‘You can’t hurt me, Hannah. Don’t even try,’ Cilka says,
looking her in the eye.
‘I bet you don’t want your friends to know. Do you
want me to keep your secret?’
‘I want you to go fuck yourself. I couldn’t care less
what you do or say.’ Cilka is bluffing to make the secret
less appealing to Hannah. But she knows Hannah must
be able to feel her shaking, under the tight clench of her
hand.
‘I can keep it secret, for a price . . .’
‘How often do men come into our hut and rape you,
Hannah?’
Hannah doesn’t answer. Keeps her brows furrowed,
breathing heavily.
‘I didn’t hear you,’ Cilka says, her voice raised. ‘One
man, several men . . . how many different men have raped
you since we’ve been here?’
‘It’s just what happens here.’
‘Yes, it’s just what happens here. It’s what happened
there to me. I was kept hidden away so the officers would not be seen to be polluting themselves. Do you know what that is like? For you and your family and friends, your
whole race, to be treated like animals for slaughter?’
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Hannah looks away, keeps her face blank.
‘And did this person who claims to know so much about
me say why she was here?’ Cilka asks.
‘Yes, I got that out of her. The Russians said they didn’t
like people who told on others without being asked, so
sent her here too. It seems like you were all weak in the
end, all turning on each other.’
‘No one can judge us,’ Cilka says through gritted teeth.
‘You can’t know what it was like. There were only two
choices: one was to survive. The other was death.’
Hannah chuckles quietly. Cilka is seeing double with
rage. She should be used to this by now – people creating
hierarchies of good and bad, deciding where you fit in.
‘But that’s not all there is, is it?’ Hannah says.
Cilka looks at her.
‘Would you really want me to tell the others – Josie,
Natalya, Olga, Elena – about your role in the death block?’
Cilka tries not to let her expression falter.
‘I thought so,’ Hannah says. ‘I will tell you what I need,
soon, and you will give it to me.’ She walks away, across
the patchy grass and dirt.
Cilka looks up at the women standing around in a circle,
sharing a rare moment of leisure. Josie turns and smiles
at Cilka. Cilka forces a smile back. She does not want to
go back, in her mind, to that other place; she wants to take each day and get through it the best she can, with
her new friends. She does not want Hannah to ruin this
for her. Her gut churns.
* * *
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All too soon, the women wake to frost on the ground.
The air is thick and wet in their throats. Cilka has now
been here a year. Their scarves are put away, their hats
and heavy coats retrieved from under their mattress where
they have spent the past two months.
Hannah does not yet seem to have decided on her ‘price’
for keeping quiet. But she reminds Cilka frequently, with
a look or a gesture, of what she knows. Cilka tries, most
of the time, to block from her mind her fear of the women
finding out.
The transition from autumn to winter is swift. Seasonal
rain dampens the ground and the mood. The evening
strolls in the camp end and the women struggle to adjust
to only having their own company once again.
The rain becomes sleet, the sleet becomes snow. There
is constant darkness.
The hut feels small and close with Hannah’s knowledge.
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CHAPTER 9
A day for making plans. A day for thinking ahead. For
most people, but not for Cilka.
For the first time today, she writes in a patient’s file:
Patient making good progress, expected discharge tomorrow.
She hears the words spoken by the doctor, transcribes
them, forces a smile as she looks at the man lying in the
bed in front of her, his eyes full of tears.
‘Please, just a little longer. Can I stay a little longer?
Two, three more days. I am still weak.’
The doctor looks at the man without compassion.
Turning to Cilka – ‘What do you think, Cilka? Shall we
let this malingering piece of shit take up a bed some ailing
fellow prisoner should have? Or kick his sorry arse out
of here tomorrow?’
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Cilka has learned the game some of the doctors like to play, involving her. Making her the person who determines
whether or not a patient gets another twenty-four hours
in a warm hospital bed with nourishing food. She has also
learned which doctors might agree to her suggestion that
a patient may have a day longer, and which will do the
opposite.
This doctor often agrees with whatever Cilka says. She
carefully grants days to the sick and infirm that she never
could in her old life. Though in all of these places, it is
always one person for another. One person’s comfort, one
person’s food. Nothing is fair.
‘It is the first day of a new year. Perhaps in the spirit
of this—’ she glances at the file in her hands – ‘Georgii
Yaroslavovich would benefit from an extra day with us.
Shall I amend his file to say discharge in two days?’
‘Amend.’ The doctor walks away.
