Page 110 of Cilka's Journey

The words stab Cilka like a knife and she clutches her chest. Boris interprets her groan to be the pain of sadness that he is leaving. He holds her, gently whispering his love and how he is going to take care of her.

At the mess the next morning, Cilka, Elena and Anastasia sit together over their gruel.

“I heard everything last night,” Anastasia says to Cilka.

“Don’t worry your head about it, Anastasia,” Cilka says. She needs to solve this on her own.

“Heard what?” Elena says.

Anastasia says, “Boris is being let out.”

Elena stops eating for a moment. “Cilka, you have to move into the nurses’ quarters.”

“We’ll work it out. I can’t leave all of you.”

“Cilka, don’t be stupid!” Elena says, hitting her with her spoon. “We all have husbands, or protection,” she says, sending a subtle wave to Antonina across the hall. “You will be eatenalive. Even Antonina or your fancy doctor won’t be able to save you.”

Anastasia’s lip wobbles. “Cilka, I will miss you so much, but Elena is right. We will try to see you on the white nights—like Josie, remember?”

Cilka stares at her gruel. Considering.

Cilka wades through knee-deep snow to the ward after roll call, and seeks out Yelena.

“Can we talk?”

“Of course, Cilka.”

“Can you please move me, now, today, into the nurses’ quarters? I can’t continue sleeping in the hut,” she blurts out.

“Are you hurt?” Yelena asks.

“Not yet, but I might be if I stay where I am. Please help me.”

Cilka still feels terrible about leaving her friends, but it is true that they are all now protected. Her being there won’t change a thing. They don’t need her for extra rations either, as most of them now have better jobs.

“Calm down. Of course we’ll help you. You will go to the nurses’ quarters with Lyuba when you have finished your shift this afternoon,” Yelena says. “Do you want to tell me what happened? I thought the women you live with care for you.”

“They do. It’s not them, it’s Boris.”

“The pig who forces himself on you.”

“Yes. He told me last night he is being released and that other men are lining up to take me.”

“That’s enough, Cilka. No one is taking you. No one will harm you ever again as long as I can help it.”

CHAPTER 30

Living in her new home, with a bed, a small chest of drawers, fresh clothing, makes Cilka’s daily life easier. It is access to a shower that breaks her, reducing her to a sobbing heap crumpled under the water, where Raisa finds her, cradles her, dries, dresses and puts her back to bed.

Each evening, Cilka returns to the barrack that she shares with twelve other nurses, and if she sees a bed unmade, it is soon made. The floor is swept, sometimes several times a day, the personal keepsakes and photos belonging to each nurse dusted and arranged on their drawers. Keeping busy in this way helps with the intense missing of her friends back in the hut and makes her feel she can contribute something to her new living companions.

She has been in Vorkuta for eight years. Eleven years have passed since she left her hometown of Bardejov, bound for Auschwitz, still an innocent child.

Her father, dear Papa, occupies much of her thoughts. Knowing her mother and sister have died has allowed her to grieve, remember them. She is tormented by not knowing if her father isalive or dead.Why can’t I feel his loss, mourn his death; why can’t I rejoice, knowing he is alive waiting for me to come home?Neither of these emotions rests with her. Only the unknown.

A week into her new situation, during a break, Yelena sits down with her. She tells her about a patient she treated a couple of days ago with a burn on her arm. When she asked the patient what happened, she was told it was self-inflicted. The patient identified herself as Elena and asked Yelena to pass on a message to Cilka.

Boris had come looking for Cilka, planning to take her away. When Elena told him Cilka had taken a turn for the worse and was back in hospital and not expected to live, Boris had flown into a terrifying rage and smashed up her empty bed. Elena wanted Cilka to know that the wood had kept them warm that night. Her message was a warning, however: Cilka must stay away from Hut 29. Other men had come looking for her, bad men…