“Cilka!” Margarethe rushes toward her, enveloping her in a hug. “What are you doing here? It’s dangerous.”
Cilka begins to shake. “I need to talk to you all.” She looks around. There are a couple of new faces, but the hut is still mostly women she recognizes, including her oldest hut-mates, Elena and Margarethe.
“Please, sit down,” she says.
“Is everything all right?” Elena says.
“It is,” Cilka begins. “Well, I have met someone, and I feel something for him, and I may lose him yet, but I never even knew I would be able to feel something for a man, because of everything I have been through.”
The women sit politely. Elena gives Cilka an encouraging look.
“You all shared your pasts with me, your secrets, and I was too afraid. But I should have reciprocated. I owe it to you.”
She takes a deep breath.
“I was in Auschwitz,” Cilka says. Margarethe sits bolt upright. “The concentration camp.”
She swallows.
“I survived because I was given a privileged position in the camp, in the women’s camp in Birkenau. A bit like Antonina. But…”
Elena nods at her. “Go on, Cilka.”
No one else speaks.
“I had my own room in the block. A block where they would put the”—she struggles to say the words—“sick and the dying women, before they would take them to the gas chambers to murder them.”
The women have their hands over their mouths, unbelieving.
“The SS officers, they put me there, in that block, because there were no witnesses.”
Silence. Complete silence.
Cilka swallows again, feeling light, dizzy.
Anastasia starts to cry, audibly.
“I know that sound, Anastasia; it is so familiar to me,” Cilka says. “I used to get angry. I don’t know why that emotion. But they were all just so helpless. I wasn’t able to cry. I had no tears. And this is why I have not been able to tell you all. I had a bed, I had food. And they were naked and dying.”
“How … how long were you there?” Elena asks.
“Three years.”
Margarethe comes to sit near Cilka and holds out a hand. “None of us know what we would have done. Did those bastards kill your family?”
“I put my mother on the death cart myself.”
Margarethe forcefully takes Cilka’s hand. “The memory is giving you a shock. I can tell by your voice. And you’re shaking. Elena, make a cup of tea.”
Elena jumps up and goes to the stove.
The rest of the women remain quiet. But Cilka is now too numb to think about how her words have been received. There’s an exhaustion taking over her.
Such a small space of time has passed, but the words have been so large.
When Elena returns with the tea, she says, “Hannah knew, didn’t she?”
Cilka nods.
Margarethe says, “I hope this isn’t more of a shock, Cilka, but many of us had guessed that you had been there. You being Jewish, not talking about your arrest.”
Cilka begins shaking again. “Really?”
“Yes, and things you would say here and there.”
“Oh…”
“You survived it, Cilka,” Elena says. “And you will survive here too.”
Anastasia, the youngest, still has her hand over her mouth, silent tears falling down her cheeks. But none of them has reacted as Cilka had always played over in her mind, had always feared. They are still beside her.
And so maybe she can tell Alexandr, too. Maybe he can know her, and still love her.
“I’d better go,” Cilka says.
Elena stands with her. “Come back again, if you can.”
Cilka lets Elena put her arms around her. And Margarethe. Anastasia still seems too shocked.
Cilka goes out into the night, dizzy and trembling.
* * *
“Good morning,” Cilka greets the receptionist as she heads toward the ward. She has one more day with Alexandr. She doesn’t know yet how she can possibly say goodbye. Will she dare to promise that she will try to find him, many years from now, on the outside? Or should she just accept her fate, her curse?
But though she is losing him, losing Yelena, and though she has lost everyone dear to her, Alexandr has kindled a fire within her.
Not to anger, but to something like hope.
Because she never thought she could fall in love, after all she’s been through. To do so, she thought, would be a miracle. And now she has.
“Cilka,” the receptionist says.
Cilka turns back.
“I’ve been asked to tell you to go to the main administration block, they want to see you.”
Cilka pulls her hand back from the door to the ward.
“Now?”
Alexandr is just inside. She could say good morning, first. No, she’ll get this out of the way and then have the day with him before he is discharged. A day where she can tell him everything, and then never speak of it again.
* * *
Entering the administration block, Cilka is confronted by several other prisoners, all men, standing around complaining about why they are here. She reports to the only person looking official, standing behind a desk.
“I’ve been asked to report here,” she says with a confidence she doesn’t feel.
“Name.”
“Cecilia Klein.”
“Number.”
“1-B494.”
The receptionist rifles through several envelopes on her desk. Taking one, she looks at the number printed on it. 1-B494.
“Here, there’s a small sum of money in there and a letter to hand to the guard at the gate on your way out.”
Cilka doesn’t take the offered envelope.
“Take it and get out of here,” the receptionist snaps at her.
“Where am I going?”
“First to Moscow, then to be deported to your home country,” the receptionist says.
Home?
“I am to go to the train station?”
“Yes. Now get out of here. Next.”
The bulb in the ceiling blinks. Another piece of paper. Another moment where her life is decided for her.
“But I can’t just leave. There are people I need to see.”
Alexandr. Will he be released? Released under the dead man’s name. How will she find him?
