round,’ Kirill says.
‘Keep driving, it’s not as if it’s true hard labour you’re
doing,’ Cilka fires back.
‘I love it when you’re feisty, Cilka Klein, I’m surprised
you’re not one of the ringleaders running the strike.’
‘How little you know me, Kirill.’
‘Oh, I think I know you pretty well.’
‘Excuse me, there’s three of us here,’ Fyodor chimes in.
* * *
Back on the ward, the staff gossip is all about the growing
strike and how the authorities will handle it. The options
available to settle the dispute seem limited and likely to
end in an increased workload at the hospital. Nobody
knows if there is a specific aim to the unrest, or a new
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group of prisoners influencing the older ones, men still with the energy to protest at the way they are treated.
That evening, Elena shares what she knows. The strikers
want better living conditions, she says. The women look
around their hut, which they have made into the best
home they could. An old jug containing a few flowers sits
on a nearby table, embroidered artwork is tacked to walls,
and they each have a bed, something they know is a
luxury.
‘What else?’ someone asks.
‘They want the barbed wire removed from around the
camp and they want us to remove the numbers from our
uniforms; they say it is degrading.’
This last demand causes Cilka to rub her right hand
over the coat sleeve of her left arm, thinking of the number
permanently stamped onto her skin.
‘Oh, and we should be allowed to write letters home
to our families once a month.’
‘Anything else?’ Margarethe asks.
‘I heard something about demands for political pris-
oners,’ chimes in Anastasia, ‘but I didn’t take much notice.’
‘Why not? It affects us,’ Margarethe says.
‘We’re not all political prisoners,’ Anastasia says.
‘We are all victims of an unjust, harsh dictator,’ Elena
pronounces.
‘Elena, don’t say that. Not even here,’ Margarethe whis-
pers firmly.
‘She can say what she wants,’ Hannah says proudly.
‘I’m not interested in politics; I’ve never voted or
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marched or protested,’ Anastasia says. ‘I stole bread so others could eat.’
‘Can we all stop talking like this? It can only get us into
trouble,’ Margarethe says.
Cilka nods. ‘Let’s not say or do anything to get us into
any more trouble than we are in just by being here.’
‘That’s your preferred way to do things, isn’t it, Cilka?
Just lie down and take it,’ says Hannah.
Elena glares at Hannah.
‘It’s all right, Elena,’ Cilka says. ‘Anger is what we feel
when we are helpless.’
Hannah pushes herself violently off the bed and spits
at Cilka’s feet, before storming out of the hut. Elena balls
her fists and goes to follow her.
‘Don’t,’ Cilka says. ‘Let her go.’
* * *
Over the next few days, the unrest grows. The number of
prisoners on strike reaches the thousands. Calls for the
ambulance at the mine cease as the prisoners down tools.
The machinery grinds to a halt. Thousands of prisoners
sit in the compound, no one threatening to escape its
confines. Just a passive, peaceful sit-down.
An orderly regales Cilka, Raisa and Lyuba with his
version of a speech made by one of the leaders of the
uprising.
‘No matter our nationality or where we are from today,
our fate is sealed. Very soon, brothers, we will know when
we can return to our families.’
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Raisa and Lyuba listen before hurrying away, anxious not to be involved.
‘What else did he say?’ Cilka asks, fired up. She may
not have a family to go to but she could look for Josie,
for Gita. Does she dare hope?
not cause trouble, give the pigs no reason to attack us.’
‘Us? Were you sitting with them?’
The orderly looks sheepish.
‘For a while. I’m with them, I support them, but my
work here is important.’
‘Good for you,’ Cilka says to him.
The rumours are rife. Cilka soaks up all the information
she can. Each evening she relays what she knows. Elena
does, too. Clandestine groups have been forming since
the death of Stalin in March of this year; communication
between camps has increased, spreading plans for a mass
strike at Gulags across Siberia. A month earlier, they were
told, strikes had occurred in East Berlin, and this convinced the organisers in Vorkuta to do something about their
living and working conditions. Hannah has begun to sit
very quietly during these conversations.
The doctors working with Cilka discuss the non-violent
nature of the strike, grateful bloodshed has been avoided.
So far.
* * *
‘They’ve stormed the jail!’ an orderly runs into the ward
screaming one morning.
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The staff gather around him. His news is scant. Hundreds of men have stormed the area housing maximum-security
prisoners and have released many. The newly freed pris-
oners have joined the others and the sit-in has resumed.