Cilka glances up at the poster on the wall above the
bed. A smiling worker in a sunny field. Liberation through honest toil.
She amends the file.
‘Thank you, Cilka Klein, thank you, thank you. You are
an angel sent from heaven.’
Cilka winks at him. This time her smile is genuine, ‘It’s all right, Georgii Yaroslavovich, you know I’ll take care of you.’
As she walks back to the desk to drop off Georgii’s file
and collect another, Yelena is waiting, having watched the
game play out.
‘Cilka, I have some good news for you.’
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The smile returns to Cilka’s face. She’s almost too scared to ask what. She waits.
‘I’ve spoken to the head of the hospital and convinced
him you now qualify to be called a nurse.’
‘Really? That’s wonderful, thank you so much,’ Cilka
says. But she feels numb. Her position makes a marginal
difference to her hut-mates’ lives, but still she wishes she
could do more. Behind Yelena, outside the frosted window,
there is howling darkness. ‘I don’t know what else to say.’
‘You don’t have to thank me. You did the hard work
– you’ve earned the right to be recognised for it.’
There is churning deep down inside her. Something like
shame. Would Yelena feel differentl
y if she knew everything
about Cilka’s past?
‘I won’t let you down,’ Cilka says.
‘I know you won’t. And Cilka, one more thing.’ She
hands a note to Cilka. ‘Give this to Antonina Karpovna
tonight. It is my request for Josie to start work here
tomorrow as a clerical assistant. She will learn some of
your old duties to free you up for nursing.’
Taking the note with a shaking hand, Cilka turns away
to compose herself. Finally. She has been agitating for this to happen for as long as she has been in the hospital. She
stuffs the note in the pocket of her hospital apron; with
a nod of thanks she picks up another file and walks briskly,
with purpose, to another patient.
For the first time in a long while Cilka arrives back at
her hut before the others. She paces the small room, her
nose still aching from the cold of the walk, waiting for
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Josie, for Antonina, to share her news. It is not the news that she is to be called a nurse that excites her so; it is
that Josie will no longer be working outdoors, but in the
comfort and warmth of the hospital. She knows it comes
from a selfish place – she wants to be closer, physically,
to Josie. So she can watch over her.
The women enter the hut in a state of fear and panic.
Cilka’s first thought is of Hannah, what she knows – or
thinks she knows. Has she told the women and are they
going to attack her? But then she realises it is something
else entirely. One of the women is sobbing and groaning
at the same time. She is being supported by two others,
each holding her up by one arm as the woman doubles
over in pain. The others are in a fluster, issuing instructions on what to do with no one listening, no one taking control.
Cilka grabs Elena, pulling her from the pack. She sees
now that the groaning woman is Natalya, her blonde hair
stuck with sweat and soot to her forehead.
‘What’s happening? What’s wrong?’
Antonina has followed them in. As they place Natalya
on her bed they step away and let the brigadier see her.
‘How far gone?’ Antonina asks.
Natalya shakes her head in pain and fear, ‘I don’t know.’
Her scarf is still bundled around her neck. Her gloved
hands clutch at it.
‘Weeks or months?’
‘Months, five or six, I don’t know! Help me, please help
me.’
‘What’s wrong with her?’ Cilka asks Elena again.
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‘She’s bleeding and she is pregnant. We think she is having the baby.’
Antonina looks up and sees Cilka standing back.
‘Come here,’ she says. ‘You work in the hospital – take
charge. The rest of you, get ready to go to dinner.’
Cilka opens her mouth to object, changes her mind.
She has no idea how to deliver a baby, but she wants to
be there for Natalya.
‘Excuse me, Antonina Karpovna, can I have Josie and
Elena stay and help me? I have a note here for you from
the doctor, Yelena Georgiyevna.’
Cilka unfolds it and puts the note in Antonina’s gloved
hands. Antonina reads it and looks around to find Josie,
says in monotone, ‘Well, another one of you wins a prize,
congratulations.’ She looks back at Cilka. ‘The two of
them can stay with you. I’ll have some towels and sheets
sent over. The rest of you, get out.’ She wraps her scarf
back over her mouth, only her eyes showing.
Before the women leave for the mess, Cilka says, ‘Can
I ask if anyone here has had a baby or attended anyone
giving birth?’
The brigadier looks around at the women, pushes her
scarf down again. ‘Well?’
‘I’ve helped birth plenty of cows but no humans,’ says
Margarethe, matter-of-factly.