Her chest aches, feels like it’s collapsing in on itself.
Yelena, Raisa, Lyuba, Elena, Anastasia and Margarethe—if she could get to them … She needs to say goodbye!
Klavdiya Arsenyevna is there, overseeing the prisoners’ release. Cilka has seldom seen her since moving into the nurses’ quarters. Now the guard steps forward.
“You are lucky, Cilka Klein, but do not test my patience. You are to leave immediately, not to go anywhere but the front gate. Or I can arrange for a guard to drag you to the hole if that’s what you would prefer?”
Cilka takes the envelope, shaking. The men behind her have all gone quiet.
“Next,” says the receptionist.
* * *
Cilka hands the letter to the guard at the gate, who barely glances at it, indicating with his head for her to move on. Slowly, she walks away, looking around for someone to stop her, tell her it’s all a mistake. The few guards she passes ignore her.
On she walks, down the only road she sees. Alone.
The heavy clouds roll in. Cilka prays it doesn’t snow today.
In the distance she can see small buildings. Homes, she thinks. She walks on. Aching with sadness, but dizzy, also, at the strangeness of this freedom. This road in front of her. One foot, the next. What do people do with this?
Walking down a street with houses and a few shops, she peers into windows. Women with children, cleaning, playing, cooking, eating, look out at her suspiciously. She catches the rich smells of stew, and baking bread.
She hears a familiar sound, a train slowly pulling in behind the buildings, and hurr
ies toward it. By the time she reaches the railway line, the train is disappearing. Her eyes follow the tracks to a small station. She goes to it. A man is in the process of closing and locking the door to a small office.
“Excuse me?”
The man pauses with his key in the door, stares down at her.
“What do you want?”
“Where was that train going?”
“Moscow, eventually.”
“And among the released prisoners, did you happen to see a man … tall, slight bruising on his face…”
The man cuts her off. “It was full; there were many men. I’m sorry; I wouldn’t be able to tell you.”
Cilka opens the envelope stuffed in her coat pocket. She pulls all the money out.
“Can I have a ticket for the next train, please?”
Josie and Natia are in Moscow. If all the trains went to Moscow, then in Moscow she could look for them, and eventually also, for Alexandr. If only she could remember the name of Maria Danilovna’s friend. It will be very difficult to track her down. But she can try. She will.
“It’s not due yet, but all you need is your release paper and movement order.”
“When will it come?”
“Tomorrow, come back tomorrow.”
Cilka is totally deflated, exhausted, desperate.
“Where will I stay?” she says, close to tears.
“Look, I can’t help you. You’ll just have to do what all the others like you have done: find somewhere warm to hole up in and come back tomorrow.”
“Can I stay here somewhere?”
“No, but look out for the police; they patrol day and night looking for your type, you prisoners—some of them have caused trouble stealing from shops and homes while waiting for the train.”
Cilka is crushed. She turns away, walks back to town.
* * *
Other prisoners have also been released and been told by the stationmaster to return the next day. They wander the streets. They get into trouble with the locals. Blood is spilled. Cilka doesn’t offer to help, choosing to stay apart.
She still doesn’t believe she is free. Maybe the world is just a wider prison, where she has no family and no friends and no home. She has—had—Alexandr. Is her life to be spent wondering about him the way she wonders about her father, about Gita, about Josie? How will she really find Josie in a huge city like Moscow? At least she knows Yelena will be safe. But she didn’t get to say goodbye, to hug her, to thank her properly. She feels wrenched in two. She spends the night behind a shop, curled up in a doorway in an attempt to keep out of the icy wind.
* * *
She hears the commotion of dozens of people yelling before she hears the train. The fog in her head clears with the realization night has become day. Her transport out of Vorkuta is pulling in to the station.
She joins the others, running, all heading to the same place. The train has beaten her to the station and stands waiting, its engine running. She is pushed and jostled and knocked to the ground several times. Picking herself up, she keeps moving. The queue for the doors is long. The stationmaster has left his room and walks up the line of waiting passengers, checking their papers. No ticket is handed over. Cilka takes the form from her pocket and holds it out for him.
The stationmaster’s hand reaches for it.
“Thank you,” she says to him.
With one hand on hers, he smiles down at her and nods encouragement.
“Good luck out there, little one. Now, get on that train.”
Cilka rushes toward the open carriage door. As she is about to step up into the train, she is pushed heavily aside by two men wanting to board ahead of her. The compartment is looking very full. She reaches her arms into the scrabble, desperately trying to get ahold on the doors so she can swing in. The train whistle calls, warning them all to get on board. There is yelling and pushing in front of her, and a man falls from the pack, back off the carriage steps, and lands on the ground, twisted beside her.
“Are you all right?” she says, letting go of the door and reaching down to him. People continue to shove and swarm around them. He looks up and beneath the hat are the startled brown eyes of Alexandr.
“Cilka!”
She reaches under his arms to help him up, her heart thumping wildly in her chest.
“Oh, Alexandr. Are you all right?” she repeats, her voice choked with tears.
He winces as he stands, the stream of people behind them thinning out. Her hands are still under his arms.
