Then she stands and closes her sister’s eyes, clutches both her friends’ hands in turn, and leaves the block.
* * *
‘Did you get the disease? Have you had symptoms?’
‘No and no,’ Cilka says, her mind numb.
‘That means you probably have an immunity to it,
meaning you can get exposed and not suffer the symptoms
or become sick. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, I understand. Why do you need to know?’
He shifts on his feet.
‘We need nurses to work on the infectious ward, which
is now overflowing with typhoid cases; we need nurses
like you who can work there and not get infected.’
‘Is that all?’ she says, with a strange mix of fear and
relief.
He looks surprised. ‘What did you think we would be
doing to you?’
‘I don’t know . . . injecting me with the disease to see
how I fared?’
Petre cannot keep the shock from his face. He looks
away, speechless.
‘I’ll go,’ she says hastily. ‘I’ll work on the ward; there
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are many days here I’m not really needed. If you need someone in my place, please . . . there are many capable
women in my hut.’
He nods, but he is not really listening. ‘I think Yelena
Georgiyevna was right about where you have come from.’
‘I come from Czechoslovakia.’
He sighs, knowing it is not the full answer. ‘To think
we would experiment on you, or on anybody for that
matter, in the manner you just said.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Cilka says, panicking. ‘I didn’t mean
to say that. When do you want me to start?’
‘Tomorrow is fine. I’ll let them know you’re coming.’
Cilka finishes cleaning up before dashing to the nursery
next door. Natia is rolling around on the floor, attempting
to snatch at a nearby rag doll. Her little face lights up as
she hears Cilka call out her name. Cilka sweeps her into
the air, and, hugging her tightly, she paces the room,
whispering words of love and promises to return as soon
as she can.
She hopes by saying these words they will come true.
* * *
A white surgical gown, face mask and thick rubber gloves
are handed to Cilka as she enters the infectious ward. As
she is tied into the gown at the back, she looks around
the ward, trying to process the scene. Every bed has at
least one patient, some two; others lie on the floor with
no mattress, covered only by a dirty sheet or blanket. She
tries to steady her breathing.
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The nurse helping her into the gown introduces herself as Sonya Donatova.
‘It looks as if we’re going to be busy here,’ Cilka says.
‘Please tell me what you want me to do.’
‘Very happy to have you, Cilka. Come with me, we’re
doing rounds. I’ll introduce you to the others later.’
‘Can we not get more beds in here? No patient should
have to lie on the floor.’
‘We move the ones who are not going to make it onto
the floor; it’s easier to clean the floor than a mattress.
You’ll get the hang of it.’ Something turns in Cilka’s gut.
Bodies on the floor, on the ground, with no hope of living
another day. So, she is back here again. Her curse.
Cilka watches as two nurses gently lift a patient from a
bed and place him on the floor nearby. She overhears one
of them say: ‘He’s on hourly time of death recording.’
Once a blanket has been tucked under his frail shivering
body, a note is made in his file and placed by his feet.
Cilka sighs, feeling the familiar sensation of her body
beginning to leave her, icing over.
She follows Sonya to a bed where a delirious, screaming
woman thrashes about. Sonya dips a small towel in a
nearby basin of water and attempts to place it on the
woman’s face. She is smacked in the hand and upper body
by the flailing limbs.
‘Help me cool her down. Take one of her hands and
hold tight.’
Cilka grabs one of the woman’s arms, forcing it down
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hand attempts to place the wet towel on her face and head, only partly succeeding.
‘She only came in yesterday. She is young and has got
to the delirious stage really quickly. If we can cool her
down and break the fever, she has a chance of surviving.’
‘Couldn’t we just bring some snow or ice in and apply
it to her skin?’
‘We could, that’s one way of cooling someone down
quickly, but it could be too quick and would shock her
system. No, I’m afraid we have to do it fast but not that
dramatically.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’
‘No, you made a good suggestion, it’s just not the right
one. No one expects you to know what to do the minute
you walk in, unless of course you have worked here
before.’
She has not, but she has seen the final stages of typhoid
enough times. And the aftermath.
‘I came here from maternity. Does that answer your
question?’
Sonya laughs. ‘You are definitely not expected to know
anything about treating typhoid, just as I would pretend
I wasn’t a nurse if someone came to me in labour – that’s
scary, two people to worry about.’
The cool towel is having an effect; the patient is
becoming subdued, and the manic movements associated
with fever subside. Was Magda like this in her final hours?