‘You can stay also.’
Natalya’s screams from the bed refocus the attention.
Sweet, beautiful Natalya, Cilka thinks. Josie kneels down
beside her, pushes the damp blonde hair off her face.
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‘How bad is the bleeding?’ Cilka asks.
‘There was a lot of it when I went to the latrine on the
worksite. Help me, please, Cilka, save my baby.’
She wants the baby, Cilka notes. There is something
within Cilka that understands, if this happened to her, she
might cling to that idea of life too. But it won’t happen to
Cilka. She doesn’t think her body is able to get pregnant.
Josie looks pleadingly at Cilka. ‘You know what to do?’
Cilka keeps her face blank, serious. ‘We will do all we
can, Natalya. We need to take your clothes off so we can
see how you are, all right?’
Fifteen women gather at the door, wrapped up, eager to
get away, keen not to bear witness to tragedy. Cilka, Josie,
Elena and Margarethe tend to Natalya as best they can.
A guard delivers two towels and two sheets. Greeted
by the screams of Natalya, he throws them into the hut
without a word.
While the rest of the hut is having dinner, Natalya gives
birth to a baby boy. He makes no sound; he gives no
movement. Taking one of the towels, Cilka wraps his little
body in it and places him in Natalya’s arms. The four
women stand over her as she cries herself to sleep,
clutching her son to her chest for what will be their one
and only night together. Josie stays by her bedside all
night.
The next morning Antonina tells Elena and Margarethe
to stay with Natalya. Cilka and Josie are to take the baby
and report to the hospital for work. Josie looks pained.
‘We’ll look after Natalya, Josie,’ Elena says.
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Taking the dead baby from his mother’s arms is one of the hardest things Cilka has done in her twenty years.
* * *
In the hospital, Josie is slow to catch on. Cilka finds herself
spending more time teaching and doing the job herself at
the expense of nursing. She perseveres, and Yelena looks
the other way as slowly Josie learns the art of determining
what information from a doctor needs to be in a patient
file, what was only comment and not for recording. She
can speak Russian well now but she struggles greatly with
the Cyrillic, with the names and spelling of drugs. She is
shy towards the medical and nursing staff, preferring to
interrupt Cilka for help than ask for instructions to be
repeated.
Cilka, however, excels at every task. She is now expert
at drawing blood; her suturing, while not to the standard
of Olga and the others in the embroidery class, is admired
by her more experienced colleagues. She effortlessly
combines caring for the emotional needs of her patients
with their practical ones.
Josie is grateful and warmer to Cilka now, whispering
to her in the hut
as they lie side by side on the nights
Boris and Vadim haven’t visited. She is anxious, and over-
whelmed. ‘How will I learn? How will I keep up?’
Cilka sometimes does not have the energy to reassure
her, though she wants to be good to her. She just knows
it’s possible things will get even harder, that they have to
take each moment as it comes.
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One day, they return from work and Natalya is gone.
Antonina Karpovna refuses to give them answers, which
Cilka knows is not good. Usually, they know when a woman
has gone to the hole, because it is a warning to the rest
of them. Cilka cannot stop the images of women leaping
onto electric fences in that other place, preferring a quick death to the hell on earth that was the camp, or the gas
chamber they knew awaited them all. The blankness is
coming over Cilka, cold and flat as snow on the ground,
and she just wants to lie down. But she knows what Natalya
meant to Josie. She sits by her and silently offers a hand
for her to hold until she falls asleep.
Winter seems relentless, all-consuming in its freezing
darkness, but weeks become months. The seasons make
their dramatic changes and once again small flowers
push their way through the melting snow and ice. The
light in the hut goes out and the sun remains high in
the sky.
A second white-night summer has arrived.
There are a few more changes in the hut, besides
Natalya’s departure. Two of the original women get
involved in a fight. When a guard attempts to break them
up he is struck. The women are sent to the hole, and do
not return. Three young Ukrainian girls arrive and sleep
in their beds. Olga, Elena, Margarethe and Hannah
remain.
The walls of the hut are covered in the women’s craft.
When a piece deteriorates due to the damp conditions it
is quickly replaced. The lace adorns the collars on the
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women’s coats, their dresses, the edge of pockets, on their hats and scarves. It is a small reclamation of an identity,
a femininity, an expression of something other than a
functional body put to work daily.
* * *
Cilka has managed to avoid being alone with Hannah for
months until, one evening, when they are all walking back
from the mess to go straight into the hut. Cilka slows,