Page 94 of Cilka's Journey

Cilka sits back down, turning her chair slightly to face Maria, looks her in the face.

“Could I use your offer of help for someone else?”

“Why would you do that?” a clearly perplexed Maria asks.

“Because there is a mother here, in this camp, who is very dear to me. Her little girl, Natia, will be two in a few weeks. As soon as she turns two, she will be taken away and Josie will never see her again. If there is anything you can do to stop that happening, I wouldn’t know how to thank you. I would be so, so grateful.”

Maria looks away, overcome at hearing this. She looks at her own daughter and holds a hand across her stomach. Surely she knows what goes on, Cilka thinks. Maybe she has just never allowed herself to think what it is like for the prisoners, the women; their suffering.

Maria nods her head. She reaches out and takes Cilka’s hands.

“Give me her details. Natia and her mother will not be separated, if I can help it.”

“Jozefína Kotecka,” Cilka says.

The door to the room opens and Alexei Demyanovich enters surrounded by his bodyguards. He looks at the two women. Cilka jumps to her feet.

“Thank you for looking after my daughter and my wife.”

Katya wakes up at the heavy sound of boots on the wooden floor. Seeing her father, she calls out:

“Papa, Papa.”

Throwing a wink at his wife, Alexei sits on Katya’s bed, comforting her.

Yelena appears and examines Katya.

Everyone in the room is smiling. Cilka finds herself in the middle of a happy family occasion and doesn’t know how to respond. As Katya is helped into a wheelchair to be wheeled out for the ride home in her father’s car, Maria gives Cilka a long hug, whispering that she will take care of Natia and her mother.

As everyone leaves the room, Cilka shuts the door behind them and sits on Katya’s bed.

“A mother’s love,” she whispers.

CHAPTER 25

Yelena meets Cilka as she arrives at work. “Come with me.”

Cilka follows.

“Don’t take your coat off.”

“Where are we going?”

“Just come with me.”

Yelena walks briskly away from the hospital to the nearby administration building, a three-story stone building standing beside two similar ones. They head around to the back, a more discreet entrance. A guard outside opens it for them without question. They step into a small reception area. Cilka quickly takes in her surroundings, looking for threats, for anyone who might harm her. She steps forward to be close to Yelena, wanting the security of this woman she has come to trust. And then, there he is. Alexandr stands up from behind a desk. She has not seen him up close for so long. He is thin, like all prisoners, but put-together—composed. His hair neat, his skin clear; his brown eyes have a warm, open expression.

“Wait here just one moment,” says Yelena to Cilka, and she nods to Alexandr and walks away down a corridor behind him and through a door.

“It’ll be all right, Cilka,” Alexandr says quietly, clearly noting her distress, and showing he remembers her. He smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Cilka’s heart pounds.

Josie has mentioned him a few times and she is always grateful to know he is well. Josie also tells her he writes poems on the corners of pieces of paper, before tearing them off and destroying them.

Cilka goes over to the desk. She manages to speak. “I hope so, Alexandr,” she says. She looks down and does glimpse scribbles across paper in an expressive hand. She peers back up, cannot help her eyes going to his lips.

“I…”

Cilka hears a door close and looks up. Josie! Her friend runs toward her, clearly distraught.