Three Sisters (The Tattooist of Auschwitz #3)(90)

‘Can we worry about that later?’ Livi folds the letter and puts in her pocket. ‘Don’t spoil it just yet!’

*

‘Just how much have you packed, Cibi?’ Mischka sighs, looking at the three open suitcases on their bed, brimming with clothes, books, toys and – sticking out of the sleeve of a winter coat – Chaya’s precious candlesticks.

‘What would you have me leave behind? Kari’s toys? Your clothes?’ Cibi says, with a pout.

‘We can buy Kari more toys in Israel. I can make him more toys – but at least let’s leave behind his enormous yellow truck?’

‘Can we take his train at least? You made it, and he would be heartbroken to leave it here.’

‘The train can stay, but not the truck. And only two books – the others we can give to your uncle’s children.’

Reluctantly Cibi removes the wooden yellow truck and several books from one of the suitcases. ‘I will only take one extra pair of shoes,’ Cibi says, examining the two pairs she has packed, deciding which to discard. ‘And food? For the journey?’ She doesn’t intend to stuff tins of sardines in between her son’s toys, but the inclination to is strong.

‘Again, not too much. We’re not abandoning civilisation, you know. We can buy what we need as we go,’ says Mischka.

‘Uncle Ivan will be here in the morning to help us, so he can take anything we don’t want.’

‘Will Irinka be with him?’

‘No, he’s coming alone. He said he’d be much more useful if he was on his own. And anyway, their baby is so small still.’ Cibi looks wistful for a moment. ‘Hopefully he will join us very soon and then the whole family will be together.’

Only the whole family will never be together again, thinks Cibi. Packing these suitcases has returned her to an earlier time, one she would rather forget, where she and her mother had carefully gathered clothes for two small suitcases that she and Livi were never to lay eyes on again once they had entered Auschwitz.

‘What do you want to do today? We should mark it – our last day in the country of our birth,’ Mischka says.

Cibi pushes aside the discarded books, sits on the bed, and sighs deeply. ‘You don’t think we’ll ever come back?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe for a visit.’ Mischka sits beside his wife and puts his arm around her.

She leans into him. ‘When Kari wakes up, let’s put him in his pram and go for a walk. I think that’s how I’d like to say goodbye, with one last stroll around town.’

Slowly, the small family makes its way through the streets of Bratislava. Cibi sees the chocolate shop where Livi had once been humiliated for having the audacity to buy a treat. It was the incident which broke the camel’s back, thinks Cibi. It broke all our backs. She’s ready to say goodbye.

‘Let’s go home, shall we?’ she says to Mischka, who turns the pram round.

*

Uncle Ivan struggles with the pram, all too aware of the bus driver huffing and sighing as he waits to load it into the back of the bus with the rest of their luggage. Mischka, Kari in his arms, is trying to stifle his giggles as he and Cibi watch Ivan fumbling and cursing.

‘Give him a hand, Cibi, please. Put him out of his misery,’ Mischka says, eventually.

Ivan holds up his hands in surrender and Cibi takes the pram and hands it to the bus driver in a single swift manoeuvre.

Ivan shakes hands with Mischka, pats Kari on the head and opens his arms for his niece. ‘Irinka, the children and I will be with you before you know it,’ he says.

‘We won’t rest until we’re together again,’ whispers Cibi. ‘And safe.’

‘This bus is leaving with or without you,’ the bus driver grumbles.

Cibi, Mischka and even Kari wave at Ivan until he is out of sight.

On Cibi’s lap, Kari is glued to the window, transfixed by the buildings, the cars and the people outside. Say goodbye, little baby, thinks Cibi. We’re going on an adventure. A big adventure too: they have borders to cross, documents to be examined and questions answered before they reach – and cross – Italy, where a ship awaits them in Genoa for their passage to Haifa. It’s the questions to be answered that gnaw at Cibi: she has had her fill of army officials in spotless uniforms standing between her and her freedom.

‘How long before we get to the border?’ Cibi asks in a small voice. They are the only ones with so much luggage; it’s obvious to everyone on the bus that they’re trying to leave the country. With a defiant tilt of the head, Cibi meets the glares of some of the other passengers aboard, who muttered ‘Jew’ under their breaths as she and Mischka moved down the bus.

‘Which border?’ Mischka asks.

‘Austria, our first test.’

‘Not long, half an hour. Depends how many stops we make. We’ll be fine because we have all the right documents. Will you stop worrying?’

Cibi squeezes the handles of her handbag, their future contained therein: government documents granting them permission to migrate to Israel. ‘Good riddance,’ the town hall official had said when he handed them over. But Cibi hadn’t cared: she’d felt the same about him.

Two stops later, the bus is pulling in behind a line of cars and trucks at the border between Czechoslovakia and Austria. Cibi’s pulse quickens when she spots the armed soldiers walking up and down the rows of vehicles. Their brown uniforms, whilst simple and unadorned with medals, nevertheless send a shiver down her spine. Instinctively, she clutches Kari to her chest. He lets out a cry and Cibi releases him.