here soon. Maybe we should wait and take her in his
car.’
‘The sooner we get her to the hospital the better, if you
don’t mind. I’ll ride in the back of the ambulance with
her and look after her.’
‘All right. I trusted you once before, I’ll trust you again.
And I would like the doctor to be Yelena Georgiyevna
again too.’
‘Pavel,’ Cilka calls out.
The door opens. Pavel and Kirill stand in the doorway.
‘Bring me the medicine.’
Kirill hurries over, placing the drug box on the floor
and ripping off the lid.
Cilka quickly locates the medication she wants, fills a
syringe and gently injects Katya in the arm. She holds her
arm while the pain medication takes effect and Katya
settles.
‘Get the stretcher, quick, and take the boxes back with
you.’
The two return with the stretcher. Cilka and Maria lift
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Katya as the stretcher is placed on the bed. Gently they lower her onto it, wrapping her up in blankets from her
bed.
‘Let’s go,’ she says to Pavel and Kirill. Turning to Maria,
she says, ‘Do you want to come with us in the ambulance
or can the guard bring you in a car?’
‘I want to come with you.’
‘You’ll need to ride up front. I will be in the back with
Katya.’
The guard hands Maria her coat. Cilka grabs hers on
the way out of the room as they follow Pavel and Kirill
to the ambulance.
Cilka climbs in the back first and helps Pavel slide
the stretcher towards her. Kirill has the engine running,
shutting the back doors. Pavel hops into the front, the
guard holds the door for Maria and helps her sit next
to Pavel.
The drive to the hospital is silent, Maria’s perfume filling
the truck.
Word has reached Yelena that the commandant’s
daughter is en route. She is waiting for them.
Following a quick examination, she tells Maria she will
need to take Katya to surgery straight away. She is certain
she has appendicitis, but won’t know for sure until she
opens her up. If correct, Katya will be back on her feet
within a couple of weeks.
‘Can I come with you?’ Maria asks.
‘Well, no, not really, Maria Danilovna. I’ll leave Cilka
here with you; she can tell you what we’re doing.’
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‘No, I’ll be fine while I wait for my husband; I’d rather she was with you.’
‘Let’s go, Cilka, scrub up.’ To the orderlies standing
nearby she says, ‘Take the patient to the operating room,
please. We’ll meet you there.’
As Yelena walks off, Cilka quickly speaks to Maria.
‘She will be fine. We will have the two of you back
together as quickly as possible.’
As Cilka walks from the room she hears the booming
voice of the commandant. She takes a moment to watch
as he wraps his wife in his arms and she tells him, in a
voice thick with emotion, what she knows. Man, woman,
child, and the luxury of caring only about one another.
* * *
Yelena tells Cilka she can go and get Maria and the
commandant and bring them to Katya, who remains asleep,
minus her appendix. Cilka stands at the back of the room
while Yelena explains what the procedure involved, the
recovery period, and offers to stay the night with her.
Maria thanks her, asking if it would be possible for Cilka
instead to stay the night with Katya and her. She’s not
leaving. The commandant wants his daughter brought
home but agrees she can spend one night in her own room
here, away from the prisoners. Chairs are brought into
the operating room for Cilka and Maria. There will be no
more operations today.
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CHAPTER 24
Katya wakes several times during the night. Cilka
checks on her, and administers further injections for
the pain, while Maria reassures her daughter that she will
be home soon.
After settling Katya once again, Cilka sits back down,
aware that Maria is staring at her.
‘Is everything all right?’ she asks the wife of the comman-
dant who imprisons her.
‘I don’t know how to thank you for your kindness, your
care. Watching you with Katya overwhelms me. I don’t
know why you are here, I don’t want to know, but will
you let me talk to my husband, ask him to help you?’
Cilka doesn’t know where to look.
‘Do you mean that?’
‘Yes, we owe you so much. If it was up to me, you
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wouldn’t spend another night here. Katya is very special to Alexei Demyanovich. Don’t tell anyone, particularly
our sons, but I think he does have a favourite child, and
it’s that young girl lying in the bed.’
Cilka stands and walks over to Katya. Looks down
at her: fair and pretty, soon to be moving out of girl-
hood. Cilka moves a wayward strand of hair from her
face.
‘I’ve never had a child,’ Cilka says, feeling safe in the
warm, quiet room. ‘But I am a daughter. I know the love
of a mother and a father.’
‘One day you will, Cilka, you are young.’
‘Perhaps.’