She wonders now if Gita had been distracting her with
the four-leaf clovers, sparing her these horrific images.
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‘I think you will be all right with her on your own. Just keep wetting the towel and running it over her face and
head, her arms and legs; you’re washing the sweat off and
this will help cool her. I’m going to check on another one.
Call out if you want help.’
As Sonya leaves, Cilka rinses the towel in the basin,
noting that the water is in fact very cold – small bits of
ice visible. She takes over washing the woman, talking to
her in a soothing voice. This voice seems to be something
that Cilka uses naturally, no matter what she is feeling
– or not feeling – when she is looking after a patient. It’s
a low voice, a murmur, that tells a story beyond the
moment of pain. Perhaps she does it just as much for
herself.
After a short while, the woman’s body changes from
being drenched in sweat to being covered in goose bumps;
her shivering changes, reflecting she is now cold, as she
attempts to curl up in a ball. Instinctively, Cilka reaches
for the blanket on the floor and wraps her up tightly. She
looks around for Sonya.
; ‘Sonya Donatova, she’s now shivering with the cold. I’ve
wrapped her in a blanket. What should I do next?’
‘Leave her and find another patient who needs cooling
down.’
‘Where do I find more towels?’
‘Is there a problem with the one you’ve got?’
‘No, it’s just that . . . well, I used it on her.’
‘We don’t have the luxury of new towels for every
patient, Cilka,’ Sonya says with an apologetic look. ‘Take
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the towel you have to the next patient, and the basin of water. If you need more water get it from the sink at the
end of the room.’
As her day ends, Cilka has seen six patients die, and
fourteen new patients brought in. On two occasions,
heavily gowned and masked doctors have come into the
ward, walked around and spoken to the nurses in charge.
It is clear to Cilka this ward is managed by nurses only.
The doctors do not get involved with medical care. They
visit to get the statistics on how many enter, and how many
leave, either alive or to the mortuary.
Cilka arrives back at her hut every night exhausted. Her
days are spent cooling down and warming up feverish
patients; moving men and women from a bed onto the
floor when it is deemed they will not survive; helping to
carry the deceased patients outside where they are left to
be collected by others, unseen. She carries the bruises
unintentionally caused by delirious patients she is trying
to care for.
She learns all there is to know about the disease, such
as how to recognise the different stages and when to
diagnose the more severe internal bleeding and respiratory
distress that will likely lead to death. No one can explain
to her why some patients get a nasty red rash over their
bodies while others don’t, or why this symptom is not
necessarily an indicator of a poor outcome.
With the first flush of spring flowers and the melting
of some of the snow the numbers of new patients presenting
on the ward each day begins to decline. Cilka and the
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other nurses begin to enjoy caring for only a few patients each, giving them the attention they would have liked to
have shown to all who went before.
One day, Yelena appears on the ward. Cilka is overjoyed
to see the familiar face of the doctor.
‘How are you?’ Yelena asks warmly, wisps of blonde
hair escaping from her braids and framing her face like a
halo.
‘Tired, very tired, and very happy to see you.’
‘You and the other nurses have done an amazing job.
You have saved many lives and you’ve given comfort to
others in their final moments.’
Cilka tries to take this in. She still feels as if she should be rushing about, doing more.
‘I . . . We did what we could. More medicine would
have been helpful.’
‘Yes, I know, there is never enough medicine here. We
have to make hard decisions over and over about who
gets them, who doesn’t.’
‘I understand,’ Cilka says, that rush of guilt coming
again for the medicine she has stolen.
‘So, my girl, the question is . . . what do you want to
do now?’
‘You mean I have a choice?’
‘Yes, you do. Petre will take you back on the maternity
ward tomorrow. However, your friend Olga is also enjoying
the work.’ Cilka understands that what Yelena is saying
is that going back may displace Olga from her now much
better position in the camp. ‘And I was wondering if you
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would like to come back and work on the general ward, with me?’
‘But . . .’
‘Gleb Vitalyevich is gone. He was transferred a few
weeks ago. The administrators finally looked at his
mortality figures and decided, in the interests of produc-
tivity, it would be best that he move on.’ She smiles.
‘Where to?’ Cilka asks.
‘I don’t know, and I don’t care. I’m just glad he’s no
longer here. So that means you can come back to my ward.
If you want to, that is?’
