Page 89 of Cilka's Journey

“Depends on what?” Cilka asks.

“Has anybody ever told you, you ask too many bloody questions?”

“Plenty of people, probably everyone who’s ever met me.”

The truck bounces over a boulder and Cilka winces as her shoulder slams into the window.

“So you’re not going to shut up then, is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m not going to shut up, Kirill Grigorovich, so you had better get used to it. Do you want to answer my question? Or should Pavel?”

“Well—” Pavel begins to explain.

“Shut it, I’ll tell Cilka I-Have-to-Know-Everything Klein. It depends how dangerous the rescue is. If it’s risky, then the supervisors will make the prisoners do it. If not, then the guards will want to make themselves heroes.”

“Thank you,” Cilka says. “We’ll know as soon as we arrive how dangerous it is then. I know you don’t like talking to me, Kirill Grigorovich, but it does help if I have even just a little information.”

“Yeah, well, clearly knowing everything didn’t stop you being sent here.”

Cilka chortles. “I never said I knew everything. I just like to know what I’m getting into.”

When they reach the site, there is nothing they can do straight-away. Senior guards and supervisors appear from time to time to yell, as prisoners try to untangle the mess that was once the long arm of the crane, now wrapped around the driver’s box. There is no glory in this rescue.

For the next two hours Cilka, Pavel and Kirill stand in the cold, stamping their feet, smacking their hands, returning to the ambulance to escape the wind. Several times Cilka climbs up the mangled metal frame of the collapsed crane to wriggle partway into the cabin to check for signs of life in the driver. Each time she notes his pulse getting weaker, the flow of blood from his head wound no longer gushing, the bandage she has put around the wound soaked in blood.

After her last trip, Cilka returns to the ambulance to tell Kirill to go back to the hospital. On the drive back, Cilka sees the first bloom of spring flowers pushing their way through the frost onthe ground. The wind whips them around and still their stalks bounce back, staying rooted to the frozen earth. Cilka has served nearly one third of her sentence. It is unbearable to contemplate how much longer there is to go. Instead, looking at the flowers, she dreams of the light and warmth that soon will come, and with them, time to see Josie and Natia again.

When she gets back to the ward, Cilka is told Mikhail is awake and has been asking for her.

“How are you feeling?” she asks him, smiling, reassuring.

“Is it gone, my leg? But I can feel it still. The pain is there.”

“I’ll get you something for the pain, but yes, Mikhail Alexandrovich, the doctor had to amputate your right leg, but she has done a marvelous job repairing your left leg, and with time it will heal.”

“And I’ll be able to walk, how? How, Cilka Klein? How can I live with only one leg?”

“I’m told they can make you a really good lower leg that you will learn to walk on.”

“Really? You believe someone is going to waste money on making a prisoner a leg?” He is getting angry; his voice is raised.

“I’m not going to lie to you, Mikhail Alexandrovich. I don’t know if you will be given a different job or whether they will send you home; you won’t be able to work in the mines.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better? That I might now be sent back to Moscow to no home, no family, the one-legged man to beg on the streets?”

“I don’t know, Mikhail Alexandrovich. Let me get you something for the pain,” Cilka repeats.

She turns away, not wanting Mikhail to see how their conversation has upset her. Yelena has been watching her and follows her into the dispensary, shutting the door behind her.

“Cilka, are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not,” Yelena says gently. “But that’s all right. You know how quickly things can turn bad here, you’ve seen it before.”

“Yes, but…”

“Did I make a mistake putting you on the ambulance run?”