telling Josie she’ll be in soon.
‘Are you all right?’ Josie asks, frowning at Hannah
standing next to Cilka.
‘Yes, of course,’ Cilka says, forcing a smile.
Josie shrugs and walks on, leaving Cilka and Hannah
alone.
Cilka takes a deep breath.
To her surprise, Hannah does not look threatening, but
vulnerable. She licks her dry lips, her eyes darting about.
‘In the hospital . . .’ she says tentatively, ‘you have drugs for pain, right?’
‘We do, but they are limited. We only use them when
we really have to.’
‘Well, you have to get me some,’ Hannah says. Her eyes
flare in their sockets, desperate.
‘There’s not enough—’ Cilka says.
‘You know the consequences,’ Hannah growls, digging
her hand back into the flesh of Cilka’s arm until it hurts.
‘If you don’t get me a steady supply, I will tell everyone
in there—’ she nods towards the hut – ‘that you not only
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fucked the Nazis but you stood like an angel of death in a fur coat and watched, and did nothing, as thousands of
your kind were killed before your eyes.’
Despite the mild weather, Cilka’s insides turn to ice.
She begins to shake. She wants to explain to Hannah: I
was sixteen! I did not choose any of it, any of this. I simply stayed alive. But no words come. And she knows, too, how they would ring out hollow and desperate to her
hut-mates. How they would not be able to stand to be
around her. How she would seem cursed, wrong. She does
not want to steal drugs badly needed by patients for
Hannah. But she also can’t lose her friends – her only
solace. And what if Yelena found out about the death
block too? Raisa and Lyuba? She might lose them, and
her position. She wouldn’t be able to bring extra food for
her hut-mates, helping to keep them strong enough to do
their gruelling work. Everything would unravel.
She sees on Hannah’s face that she has guessed Cilka’s
thoughts.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Cilka says in a flat voice, defeated.
As she is about to go back into the hut, to lie down
and try to close her mind to this dilemma and all that it
has brought up, she hears a voice call her name.
‘Cilka, Cilka!’ It is Boris.
She turns as the stocky, ruddy-faced Russian bounds
over to her. How can she deal with him right now? Their
relationship has gradually changed. He tells Cilka often
that he cares for her. She forces herself to tell him the
same, for her safety, but she never means it. Many times,
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when he visits, he just wants to be held, cuddled. He tells her about his childhood, one of rejection, of never knowing
the love and comfort of caring parents. She pities him.
She wonders if her feelings for men are to be only fear
and pity? Her own childhood was full of love and atten-
tion, her parents always interested in what she said,
appreciating the stubborn, wilful daughter they were
raising. There is a remnant of this sense of family, and
belonging, tucked deep down, that cannot be touched.
Her father was a good man. There must be other men
like her father. Like Gita’s Lale. Love against terrible odds is possible. Maybe just not for her.
She thinks again of the messenger she has seen in the
hospital. His kind, dark eyes. But can a look of apparent
kindness really be trusted? She doesn’t even know his
name. It is better that she doesn’t.
‘Walk with me,’ Boris says firmly. She doesn’t know
what will happen if she protests. So she goes. He takes
her to a part of the camp she and the others have avoided,
an area full of men, often arguing, always fighting.
Boris tells her he wants her to meet some of his friends.
He wants to show her off. For the first time since her
arrival in Vorkuta, Cilka is genuinely scared. She knows
Boris is a powerful trustie in the camp, but the vile
comments of the men, who attempt to grab her and touch
her as she walks past them, make her fear that he cannot
protect her. One of the others has a young woman with
his comrades. The calls for Boris to prove his manhood
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and take Cilka the same way make her break from him and run. Catching up to her, Boris insists he would never
do anything like that to her. He apologises. A heartfelt
apology. Confirming what she suspected. He cares for
her. But how can he care for her when he does not know
her? He only knows her as a body: face, hair, limbs.
As they move away from the others, the girl’s screams
follow them.
Cilka begs Boris to let her go back to her hut. She wants
to be alone. She is turning blank and numb. She assures
him it is nothing he has said or done, trying to keep the
fear out of her voice; she needs time by herself.
Alone, curled up on her bed, facing the wall, even with
her blindfold on, sleep will not come. Absurd images
appear and warp in her head. An SS officer, his rifle
adorned in lacy embroidery; Gita and Josie sitting beside
a mountain of crushed coal searching in the grass for a
four-leaf clover, laughing and sharing a secret as Cilka
looks on from a distance; Yelena leading Cilka’s mother
away from the truck as other women are piled on it, nearly
corpses already, and bound for their death; Boris dressed
in an SS commandant’s uniform, his arms outstretched,
dead flowers being offered to her. She sobs silently at the
hopelessness she suddenly feels for her future and the
people who will never be in it.