‘I do enjoy working with Petre Davitovich and helping
the babies into the world.’
Yelena nods her head, thinking she has her answer.
‘However, I would like to come back and work with
you and the other doctors, where I can make more of a
difference, if that’s all right.’
Yelena wraps her arms around her. Cilka responds stiffly,
moving one hand to Yelena’s back, then pulls away.
‘Of course it’s all right,’ Yelena says. ‘It’s what I want;
you do make a difference. Petre Davitovich is going to be
very angry with me for stealing you away though.’
‘He’s a good doctor. Will you tell him how much I appre-
ciate what he has done for me, what he has taught me?’
‘I will. Now go back to your hut and I don’t want to
see you for two days,’ she says, taking a pen and paper
from her pocket to write a note. ‘Get some rest. What
you have done here over the past few months, you must
be exhausted.’
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‘I am. Thank you.’
Cilka looks out at the daylight, thinking of the coming
short summer. ‘Yelena Georgiyevna?’
‘Yes?’
‘You know Josie had a little girl.’
‘Yes, I heard, and I hear both mother and baby are
doing well.’
‘I’d love to see little Natia. Is it safe for me to visit her, given where I’ve been working?’
‘I wouldn’t go near her for another two weeks; that is
the incubation period of typhoid – maybe even three weeks
to be safe.’
‘I can wait another three weeks, but not a day more.’
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CHAPTER 16
‘It’s like you never left. Welcome back,’ Raisa greets
Cilka on her return to the general ward.
‘About time you showed up,’ Lyuba calls out from the
other end of the ward. ‘Get your coat off and help us
out.’
‘Have you two not done anything to clean this place up
since I left? I swear that dirty towel was lying there more
than a year ago,’ Cilka throws back at them.
‘Has it been that long?’ Raisa says.
‘Long enough,’ Cilka says.
Screams from the patient Lyuba is caring for divert their
attention.
‘Is everything all right?’ Cilka asks.
‘Come on, we’ve got plenty for you to do,’ Raisa says.
‘There was an explosion in one of the mine tunnels
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yesterday; quite a few men died, and we have several who are badly injured. Some have been in surgery and we have
two who had to have limbs amputated.’
‘Just tell me where you want me.’
‘Go and help Lyuba. That poor chap was badly burned
and she’s trying to change his dressings; we’ve given him
something for the pain but it’s barely touching him.’
Cilka joins Lyuba, forcing a smile for the man lying in
the bed, his arms and upper body wrapped in bandages,
his face red raw from flash burns, his sobbing producing
no tears.
‘Tell me what to do,’ she asks Lyuba.
‘Cilka, this is Jakub. We need to change the bandages
on your arms, don’t we, Jakub? We don’t want you to get
an infection.’
‘Hello, Jakub, that’s a Polish name, isn’t it?’
Jakub nods, despite the pain moving obviously causes
him.
‘Lyuba, is it all right if I speak to Jakub in Polish?’
She nods. ‘Perhaps you can change the bandage on his
other arm while you two are remembering old times.’
‘I’m from Czechoslovakia, your next-door neighbour,
but I am . . . familiar with Poland. I was about to ask you
what you’re doing here, but let’s leave that conversation
for another time.’
Cilka gently unwinds the bandage covering Jakub’s left
arm, chatting like a long-lost friend. With the bandage
removed, she sees the damage. Lyuba hands her a new
bandage soaked in a solution that makes it feel slimy.
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Cilka asks Lyuba, ‘How is his arm burnt worse than his hand? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Jakub’s clothes caught fire and the burns he received
through his clothing are more severe because they kept
burning for longer – until the clothes could be removed.’
‘I see. Well, Jakub, can I give you some advice? Go to
work naked in future.’
Cilka realises her comment is in extremely bad taste
and starts to apologise. But she feels Jakub squeeze her
hand and looks down at him; he is trying to smile, to
laugh, he has appreciated her joke.
Lyuba regards them both. ‘You have to excuse her,
Jakub. Cilka has been away from us delivering babies.
She’s used to her patients being naked. In fact if it wasn’t
so cold, I’m sure she would walk around here naked.’
‘Lyuba!’ Cilka exclaims indignantly.
Lyuba laughs heartily. ‘I’ve finished with your dressing,
Jakub, so I’ll leave you two. Call if you want anything, Cilka.’
‘You’ve been a great help, Lyuba, I think Jakub and I