadn’t missed a single night of giving thanks for their family, their friends, the food they ate, and the homes that sheltered them. She thought of Magda. Cibi was so sure Magda was safely at home, but what if she was wrong? What if Magda was in another camp, just like this, but without the comfort of a sister?

*

The following day, Cibi and Livi, along with the rest of the white kerchief detail, are feeling re-energised as they march towards Auschwitz. It is incredible what extra food and a good night’s sleep does for their morale.

‘Do you know what Rita just asked me?’ says Livi. The girls are in the sorting rooms; Cibi has just returned from a bathroom visit.

‘I can’t imagine. What did Rita ask you?’ Cibi begins to sift through the jumpers and skirts and trousers.

‘She asked if I could machine type.’

‘And what did you say?’ Cibi lays down the clothes and meets Livi’s eyes.

‘Well, I said “no”, of course.’

‘Go and find her now, Livi. Tell her that I can type.’ There is a new urgency in Cibi’s voice.

‘I can’t, Cibi. You know I only speak to her when she asks me something.’