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Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1944
Cilka steps foot outside Block 25. Four SS officers stand near the idling truck, just outside the gates of the brick courtyard, waiting to take the overnight residents of her block to their death. The women are slowly making their
way out the gate, dead women walking. She pushes through
them to approach the two nearest SS officers.
‘Two have died overnight. Would you like me to have
their bodies brought out for the death cart?’
One of the officers nods.
Cilka stops the next four women.
‘Get back inside and bring out the two who have cheated
the gas chamber,’ she snarls.
The four women turn back into the block. Cilka follows
them in, pulling the door behind her, not quite shutting it.
‘Here, let me help you,’ she says. The women look at her
as if it’s a trick. Cilka frowns. ‘They would have stuck their rifles in your belly and dragged you back here if I didn’t say something first.’
The women nod, understanding. One of them has died
and is lying on a top bunk. Cilka climbs up to her, and as gently as she can, lowers her down into the arms of two of the waiting women. The
body weighs nothing. Cilka climbs
down and helps properly place her across their spindly arms, then adjusts the woman’s meagre clothing to give her a
degree of dignity in death.
Once the two dead women are carried outside, Cilka
watches the truck drive away. She is left with the squeak 135
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and scratch of hungry rats. She will go inside in a moment and put on her clean nylons, bought with bread. If he comes to visit, he likes her clean. And she has a favour to ask him, for her friend Gita, concerning the man she loves. Cilka
finds ‘love’ a strange word – it bounces around in her mind but doesn’t land. But if Gita is able to feel it, Cilka will do what she can to preserve that. Before going inside, she
glances in the direction of the gas chambers and crematoria.
When she started here in this hell on earth she had always sent a prayer. But now the words will not come.
* * *
In her hut, desperate to drive away the memories, Cilka
wills sleep to come.
Thirteen years to go.
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CHAPTER 10
A small child screams. Patients and staff turn as the
door to the ward is flung open, and a woman runs
in, holding a little girl. Blood covers the child’s face and
dress; her left arm hangs at an impossible angle. Two
guards follow, shouting for a doctor.
Cilka watches as Yelena runs to the woman. She is well-
dressed, clad in a warm coat and hat; not a prisoner. Her
arm around the woman’s shoulders, Yelena ushers her to
the end of the ward. As she passes Cilka, she calls to her,
Cilka falls in behind the procession, the child still
screaming. In the treatment room, Yelena gently takes the
child. She places her on the bed and the child appears to
go limp. Her cries subside to a whimper.
‘Help her, help her!’ the mother begs.
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‘What’s her name?’ Yelena asks calmly.
‘Katya.’
‘And what’s your name?’
‘I’m Maria Danilovna, her mother.’
‘They are the wife and daughter of Commandant Alexei
Demyanovich Kukhtikov,’ one of the guards offers. ‘The
officers’ hospital is at capacity because of the ward being
rebuilt, so we brought her straight here.’
Yelena nods, asks the mother, ‘What happened?’
‘She followed her older brother up onto the roof of our
house and fell off.’
Yelena turns to Cilka. ‘Get some wet cloths and help me
wipe the blood away so I can see the extent of the injuries.’
A small pile of towels rests on a chair next to a basin.
Cilka drenches two of them. There is no time to wait for
the water to warm up, cold will have to do. Handing one
to Yelena, she follows her lead in wiping blood from the
little girl’s face. The wet, cold towel seems to revive her,
and her screams resume.
‘Please, help my malyshka, please,’ sobs Maria.
‘We are helping,’ Yelena says softly. ‘We need to clean
some of the blood away to see where she is hurt. Be careful
of her arm, Cilka, it’s broken and will need to be set.’
Cilka glances at the arm hanging over the bed next to
her and repositions herself to avoid it. Bending down, she
speaks to Katya in a quiet, soothing voice, telling her she
is not going to hurt her, she is just cleaning her face. Katya responds, her whimpering now accompanied by shivers
that wrack her small body.
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‘Get a blanket, quickly, and cover her. We need to keep her warm.’ Cilka grabs a blanket from the end of the bed.
Folding it into two she carefully places it over Katya, again murmuring, telling her what she is doing.
‘I can see the site of the wound, it’s on my side of her
head – it’s quite a gash. Keep cleaning her face, Cilka. I’m
going to get some supplies.’
Yelena drapes the end of a towel over the right side of
Katya’s head, covering her right eye.
Maria steps in front of Yelena. ‘You can’t leave her,
you’re the doctor. Send her.’
