Three Sisters (The Tattooist of Auschwitz #3)(60)

‘My baby!’ Chaya wails, as Yitzchak catches her once more, her legs threatening to give way. But they can’t stop, the line is moving.

Cibi and Livi walk alongside them, their eyes locked onto their mother.

Chaya is trying to say something, but her words are strangled, unintelligible.

‘Magda!’ shouts Yitzchak. ‘Is Magda with you?’

‘Yes! She’s here. She’s fine,’ Cibi calls back.

Cibi watches Yitzchak lift Chaya’s hand to his mouth and kiss her fingers. He is saying something to Chaya: his lips are moving but the sisters can’t hear him. The old man is smiling. Smiling and nodding.

‘You are all together, my child,’ he says. The line of prisoners is turning away now, her mother is disappearing into the nameless crowd.

‘Mumma, Grandfather,’ pleads Cibi. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’

‘Look after your sisters, my darling.’ Her mother’s final words.

‘Mumma,’ Livi whimpers.

For the first time since leaving her home almost three years ago Cibi collapses. She sits on the ground, sobbing. In a few minutes it will all be over: her mother will be a corpse, she will never see Grandfather again. She hangs on to the fence, shaking it, shaking it, willing them to turn round and come back.

Livi kneels beside her, peeling her fingers from the fence.

‘They’re gone, Livi,’ she says, rubbing her face.

‘I know, I know,’ Livi whispers, kneeling and hugging her sister. The girls are crying hard now, beyond the comfort of each other’s arms.

‘Girls, you can’t stay here, it’s not safe.’ A male prisoner hovers over them, looking around anxiously. ‘Come on. You need to get up and go back to your block or wherever you should be.’

Their arms around one another, the sisters head back to the post office in silence.

‘You need to go back to work, Livi,’ says Cibi, at the door. ‘Don’t give them any reason to come looking for you. I’ll tell Magda about .?.?.’ The words catch in her throat, but Livi understands. She kisses her sister hard on both cheeks and turns to leave.

*

Magda is unaware of the horrors of the killing chambers, has not yet witnessed the piles of bodies wheeled through the streets towards the crematoria; all she knows is that her mother and grandfather are dead, and that she will never see them again. She buries her face in her hands and sits down to cry.

*

Before the day is over, a friend who works in the Kanada next to the crematoria, enters the post office and asks Cibi to step outside.

‘I think this belongs to you,’ she says, handing over a plain brown handbag. Cibi takes it, immediately recognising it as her mother’s. She smells it, holds it to her chest and closes her eyes. ‘How did you know?’ she whispers.

‘There’s a photo inside of your sister. And .?.?. and a wedding ring.’

Cibi flicks the clasp and opens the bag. The photo shows Livi at thirteen years old, smiling happy. And then she finds the ring. Slipping it onto her finger she wonders why her mother ever took it off. She’ll never know. She places the items back in the handbag and snaps the clasp shut.

*

Cibi is back at the fence the next day, watching the new arrivals endure the selection. She feels empty inside, depleted. As the officers attempt to corral the prisoners into lines, Cibi has the sudden urge to hammer on the fence and scream at them to run, that they are headed for the gas chamber to die. Turn on your captors! she wants to yell. Do something!

But she is not brave enough, and she has to stay alive herself, for her sisters.

But the prisoners are not being killed today; instead, they are being marched towards the Hungarian camp. Why?

But Cibi has seen enough. She doesn’t understand what’s going on, why a selection hasn’t taken place and it’s a waste of her time trying to figure it out. Turning away, she hears a man’s voice from the crowd calling her name. For a moment she feels disorientated, as though her grandfather has somehow survived and is now amongst this new group of arrivals.

She peers into the sea of figures until she alights on a group of very familiar faces. No, it can’t be, but it is.

Uncle Ivan and Aunt Helena and their children.

Cibi’s heart is racing, her emotions churning. She is overjoyed to see them, heartbroken they are here. Will she have to watch them too, being driven towards the gas chamber one day?

Her aunt and uncle have moved on but, for now, they are safe.

Cibi returns to the platform the next day and the next, observing that all the new arrivals are now being housed in the Hungarian camp, that no one is being exterminated. Are the gas chambers broken? she wonders. But what crushes Cibi and her sisters is the idea that their mother was murdered the day before these killing machines fell silent.

Every night now, Cibi lies awake, mulling over this cruel idea. Nothing Magda or Livi say brings her any comfort.

On Sunday, the three sisters make their way to the Hungarian camp, where they wait for Uncle Ivan to appear. When he does, the girls call and wave until he sees them. Cibi is glad he is on his own – this will be hard enough even without the presence of the children and her aunt.

‘My girls,’ he says in tears. ‘I hoped never to see you in here.’

‘We hoped the same, Uncle,’ says Magda. She finds she can’t look at her him, can’t begin to tell him the news he is waiting to hear. She glances at Cibi. You do it, her eyes tell her, and Cibi understands.