Three Sisters (The Tattooist of Auschwitz #3)(70)

Cibi sees a small lake at the edge of the field they are crossing, bordered by tall trees. ‘Let’s go and sit by the water for a while,’ she suggests.

They walk slowly through the grass and drop to the ground, finding patches of shade in which to lie down and fall asleep.

When Livi wakes up it is to the sight of hundreds of butterflies tripping through the air. One dares to perch on her nose; she goes cross-eyed trying to focus on its delicate beauty.

‘Look at Livi,’ she hears Aria say. ‘Don’t move.’

The girls watch the butterflies land on Livi’s face, in her hair, on her arms.

‘It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,’ says Magda, choking back her sobs.

And then it’s time to go. They leave the butterflies to their fun and head for the road.

*

The hours on the road, the nights sleeping in fields, or stables, wherever they can find shelter, give Cibi and Livi too much time to think, and they hate it. Neither sister can banish the memories of life at Auschwitz and Birkenau, and they realise now that these episodes of brutality will be lodged in their minds for ever.

At night, Livi wakes up screaming, Cibi breathless and sweating. Magda tortures herself with the question, Would Mumma still be alive if we had stayed together? Maybe they should have all hidden in the forest, day after day, out of the clutches of the Hlinka. She says none of this to her sisters – she feels an overwhelming guilt for what they had to endure in her absence.

Eva is a comfort to them all, listening avidly to the tales of their childhood, when so much of this little girl’s was spent in the camps.

‘I can’t find any happy memories,’ Livi cries one morning, sleep deprived and rattled.

‘Then let me help you,’ Magda tells her. ‘Do you remember the doll Father gave us?’

Livi nods.

‘Cibi?’

‘I do. It was the most beautiful thing we ever owned,’ Cibi replied.

The women are walking once more across another field. The sun is high in the sky. There is no sign of life but their own.

‘And do you remember how, after he died, whenever we held the doll, Mumma would tell us stories about him?’

‘I don’t remember him at all,’ Livi says.

‘That’s OK, kitten, that’s what older sisters are for,’ Cibi says.

‘Kitten?’ muses Livi. ‘I haven’t heard that in while.’

Cibi realises she hasn’t called Livi ‘kitten’ in a long time and wonders if this is a good sign. A sign that they are becoming the girls they were before.

‘Well, you’re a kitten to me. A tiny thing I need to look after. You were such a small baby too, I think that’s where it comes from.’

‘I remember her crying a lot when she was a baby,’ Magda adds.

‘I did not!’ But Livi is smiling. ‘Tell us some more memories, Magda. Ones when we were all together.’

The girls walk and talk and, very gradually, Cibi and Livi feel their minds latch on to happier times and hold on.

*

‘Look, cows! Lots of cows,’ Livi yells. It is late afternoon. The sky is awash with pink streaks. The colour has returned to the women’s cheeks. The girls gaze at the black-and-white shapes in the distance, at the edge of some woodland.

‘There might be a farmhouse nearby,’ Aria says.

‘Or we could just kill a cow and cook it over a fire,’ Eliana adds. Everyone starts to laugh, tickled by the image of ten frail women chasing a cow around a field, with nothing to kill it with but their hands.

The group draws closer to the woods, to the wide path leading through the trees. They leave the open skies and head into the cool shade of oak, spruce and pine.

The path veers off to the right and the girls keep moving until they reach a paved courtyard on the outskirts of the forest, and set eyes on the large house which looms in its midst. A path skirts around the courtyard, joining a road beyond the woodland.

‘It’s a castle!’

‘It’s the biggest house I have ever seen!’

Livi hammers at the heavy wooden doors. But no one answers.

‘I don’t think there’s anyone home. Some of you go round the back and see what you find.’

Magda, Livi, Marta and Amelia run towards the back of the house. They return a minute later.

‘The house is open round the back,’ Magda tells them. ‘But, there’s another dead man in the yard.’

The group now gathers around this new dead body.

‘He must have lived here. Look at his clothes, they’re so fancy,’ Livi says.

‘Can we look for some food first?’ Eva cries, plaintively. ‘I’m starving.’

‘No,’ says Cibi, firmly. ‘We’re not animals, to fill our stomachs beside dead bodies. We have to bury him now.’

The girls hunt the outbuildings for shovels, spades, anything that will help them dig the hole as fast as possible. Cibi points to the immaculately manicured lawn beyond, in which a small fig tree blooms with new fruit. ‘That’s the perfect place for him,’ she says.

The girls take turns to dig. Magda finds a wheelbarrow and, together with Livi and two others, they load the body into it. But Livi won’t pull the barrow, the memory of moving Mala to the crematorium still painfully fresh in her mind.