Page 57 of Cilka's Journey

“So she doesn’t have to work? Just stays here and looks after her baby?”

“Do you see any other mothers here? Do you? No. Anya will go next door and look after her bastard by herself for four weeks, then she will bring it here each morning and go off to work like the rest of the poor bastards.”

“And you three look after the babies during the day.”

“Got an education, have you? Worked that out by yourself, did you?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to offend,” Cilka says, not wanting to get on anyone’s wrong side again. “I had no idea how it worked, that’s all.”

The woman’s face softens a little.

“Are there more huts?”

“If you must know, the majority of the new arrivals go withtheir mothers to the big unit down the road, at Rechlag,” says Irina Igorevna. “You’re very nosy.”

“Can I have a look around?”

“Please yourself. I’ve got things to do, can’t stand here chatting all day. Anya, get out of here.”

“Thanks,” says the departing mother to Cilka. “See you around.”

“Anna Anatolyeva,” Cilka says tentatively. “I think… Jozefína… Josie, is a nice name.”

The woman shrugs. “Fine, whatever you want. I’ll take little Josie and go and have a lie-down.”

An infant has crawled over to Cilka, plonking himself on one of her feet, and is staring up at her. Cilka bends down and picks him up. His little fingers poke her in the mouth, the eyes and up her nostrils. She giggles and tickles him on the belly. He doesn’t respond, keeps wanting to put his fingers up her nose.

With the boy balanced on her hip Cilka walks around the room, looking at the other infants. She stops at a small baby lying on a blanket on the floor staring at the ceiling. Cilka moves her head to get its attention; only a small movement of its head shows it knows Cilka is there. Placing the boy on the floor she touches the baby; it is hot to the touch in a room badly in need of heating. She picks up one of its arms and lets it go. The baby makes no attempt to stop its arm flopping onto the floor.

Cilka calls out to the staff. “Excuse me, this baby is sick, there’s something wrong with it.”

One of the attendants wanders over.

“Yeah, been like that for a couple of days.”

“Has a doctor seen it?”

“Doctors don’t come here, love. These little ones either make it or they don’t. This will be one that probably won’t.”

Cilka looks again at the tiny form, its large head and sunken cheeks, its ribs showing under the skin.

She has seen enough.

“Thank you,” she says to no one in particular. She leaves.

When Cilka returns to the maternity ward, Petre greets her.

“Hello. Where have you been?”

“Next door—to the nursery. I went with Anna Anatolyeva and her baby.”

Cilka offers no further explanation; she wants to get away from him, away from the images she has just seen, busy herself by cleaning.

“And what did you think of our nursery?”

“Do you ever go there?” she blurts out.

“No, my job is here, delivering babies. Why do you ask?”