It is too much to reveal to Maria, this well-fed, cared-for
woman, that she doesn’t think this will happen for her,
ever. If it was possible, surely it would have already
happened. She no longer functions inside like other
women.
‘Let me help you leave this place and it could happen
sooner. This is only a temporary post for my husband. We
may be back in Moscow soon. This may be your only
chance to let me help you.’
Cilka sits back down, turning her chair slightly to face
Maria, looks her in the face.
‘Could I use your offer of help for someone else?’
‘Why would you do that?’ a clearly perplexed Maria
asks.
‘Because there is a mother here, in this camp, who is
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weeks. As soon as she turns two, she will be taken away and Josie will never see her again. If there is anything you
can do to stop that happening, I wouldn’t know how to
thank you. I would be so, so grateful.’
Maria looks away, overcome at hearing this. She looks
at her own daughter and holds a hand across her stomach.
Surely she knows what goes on, Cilka thinks. Maybe she
has just never allowed herself to think what it is like for
the prisoners, the women; their suffering.
Maria nods her head. She reaches out and takes Cilka’s
hands.
‘Give me her details. Natia and her mother will not be
separated
, if I can help.’
‘Jozefína Kotecka,’ Cilka says.
The door to the room opens, Alexei Demyanovich enters
surrounded by his bodyguards. He looks at the two
women. Cilka jumps to her feet.
‘Thank you for looking after my daughter and my
wife.’
Katya wakes up at the heavy sound of boots on the
wooden floor. Seeing her father, she calls out.
‘Papa, Papa.’
Throwing a wink at his wife, Alexei sits on Katya’s bed,
comforting her.
Yelena appears and examines Katya.
Everyone in the room is smiling. Cilka finds herself in
the middle of a happy family occasion and doesn’t know
how to respond. As Katya is helped into a wheelchair to
be wheeled out for the ride home in her father’s car, Maria
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gives Cilka a long hug, whispering that she will take care of Natia and her mother.
As everyone leaves the room, Cilka shuts the door
behind them and sits on Katya’s bed.
‘A mother’s love,’ she whispers.
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CHAPTER 25
Yelena meets Cilka as she arrives at work. ‘Come with
me.’
Cilka follows.
‘Don’t take your coat off.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Just come with me.’
Yelena walks briskly away from the hospital to the
nearby administration building, a three-storey stone
building standing beside two similar ones. They head
round to the back, a more discreet entrance. A guard
outside opens it for them without question. They step into
a small reception area. Cilka quickly takes in her surround-
ings, looking for threats, for anyone who might harm her.
She steps forward to be close to Yelena, wanting the
security of this woman she has come to trust. And then,
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there he is. Alexandr stands up from behind a desk. She has not seen him up close for so long. He is thin, like all
prisoners, but put-together – composed. His hair neat, his
skin clear; his brown eyes have a warm, open expression.
‘Wait here just one moment,’ says Yelena to Cilka, and
she nods to Alexandr and walks away down a corridor
behind him and through a door.
‘It’ll be all right, Cilka,’ Alexandr says quietly, clearly
noting her distress, and showing he remembers her. He
smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Cilka’s heart
pounds.
Josie has mentioned him a few times and she is always
grateful to know he is well. Josie also tells her he writes
poems on the corners of pieces of paper, before tearing
them off and destroying them.
Cilka goes over to the desk. She manages to speak. ‘I
hope so, Alexandr,’ she says. She looks down and does
glimpse scribbles across paper in an expressive hand. She
peers back up, cannot help her eyes going to his lips.
‘I . . .’
Cilka hears a door close and looks up. Josie! Her friend
runs towards her, clearly distraught.
‘Cilka, what’s happening?’
Yelena is following Josie back into the room.
‘I don’t know,’ Cilka says, heart still racing. ‘Yelena
Georgiyevna, what’s going on?’
‘I don’t know. Just wait a moment. I was told to bring
you here.’
Maria Danilovna walks into the room, Natia in her arms.
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Josie cries out and runs to her daughter, stopping herself before she snatches her from the well-dressed stranger’s
arms. Maria hands Natia over, the little girl clearly happy
and calm.
‘She’s a beautiful little girl, Jozefína,’ Maria says. ‘Come.’
She beckons them back down the corridor. Cilka glances
at Alexandr, who nods at her and then sits back at his
desk. They go into a dull grey room and Maria closes the
door.
Maria turns to Cilka. ‘I kept my promise.’
‘What’s going on?’ Josie demands, clutching Natia, terri-
fied.
