Page 118 of Cilka's Journey

“Will you think about what I said?”

Cilka pauses, looking deep into his dark brown eyes.

“I’ll think about nothing else.”

Cilka knocks on Raisa’s bedroom door in the nurses’ quarters. The nurses share rooms, and the prisoner nurses are in a larger dormitory within the barracks.

“Come in,” a sleepy Raisa calls out.

Cilka opens the door and stands in the doorway, doubled over.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m not feeling well. I don’t think I should go on the ward.”

“Do you want me to take a look at you?” Raisa asks, throwing her legs over the side of the bed to sit on the edge.

“No, I’ll be okay. I just want to go back to bed.”

“Go back to bed. I’ll get up and start your shift. I’m sure the others will overlap and cover you.”

“Can you tell Yelena Georgiyevna I think I’d better be off for two or three days? I don’t want to spread whatever it is I have to the patients.”

“No, you’re probably right. Go back to sleep and I’ll have someone bring you something to eat in a few hours and check on you.”

Cilka closes the door and returns to her bed.

Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1944

The footsteps in the block and then the knock on her door startle Cilka. She remains lying on her bed. The knock comes again.

“Come in,” she says, barely above a whisper.

The door slowly opens. A face pokes into the room.

“Lale! What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here,” Cilka cries out.

“Can I come in?”

“Of course, come in. Shut the door, quick.”

Lale does as he’s been told. Leaning against the door, he looks at Cilka, who is now sitting on her bed looking back.

“I had to see you. I had to say thank you in person, not through Gita.”

“It’s dangerous, Lale. You shouldn’t be here. You don’t know when one of them will come here.”

“I’ll take the risk. You took a bigger one asking for me to get my job back. I need to do this.”

Cilka sighs. “I’m glad it worked out. It was breaking my heart seeing Gita so upset, not knowing if you were alive, then hearing where you were working.”

“Don’t say any more; I can’t bear hearing how it would have been for her. My stupidity got me into trouble. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever learn.” He shakes his head.

“She loves you, you know.”

Lale raises his head again. “She’s never said that to me. I can’t tell you what it means to me hearing it.”

“She does.”