Cilka’s heart races. At some point today she has to get
to the dispensary that contains all the medicines and
medical materials needed on the ward, though she dreads
what she is planning to do.
‘She won’t know what to get. I’ll be right back. In the
meantime, Katya, and you too, Maria Danilovna, are in
good hands with Cilka.’
Yelena leaves the room.
‘You might want to hold her hand,’ Cilka tells Maria,
who nods and takes Katya’s uninjured hand in her own.
Cilka wets a clean towel.
When Yelena returns, Cilka is talking to Katya.
‘Katya, my name is Cilka Klein. Doctor Kaldani and I
are going to take care of you. Do you understand?’
A small grunt comes from the little girl.
‘Good girl. Now, Katya, can you tell me where you
hurt? We know your head hurts and we know your arm
hurts, but does it hurt anywhere else?’
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‘My . . . my leg,’ splutters Katya.
‘Good girl. Anywhere else?’
‘My head hurts. Mumma, Mumma!’
‘I’m here, my malyshka, I’m here. You’re such a brave little girl; you’re going to be OK.’
Yelena places the tray she has brought in on the bedside
table. From the bottom of the blanket she lifts it gently
to look at Katya’s legs. They are covered in thick stockings, and no injury is visible.
‘Cilka, help me take her stockings off so we can examine
her legs.’
Whatever pain Katya is feeling in her legs is not significant enough for her to react as Yelena and Cilka each remove
a boot and a sock. Yelena examines her legs. The right one
is showing signs of early swelling and bruising around the
knee. Yelena moves it carefully; Katya doesn’t respond.
‘I think it’s not serious. Let’s get back to her head.’
‘What about her arm?’ Cilka asks.
‘We’ll get to that. You’re doing really well, Cilka; thank
you for asking her about other injuries. Often children
this young don’t respond. You have to find the injuries
yourself, so well done. Pardon me, Maria Danilovna, but
how old is Katya?’
‘She’s nearly four.’
‘A lovely age,’ Yelena says quietly, as much to herself
as Maria.
Yelena removes the towel from Katya’s head. The gaping
wound has stopped pulsing blood, but the red raw edges
look nasty. She hears Maria gasp.
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Yelena pours antiseptic over a wadded bandage and gently places it over the wound. Cilka continues to attempt
to wash the blood from Katya’s hair.
‘You have beautiful hair, Katya. It goes with your lovely
face.’
‘Keep talking to her, Cilka. M
aria Danilovna, this is
what we have to do. I cannot take care of Katya’s injuries
while she is awake. I will give her an injection to put her
under, examine her more closely, then move her to a more
sterile room to stitch her head wound and take care of
her arm. It is broken between the elbow and the wrist
and will need to be pulled into place properly before it
can be plastered. Do you understand?’
‘I think so. Are you sure you need to put her to sleep
though? What if she doesn’t wake up? I’ve heard about
people being put to sleep by doctors and not waking up.’
‘She needs to be asleep, Maria Danilovna, you have to
trust me.’
‘Where are you from? Where did you get your training?’
Maria asks Yelena, and Cilka senses the anxiety beneath
her bravado.
‘I’m from Georgia, and I was trained there.’
‘I’m also from Georgia – they have good hospitals there.’
‘We must talk some more, but for now, I need to take
care of Katya,’ Yelena says, and then quietly, ‘Do you want
to tell her she is going to have a needle and go to sleep
or should I?’
Turning to Cilka, Maria says, ‘Let her, she seems to be
able to calm Katya.’
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Although Cilka has heard the exchange, she looks to Yelena to repeat exactly what it is she is to say to Katya.
She doesn’t want to get it wrong and frighten the girl.
She strokes Katya’s face as she tells her what is going to
happen. Katya doesn’t flinch as Yelena injects the anaes-
thetic, and both she and Cilka watch as Katya’s eyes flutter
and close.
When Yelena is convinced Katya is deeply asleep, she
removes the blanket and starts to cut away her clothes.
Layer by layer is discarded on the floor. With only a singlet and underpants remaining, Cilka becomes aware of the
two guards in the room.
‘Leave,’ Cilka says to them firmly.
They don’t need to be told twice.
As the door closes behind them, bellowing can be heard
in the ward. ‘Where is she, where is my malyshka, Katya?’
‘My husband,’ whispers Maria. Cilka watches as the
relief on her face at hearing her husband’s voice is replaced by what looks like fear. Maria backs away from the bed.
The door bursts open and Commandant Alexei
Demyanovich Kukhtikov storms into the room. Scrambling
behind him, a senior doctor enters, squawking, ‘Alexei