Cilka strokes Natia’s face, then Josie’s.
‘Josie, this is Maria Danilovna, the wife of Commandant
Alexei Demyanovich. You have nothing to fear. She is
helping you.’
‘Helping me how?’
‘Jozefína, I offered to help Cilka Klein after she saved
the life of my daughter, not once, but twice—’
‘Well it wasn’t really me—’
‘I’m telling the story, Cilka!’ Maria says. ‘She saved my
daughter’s life twice. I asked her what I could do to help
her, in gratitude for her care. She didn’t ask for anything
for herself; she told me about you and asked if I could
help you and your daughter.’
‘I don’t understand, you offered to help her and instead
you’re helping me?’
‘Yes, there is a car waiting outside. It will take you and
Natia to the train station and from there to Moscow. A
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friend of mine, Stepanida Fabiyanovna, will meet you in Moscow and take you home with her. I’m hoping you
will take up the opportunity of living with her, earning a
home.’
Josie, holding Natia, drops to the floor, sobbing, over-
come. Cilka bends down beside her, hugging the two of
them. Yelena and Maria look on, wiping tears from their
own eyes. Natia wriggles free and reaches to put her tiny
hands around Cilka’s neck. Cilka sweeps the little girl into
her arms, holding her close. She kisses her over and over
on the face until the little girl bats her away, causing Josie and Cilka to laugh through their tears. Slowly, they all
stand up together.
‘Mumma,’ Natia squeals as she thrusts her arms towards
her mother. Josie takes her.
Maria smiles warmly, wiping her eyes. ‘I’ll leave you to
say goodbye properly. Give my best wishes to Stepanida
Fabiyanovna. Tell her I will write soon.’
As Maria Danilovna opens the door, Cilka runs after
her, surprising herself by wrapping her arms around her.
She catches herself, steps back.
‘How can I ever thank you?’
‘You already have. Take care, Cilka. I’ll be checking on
you from time to time.’
She gives them all one final nod, and leaves.
The door opens again. It is a guard.
‘Time to go. The car is waiting, the train won’t.’ He
holds up a small bag. ‘The commandant’s wife asked me
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to give you this; it’s some clothes for the little one. I’ll put it in the car.’
They walk back into the reception area. Josie quickly
runs over to Alexandr.
‘Goodbye, Alexandr,’ she says.
‘Good luck, Josie,’ he says, pressing his hands over hers,
&
nbsp; over the child.
As Josie walks back towards the group, Alexandr locks
eyes with Cilka. She turns away, puts her arm around Josie
and Natia and walks out into the open with them.
As they reach the car door, Josie looks from Yelena to
Cilka. ‘I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave you.’
Cilka laughs. Josie’s words are the most beautiful and
absurd she has heard for a long time. She keeps the smile
on her face, tries to fight back the tears.
‘Get in the car. Go. Find your brothers. Have a good
life – for me, for all of us – and make sure that little girl does too. I’ll think of you always, and with nothing but
happy thoughts.’
One last hug, Natia squeezed between them.
The car door is slammed shut. Yelena and Cilka watch
it disappear, neither wanting to move.
‘Of all the things I’ve seen since I’ve been here, this
is what I will remember, what I will cling to when the
darkness of this place threatens to envelop me. I don’t
know how the commandant and his wife have managed
it. Someone high up must have owed him a favour. Now
back to work, there are other souls to save,’ Yelena
whispers.
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The sun breaks through the thick clouds for a moment.
Cilka feels like she is breaking apart. ‘ Leich l’shalom, ’ she whispers quietly, to Josie. Go towards peace.
* * *
That evening, Cilka tells the others of Josie and Natia’s
departure, making light of her role in their release. Tears
are shed. Memories relived. Happiness and sadness in
equal measure.
The conversation opens up, as it often does these days,
about their lives before Vorkuta.
Their reasons for being there are as varied as their person-
alities. As well as having been in the Polish Home Army,
Elena had been accused of being a spy. And then she speaks
to them in English, which has everyone in awe of her.
‘I knew, of course,’ says Hannah, smugly.
For five years they have lived with someone who speaks
English. Several ask if she would teach them, just a little.
A secret act of resistance.
Other girls from Poland were also charged with helping
the enemy, in a variety of ways. None of them mention
prostitution. Olga shares again the story of how she found
herself on the wrong side of the law for having made
garments for a wealthy general’s wife. When her husband
ran afoul of Stalin and was shot, she was arrested and