Five days later, guards move on the prisoners. Cilka is
advised not to leave the hospital. Prisoners have erected
barricades and concerns grow that the guards and camp
authorities may be planning retaliation.
Cilka is terrified for her friends, hoping they are safe.
And she fears for Alexandr, too.
The next day, the stalemate is broken.
‘Prepare for casualties,’ Yelena warns the staff.
Gunfire reverberates around the camp. Within minutes,
Cilka and her colleagues are overrun with prisoners
bringing in wounded men, and some women. The ward
is awash with blood. The initial chaos is organised by one
of the doctors like a military operation. No one gets past
the treatment area at the front of the ward without being
assessed by medical staff. Cilka works without stopping.
They keep coming. Many are dead on arrival and are
quickly taken away by those who carried them in. Those
with life-threatening injuries are sent immediately for treatment, the others ordered to wait in the reception room
outside.
Like all the medical and nursing staff, Cilka is threatened
verbally and pushed around by panicked men insisting
she treat their comrade first. With no one to ensure their
safety, she and her colleagues stand up for themselves,
looking for and getting support from nearby prisoners.
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&n
bsp; With no change in the light outside, Cilka doesn’t know when day becomes night becomes day again.
‘Take a break, have something to eat and drink,’ a
blood-splattered Yelena tells Cilka and Raisa, who together
are bandaging the same badly wounded man.
‘There’s too much still to do,’ Raisa responds.
‘Take a break, then come and relieve Lyuba and me,’
Yelena says, and it’s the first time Cilka has heard her raise her voice like that. ‘It’s the only way we are going to cope.
We have to look after ourselves.’
Cilka and Raisa get themselves a cup of tea and hunk
of bread, bringing it back onto the ward. They sit with
the less injured awaiting their turn for treatment. No one
talks. Cilka dozes.
She is startled awake. Several men in uniform storm
into the ward, guards hurrying behind them.
‘Who’s in charge?’ one of them bellows.
Yelena approaches them. ‘I am.’
‘I want to know the name of every zek in here. Get me the list.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t have a list. We’ve been too
busy treating them, saving their lives, to ask them their
names.’
Yelena receives a fierce slap to her face, sending her
sprawling.
‘I’ll be back in an hour and I want the name of every
single person.’
Cilka crawls over the floor to get to Yelena as the
uniforms leave the ward.
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‘Are you all right? The bastard. How dare he hit you!’
She helps Yelena to her feet.
‘Didn’t see that coming,’ Yelena says with a brave smile.
‘How can I help?’
‘Get paper and a pencil and get the names, please, Cilka.’
‘But what if they’re unconscious?’
‘Then make them up.’
The Vorkuta Uprising is over. Two weeks of a bloodless
standoff ends with dozens dead, hundreds injured.
As Cilka obtains the names of the prisoners who are
conscious and makes up names for those who aren’t, she
is flooded with conflicting emotions. Talking quietly to the
men who can answer her questions, she draws strength
from their defiance and attempted resistance. Many of
them are proud of the wounds they obtained while fighting
for what they see as a just cause – better working and
living conditions.
When looking at the severely wounded – many that she
knows will probably not survive – she is wracked by grief
for their failed resistance; grief for the loss of Pavel; grief at the departure of her friends, Josie and Olga. She can
only hope they are somewhere safe. Hope that the best
efforts of the doctors and nursing staff will save some of
these lives that hang in the balance. Hope that one day
another uprising will lead to a better outcome and they
can all go home.
She gets to the furthest beds and drops down when she
sees a familiar face.
‘Hannah!’
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Hannah looks at Cilka through half-closed eyes.
The doctor nearby looks over. ‘Bullet wounds, Cilka,’
he says, and gives her a sorrowful look.
Hannah croaks, ‘Help me, Cilka.’
There’s a lot of blood, but Cilka can see the wounds
are in Hannah’s arm and chest.
‘I’ll be back,’ she says, and she runs to the dispensary.
She returns with a rubber tourniquet and gauze. She lifts
Hannah’s blood-covered arm, causing her to howl, and
tightens the tourniquet. Then, with her left hand and the
gauze bandages, she applies pressure to the chest wound.
She is not sure how long ago Hannah was injured, but
she can see why the doctor may have moved on to patients
with a better chance of surviving.
Cilka pushes Hannah’s hair back from her forehead.
She is covered in cold sweat.
