Page 76 of Cilka's Journey

Cilka walks away slowly, not looking back.

CHAPTER 18

“You promised, Cilka, please make it happen,” Elena pleads one Sunday evening as they stroll around the camp, snatching this opportunity to enjoy the dazzling overhead display of sunlight poking through clouds.

“I know,” Cilka says. She wants to see Josie so badly, but she hasn’t figured out what to do about the eyes of the trusties on her. Whether they might threaten anyone they see her close to. She has determined by now, though, that they only appear as she finishes work. She has never seen them after she returns to Hut 29. “I’ll go to the nursery tomorrow and get a message to Josie that it’s time you met Natia.”

Though Olga has been working in the maternity ward, she hasn’t yet crossed paths with Josie—only seen little Natia when delivering a mother and baby over to the nursery. Josie must finish later than her in the administration building.

“I’m sorry to keep pestering you,” Elena says, “you’ve seemed worried about something for several weeks and, well, me and the others are concerned about you… and perhaps seeing Josie and Natia will help you.”

Cilka has been going straight to bed after nightly duties, not speaking much to the others, not wanting to endanger anyone. It isn’t just the trusties who are worrying her though. It is also the thought that some of them might already know, as the doctors did, what went on in thatother place. And they know that she is Jewish, and that she never speaks about her arrest. The worry has brought images back to the surface. Made her blank and unresponsive.

“You’ve been talking about me?”

“We talk about all of us, behind our backs of course.” Elena smiles. “Something has been bothering you. You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to, but we might be able to help. You never know.”

“That’s very nice of you, Elena, but everything is fine.” She tries to keep the sharpness out of her voice. “I promise I will get a message to Josie tomorrow. I want to see them both too.”

Several of the other women from Hut 29 join them, and Elena excitedly tells them Josie and Natia will be visiting next Sunday. Cilka must correct them. She will get the message to Josie, but she doesn’t know when they will see her. Clearly Josie hasn’t been wandering around on the white-night Sundays, whether by choice—for comfort or to protect herself and her child from Vadim, from strangers—or because she’s under a specific set of rules, Cilka is not sure. But hearing that a visit to Josie and Natia is a possibility is enough for the women, for now.

Anastasia walks up beside Cilka.

“Tell me more about Josie. Why is she so special?”

The sun pokes in and out of the clouds, throwing shadows across Anastasia’s young features.

“No one has said she was special.”

“Look at them, look how happy they are just hearing her name.”

Cilka considers. “We went through a lot together when we first came here. Josie was the youngest of us and I guess we all sort of mothered her. Then she got pregnant. That was hard on her andwe all helped her get through her pregnancy. That’s all. You can understand them now wanting to see her again with her baby—for them, part of that baby belongs to us. They have made clothes for her, and some of them have left their own babies behind, so they are desperate to hold little Natia.”

“I see.” She nods. “I look forward to meeting her.”

They walk on in silence for a while.

“The man who visits your bed some nights,” Anastasia says, “do you love him?”

Cilka is stunned by the question. “What?”

“Do you love him?”

“Why would you ask such a question? Do you love the men who abuse you?”

“That’s different.”

“In what way?”

“I hear your guy talking to you. He’s in love with you. I just wondered if you loved him back. I don’t hear you saying the same things to him.”

Cilka pulls Anastasia close.

“You will not ask me that again,” she says firmly. “My business is not your business. You’re young and still have a lot to learn about this place and your place here. Do you understand?”

Anastasia looks shocked. “You don’t have to get angry with me. I just asked a question.”

“I’m not angry,” Cilka says. Though she knows she is acting as she has in the past. Some indignation rising up, cracking through the blank surface. “I need you to know your boundaries where I’m concerned. I’ll do all I can to help you, but you need to stay out of my business.”