Page 121 of Cilka's Journey

“Listen to me. Not out into the prison population where someone would notice he’s not the dead man whose name and number we’ve assigned him. He will be discharged to a hut nearby, where he will be safe. I want you to trust that I’m doing all I can to help.”

Cilka is speechless. This is a good thing. He will be safe. But again, someone is being taken away from her.

She tries to smile. “You are so good, Yelena Georgiyevna. I am grateful.Hewill be grateful.”

Yelena looks troubled, in a way Cilka has never seen before. She is always stoic, practical and positive.

“Cilka, there’s something else.”

Cilka’s heart sinks.

“I’ve put in a request to move to Sochi, where they have built a new hospital.”

She reaches her arm out for Cilka, but Cilka flinches. She doesn’t know what to say. Yelena deserves to be somewhere better, after the years she has voluntarily put into this awful place. But what will Cilka do without her?

“Cilka?”

Cilka can’t look at her. She is holding everything back. She has never had any choices. Everything has simply happenedtoher. No matter how much she wants it, she can never hold on to people. She is alone. Completely alone in the world.

“Cilka, you have to believe I am doing everything I can for you too.”

Cilka pushes her feelings down inside her, looks up at Yelena.

“Thank you, Yelena Georgiyevna, for everything.”

Yelena holds her eyes.

It feels like goodbye.

The women of Hut 29 are all she has left. Cilka keeps thinking about Lale in Birkenau, how he had told her she was brave. How other people have told her she is brave. How Alexandr has opened something up in her, making her want to live, not just stay alive.

And she knows there is one more brave thing she has to do.

She talks to the trusties who act as guards for the nurses’ quarters, gives them her stash of extra food, and they agree to escort her that night—a Sunday—to the hut. She needs to talk to the women.

As they walk through the compound, she can see men eyeing her from a distance, but they do not approach. She opens the door to the hut, while the guards wait outside.

“Cilka!” Margarethe rushes toward her, enveloping her in a hug. “What are you doing here? It’s dangerous.”

Cilka begins to shake. “I need to talk to you all.” She looks around. There are a couple of new faces, but the hut is still mostly women she recognizes, including her oldest hut-mates, Elena and Margarethe.

“Please, sit down,” she says.

“Is everything all right?” Elena says.

“It is,” Cilka begins. “Well, I have met someone, and I feel something for him, and I may lose him yet, but I never even knew I would be able to feel something for a man, because of everything I have been through.”

The women sit politely. Elena gives Cilka an encouraging look.

“You all shared your pasts with me, your secrets, and I was too afraid. But I should have reciprocated. I owe it to you.”

She takes a deep breath.

“I was in Auschwitz,” Cilka says. Margarethe sits bolt upright. “The concentration camp.”

She swallows.

“I survived because I was given a privileged position in the camp, in the women’s camp in Birkenau. A bit like Antonina. But…”