The two women hold each other’s eyes. Despite
everything, at this moment Cilka finds herself willing
Hannah to live. She knows why she has become brutal-
ised in this place, why she let addiction take hold. Now,
lying before her, Cilka can see only her bravery, her
humanity.
‘Hannah . . .’
Hannah draws a pained breath over bloodied teeth. ‘I
couldn’t stand by, Cilka, and let the men have all the fun.’
‘You are so strong, Hannah,’ Cilka says.
There are cries and moans all around them.
Hannah takes short, sharp breaths. She reaches out with
her non-injured arm and grasps the front of Cilka’s apron.
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‘Cilka,’ Hannah says, her voice choked with blood, ‘you are strong too.’
Tears well up in Cilka’s eyes. She takes Hannah’s hand
from the front of her apron, curls her fingers around it.
With her other hand she keeps the pressure on the chest
wound. Trying, failing, to stop the bleeding.
Hannah squeezes her hand back.
‘Just keep making sure—’ Hannah says, gasping for air
– ‘you do not let them break you.’ She pushes these last
words through her teeth, fiery and tough. ‘Please . . .’ she
says. ‘Say goodbye to Elena for me.’
‘Hannah . . .’ Cilka says, tears rushing now down her
cheeks, her lips. ‘We need you.’
‘I’m not afraid,’ Hannah says, and closes her eyes.
Cilka sits with Hannah as her breaths come further and
further apart, and then not at all. She cries for the loss of a person of such strength and integrity. Hannah may not
have liked Cilka, or been able to understand what it had
been like in that other place. But Cilka respected her.
Everyone affected by war, captivity, or oppression reacts
differently – and away from it, people might try to guess
how they would act, or react, in the circumstances. But
they do not really know.
Once she has composed herself, and washed the blood
from her hands, she picks the list back up and completes
her task.
She hands the list of names to Yelena.
‘I hope this will do,’ she says.
She needs to get back to the hut to break the news.
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‘Ah, hope, now that’s a word we must use more often here,’ Yelena replies. She looks up from the list, at Cilka.
She frowns. ‘Cilka, are you OK?’
Cilka nods. It is too much to explain right now. ‘I just
have to get back to my hut.’
‘You may go,’ Yelena says.
* * *
Life in the camp and in the hospital slowly returns to normal.
Despite the white nights, no one risks being outside in the
evenings due to the increased guard presence along the
perimeter fence, and the sense that the guards are still jittery.
The hut mourns Hannah. Though she was always finding
ways to get under her hut-mates’ skin, she was admired,
especially now that the women see what she used to do
for them all. Elena tak
es it the hardest, beating herself up
for not knowing her plans, for not being by her side.
Cilka learns that the prisoners who survived the uprising
face no further punishment. They go back to their huts,
to their jobs, their lives returning to normal. Rumours
circulate about some prisoners removing the patches iden-
tifying them by a number. They are getting away with it,
no attempt is being made to force them to sew it back on.
When entering the hospital one day, Cilka is relieved
to look across the yard and see the familiar tall, confident
figure of Alexandr, closing his eyes and breathing out
smoke into the frosty air.
She gets to work, the sight sustaining her for days, like
food.
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CHAPTER 29
The dark returns.
There’s a blizzard howling outside and only one
man braves it to enter Hut 29. Boris. He is distraught. He
has learned he is to be released in a few days’ time and
is trying to pull strings to have Cilka released too, so they can start a life together.
Cilka says nothing as he regales her with plans of moving
back to his home, of his family there and how he will get
a job and he can provide for Cilka and the family he wants
to have with her. Cilka feels sick. She has to think of
something.
She runs her fingers across his scalp as he snuggles into
her.
He tells her he loves her.
Cilka is thrown back to another place, another time.
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Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1944
‘You know I care about you, don’t you?’
‘Yes, Commandant Schwarzhuber,’ Cilka replies
meekly.
‘I’d do something about my feelings for you if I could.
You know that, don’t you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Don’t call me sir here, in bed. Use my name, Cilka.’
‘Johann.’
‘It sounds so lovely coming from your lips. You do like
me, don’t you?’
Cilka forces her voice to sound loving. He doesn’t see the tears she wipes from her eyes as she tells the biggest lie of her life. A lie that will allow her to stay alive.
‘Of course I do, Johann.’
Tentatively Cilka runs her fingers through his hair. He
purrs like a kitten, snuggling into her chest.
‘Johann?’
‘Yes, little one.’
‘I’ve never asked you for anything in all the time we’ve