Page 48 of Cilka's Journey

“Cilka, no…” Josie wails.

“It’s all right, Josie, make your bed. I’ll be fine.”

Cilka is grabbed by the arm, marched from the hut.

Cilka lies curled up on the stone floor of a tiny cell. She wears only her underclothes. She is shivering so hard her hip and shoulder are turning to bruises. In front of her nose is a damp wall, smelling of mold. A barred window at neck height lets in the weather.

With no sense of time, she trains herself to sleep, inviting in the blankness. She wakes from nightmares, screaming, thrashing about, banging her limbs on the cold, hard floor and wall. She shivers more, the bruises blossoming all over her.

Sometimes a hand throws in a hardened chunk of black bread, sometimes a cup of soup so thin it could just be water.

The toilet bucket in the corner reeks; it is rarely changed.

When she wakes from her nightmares Cilka willingly invites the blankness back. But sometimes it will not stay. There is too much quiet, and a tight band of pressure around her head. Hunger, thirst, pain, cold.

She keeps seeing her mother, her hand slipping from Cilka’s, the death cart being driven away.

Other women’s faces. Shaved heads, sunken cheeks. They all had a name. They all had a number.

The images crackle, burn. The crying of the women permeates the silence. Or maybe it is her, crying. She is no longer sure.

At some point, a man enters. A blurred face. Gleb Vitalyevich. Cilka is too weak to protest when he takes her arm, feels for her pulse.

“Strong. Keep going,” the doctor says.

No.A wild, angry scream rises from within her. She bucks on the floor, screaming. He closes the door. Her nails scrape the mold from the walls. She screams on.

Maybe this was where it has all been leading. But to go through all of that, and end here?No.Some part of her wills herself to go back to stillness, distance.Do not give in to madness.

She will survive, she knows that. She can survive anything.

The loud clanking screech of the door opening.

“Get up, get out,” a blurred face says.

Unable to walk, she crawls from the hole through the open door.

The glare of the weak setting sun bouncing off the snow blinds her, and she can’t see the person screaming abuse but then recognizes the voice. Klavdiya Arsenyevna kicks her in the side. She curls up in a ball only to find herself being pulled by the hair up onto her feet. Dragged like this, stumbling continually, Cilka is returned to her hut as the others are arriving back from their different work areas.

The women in Hut 29 look down on the frail, broken body of Cilka lying on the floor, Klavdiya challenging them to help her, waiting to strike out at anyone who attempts to do so. Cilka crawls through the hut to her bed at the end of the room and pulls herself onto the bed. The mattress feels almost unbearably soft.

“Anyone else who has material they shouldn’t will get double the stay in the hole.” She leaves the door open as she departs, glaring at Antonina as she passes.

Antonina closes the door and hurries to Cilka. Josie has already wrapped her in her arms, weeping as she rocks her, whispering, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Cilka can feel where every bone in her body meets skin, meets material, meets the other bodies, the bed.

The women gather around, curious to hear what Cilka has to say. She is not the first one of them to spend time in the hole, but she is the first to have been punished for someone else’s error.

“Has anyone got some food they can give her?” Antonina says. “Elena, get the kettle boiling and make her some tea.”

She turns to Cilka. “Can you sit up? Here, let me help you.”

Elena does as she’s told.

Cilka lets Antonina help her sit up to rest against the wall. Josie hands her a large chunk of bread, everyone grateful that Antonina has never objected to food being in the hut, having also been the beneficiary of the patients’ uneaten meals. Antonina often trades this food for goods for Klavdiya. There is a network and the rules are murky. This is the prerogative of the guards and, beneath them, the brigadiers—to bend the rules or enforce them, at will. Depending on what they are getting out of it.

Cilka nibbles on the bread and soon a cup of strong tea is in her hand.

“Do you think you can make it to the mess?” Antonina asks.