Three Sisters (The Tattooist of Auschwitz #3)(71)

Magda, once again, opens her mouth to recite the Kaddish.

‘But what if he’s not Jewish?’ Marta says.

‘I don’t think it matters anymore what your religion is, not when you’re dead,’ she replies. ‘These are words of comfort, whether you believe in a God or not.’

With heads bowed, the Kaddish is spoken over the grave of an unknown man, by everyone but Cibi.

*

The group gathers at the back door of the house, Cibi holding them there for a moment, while she gathers her resolve.

‘There could be a hundred people hiding in there.’ Marta cannot shake off her fear, and she and Amelia huddle together, visibly shaking.

‘Two hundred,’ says Amelia. She found her cousin on the march and she isn’t about to lose her now.

‘We need food,’ says Livi.

‘We’ll go inside and look around,’ Cibi decides. ‘But I’m pretty sure if there were two hundred people in there they would have heard us by now.’ She can feel its isolation, its neglect.

She leads the way into a kitchen the size of her house in Vranov. She was right – people have left in a hurry: there are still dishes in the sink, bread only recently gone stale on the long table in the centre of the room. The girls perform their routine of opening cupboards, rifling through drawers. Magda finds a small cache of preserved fruit and vegetables, a few cans of fish and processed meat. And then Marta and Amelia find the prize: a large walk-in pantry, with jars upon jars of food on the shelves. They cry in relief.

The girls gather at the kitchen door which will lead them into the rest of the house.

‘We stay together,’ says Cibi.

They walk, open-mouthed, through the luxurious rooms. Living rooms and libraries, studies and boot rooms. Livi opens one door to find a lift, but no one is prepared to try it, instead they ascend the staircase by foot. There are just too many bedrooms, thinks Cibi. How many people live in this house? The beds are draped with opulent silks, while thick wool rugs cover the polished parquet boards. Gold taps adorn the elegant bathrooms and the girls leave muddy boot prints all over the pale marble floors. They enter walk-in wardrobes, the walls lined with shelves housing soft jumpers, shirts. Shimmering dresses dangle from tasselled hangers. In the chests of drawers they find underwear, which the girls model against their own bodies, giggling, before carefully replacing them.

And then they find the mirror. Standing in front of the ornate frame above the fireplace in the master bedroom, the ten girls pause to absorb what has become of them. Livi and Cibi barely recognise themselves. The Polish cousins begin to weep, and Eva buries her face in Magda’s arms.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ whispers Cibi, and in silence the girls go back downstairs.

They make for the dining room, pausing to run their hands along the surface of the long table, around which are arranged twenty elaborately upholstered chairs. The sideboards reveal an impossible array of glassware, whose drawers contain fine silver cutlery. At the far end of the room the French windows open out onto a small courtyard with a beautiful lawn extending into the formal gardens.

‘I haven’t sat in a room at a table for so long,’ Eliana says, quietly. Nine heads nod up and down. No one makes a move to pull out a chair.

‘I don’t want to sit in here,’ says Cibi. ‘It feels all wrong. But I don’t think the owners of this wonderful home would mind if we borrowed their table and chairs.’

‘Where are the owners?’ asks Magda.

‘Gone,’ replies Cibi. ‘However gorgeous this house is, there’s a lot of dust.’ Now the girls peer at the sideboards, the surface of the table, the parquet floors. Cibi is right, whoever lived here has been away for a while.

Cibi moves to the French windows. ‘Let’s take it all outside.’

The girls pull away the chairs and position themselves at either end of the table and heave it through the doors and onto the grass. They return for the chairs and then for the food. Livi and the two Slovakian girls disappear into the vegetable garden beyond the lawn and return with carrots, lettuces. Livi wipes the blade of her little knife before she pockets it.

Just as they are laying their produce on the table, a figure rounds the corner of the house and stands before them on the lawn. He is dressed in rough cotton trousers, a thick shirt. ‘Who are you?’ he barks.

At once the group gathers around Cibi, instantly on their guard.

Livi closes her hand around her knife; he isn’t so big and there are ten of them.

Cibi once more finds herself stepping forward, clearing her throat. ‘We were prisoners of Auschwitz,’ she tells him, firmly. ‘And now we’ve escaped.’

The man doesn’t speak for a long time. He looks at the girls, who are suddenly self-conscious in the rags hanging from their emaciated bodies.

His voice breaks as he utters the words: ‘Help me round up my cows and it would be my honour to give you some warm milk and fresh cheese.’

‘Do you know where the owners are?’ Cibi points to the grand house.

‘I have no idea,’ he says.

Five of the girls go off with the farmer, and the others all return to the vegetable patch. Within an hour they are laying the table with milk, cheese and bread from the farmer, tomatoes and fresh vegetables from the garden, and pickles and tins of fish from the pantry. Eliana has discovered the wine cellar and she has uncorked two bottles of fine red wine, which are waiting to be poured into crystal glasses. Candles adorn the length of the table and the silver cutlery gleams in their flickering light.