Three Sisters (The Tattooist of Auschwitz #3)(49)

‘Well, they are. I’ve been on the wards and they are all in bed – some of them are definitely receiving treatment.’

Cibi nods, acknowledging she won’t get anything more out of Volkenrath. Maybe it’s better not to know. Maybe it’s better they’re in the hospital: most of the children arriving in Birkenau these days are sent to the gas chamber immediately.

‘Can I tell you something?’ Volkenrath moves closer and Cibi’s skin crawls.

‘Heinz and I want to have a baby,’ begins Volkenrath, in a low voice. ‘That’s why he’s always here. I cuddled some of the younger ones next door, and there was this one little girl – she can’t have been Jewish, she had beautiful blonde hair – do you know what she asked me?’

Cibi shakes her head slowly.

‘She asked me if I had an egg. She wanted to eat an egg. That’s strange, isn’t it?’ Volkenrath’s voice is wistful and Cibi finds this intimacy disturbing.

A few days later Cibi unpacks a box of food and finds a hardboiled egg. She thinks of the girl who wanted an egg and takes it into Volkenrath’s office. ‘Look what I found,’ she says.

Volkenrath doesn’t look up. ‘What?’

‘It’s a hardboiled egg. You said there was a little girl .?.?.’

Volkenrath is out of her chair in seconds, holding out her hand for the egg. ‘Thank you, I’ll take it to her straight away.’

A short while later, Volkenrath storms back into the post office and heads straight for her room, slamming the door behind her.

The girls glance nervously at one another. Cibi takes a deep breath and decides to find out what has happened. She opens the office door very slowly and peers inside. Volkenrath is sobbing, her head on the desk.

Cibi enters the room and pulls the door closed behind her. ‘Are you OK?’ she asks hesitantly.

The officer sniffs loudly and looks at Cibi. Her blue eyes are red and her cheeks bright pink. Strands of blonde hair have escaped their braid and stick to her face in damp clumps.

‘No,’ she says. ‘I’m not OK.’

‘Was she not there?’ Cibi asks with genuine compassion.

‘She was there. I found her and handed her the egg.’

‘So that’s good. Isn’t it?’

‘She started screaming and wouldn’t take the egg. Then she ran away and hid behind one of the nurses. She wouldn’t even look at me.’ Volkenrath begins to cry again.

‘Oh .?.?.’ Cibi feels somehow responsible and suddenly very anxious. ‘I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have given it to you.’

‘It’s not your fault. Now leave me alone.’ The officer turns away from Cibi, wiping her eyes with her fingers.

Cibi shuts the door behind her and turns to face her watchful co-workers, all of them waiting for an explanation. ‘You know she wants a baby. I think she gets upset when she sees the little ones,’ Cibi offers.

She waits all morning for her punishment, but none comes. Volkenrath appears a little later, her usual grim smile back on her face.

‘Have you heard?’ Rosie whispers, later that same day. The girls in the post office mostly work in silence, opening boxes, sorting contents, setting aside items of value. Cibi can lose herself in these tasks; she can almost forget where she is at times.

‘Heard what?’ Cibi says, distracted.

‘About Mala, the interpreter.’

‘What about her?’ another girl asks.

‘She’s escaped!’ Rosie is gleeful. She has Cibi’s full attention now. ‘She and her boyfriend Edek have escaped together – they’ve been gone for days. How exciting is that?’

‘You’re sure?’ Cibi is trying to make sense of the word ‘escape’. To flee this place, to live without fences, without beatings, without the guards. She doesn’t often let herself think of her life before Birkenau. The camp has expanded to stifle her memories of a different time, and she rarely imagines life after the camp.

‘The Nazis are going crazy,’ Rosie informs them. ‘One of the girls who works in the administration block told me they’re all blaming each other to save themselves.’

‘I hope she makes it,’ Cibi says, quietly. ‘I hope she makes it and can tell the world what’s going on in here.’ She dares to allow a small flicker of hope to ignite.

The girls are animated that night. Cibi and Livi, their hunger and fatigue forgotten for a moment, engage in the joyful speculation about Mala’s escape. Mala, the talented translator from Belgium who had been assigned ‘protected prisoner’ status by the Nazis. The girls guess she must have used her freedom from the constraints the rest of them have to endure to somehow get away. She is a hero to every prisoner, and stories of her bravery escalate as the weeks pass. They hang on to the fantasy that they will be saved once Mala has revealed the truth of their situation.

But the weeks become months and there is no Allied rescue. The transports from Hungary arrive each day, the gas chambers and the crematoria function morning and night. No one mentions Mala’s name anymore.

One September evening, after everyone has returned from their various work details, they are instructed by the SS officers to gather in the assembly yard. Organised into long, semicircular rows, they form a horseshoe shape around a central clearing in which something, obviously, is about to happen.