The train whistle sounds again. She looks to the door. A small gap has opened in the crowd.
“Let’s go!” she says. Her hand goes to his and they climb onto the train together, Alexandr’s foot clearing the platform just as it starts moving.
In the carriage, Alexandr puts his arms around Cilka.
She weeps, openly, into his chest.
“I can’t believe it,” she says.
She looks up into his eyes, soft and kind.
“I can,” he says. He strokes her hair, wipes the tears from her cheeks. In his eyes she can see everything he has been through, and, reflected, her own eyes and everything she has been through.
“It is time to live now, Cilka,” he says. “Without fear, and with the miracle of love.”
“Is that a poem?” she asks him, smiling through her tears.
“It is the beginning of one.”
EPILOGUE
Košice, Czechoslovakia, January 1961
The bell dings on the café door and in walks a glamorous, tanned woman with a heart-shaped face, painted lips and large brown eyes.
Another woman, with curls in her hair and showing her curves in a lively floral dress, stands up from a table to greet her.
Gita walks toward Cilka, and the two women, who have not seen each other for almost twenty years, embrace. They are so different from how they were back then: now they are warm and healthy. The moment is overwhelming. They pull back. Cilka looks at Gita’s lustrous, curled brown hair, her plump cheeks, her shining eyes.
“Gita! You look incredible.”
“Cilka, you are beautiful, more beautiful than ever.”
For a long time, they simply look at each other, touch each other’s hair, smile, tears leaking from their eyes.
Will they be able to talk about that other place? That time?
The waitress comes over and they realize they must look a sight—pawing at each other, crying and laughing. They sit down and order coffee and cake, sharing more looks, delighting in the knowledge that these are things they were not allowed, that it is still a daily miracle to have survived. These simple pleasures will taste different, for them, compared to anyone else in this café.
First Cilka asks about Lale, and is delighted to hear about how he and Gita found each other in Bratislava after the war, what they went through after that, and how they have settled in Australia. Gita only stops smiling when she says that they have been trying a long time for a baby, with no success. She touches her stomach, reflexively, under the table, as she says this.
“Alexandr and I, too, have had no success,” Cilka says, reaching out to clutch her friend’s other hand.
And then, working backward, Gita asks—voice lowered, huddling in closer—if Cilka would like to talk about the Gulag.
“It is where I met Alexandr,” Cilka says, “and made other friends too.” It is too hard to articulate the relentless bone-chilling cold, the constant flow of sick and injured and dead prisoners, the rapes she again endured, the humiliation and pain of being imprisoned there, after the other place.
“Cilka,” Gita says, “I don’t know how you could bear it. After everything we’d already been through.”
Cilka lets the tears run down her cheeks. She never speaks about this with anyone. No one around her, except Alexandr, knows she was in Auschwitz, other than her only Jewish neighbor who had been hidden as a little boy all throughout the Shoah. And few people know she was in Siberia. She has done her best to put the p
ast behind her, create a new life.
“I know the people who came in after us, to Birkenau, they just didn’t understand what it had been like, to be there for so long.” Gita continues to hold Cilka’s hand. “You were sixteen, and you had lost everything.”
“We were faced only with impossible choices,” Cilka says.
The sun shines in through the café window. The past is seen through a muted gray light—cold, and never as far away as they’d like. The images and smells are near the surface of their skin. Every moment of loss.
But they turn their faces to the sun coming in.
Gita brings the conversation back to Lale, to their business ventures, and to the Australian Gold Coast, where they holiday. She spoons cake into her mouth, closing her eyes with pleasure, the way Alexandr still does when he smokes or eats. And Cilka joins in, talking of the present, of living.
They lift their glasses and toast, “L’Chaim.”
Note from Heather Morris
“Did I tell you about Cilka?”
“No, Lale, you didn’t. Who was Cilka?”
“She was the bravest person I ever met. Not the bravest girl; the bravest person.”
“And?”
“She saved my life. She was beautiful, tiny little thing, and she saved my life.”
A brief conversation, a few words thrown at me one day while I was talking to Lale about his time in Auschwitz-Birkenau as the Tattooist of Auschwitz.
I returned to the topic of Cilka many times with Lale. I held his hand as he explained to me how she saved his life and what she did to be in a position to save his life. He was distraught remembering, and I was shocked. This was a girl who was sixteen years of age. Just sixteen. I became captivated by Cilka, unable to understand or comprehend the strength someone of her age must have had to survive the way she did. And why did she have to be punished so harshly for choosing to live?
I listened to Gita on her Shoah tape talking about Cilka (though she does not use her name), the roles she had in the camp, including in Block 25, and how Gita felt she was judged unjustly. “I knew the girl who was the block alteste. She lives now in Košice. Everyone says she was this and she was that, but she only had to do what the SS told her. If Mengele told her this person has to go to Block 25, she would take her in, you know? She couldn’t cope with so many people. But those people don’t understand who haven’t been there the whole time. And didn’t go through the stages of what’s going on. So they say, one was bad, one was good, but this I told you—you save one, and the other one had to suffer. Block 25, you couldn’t get out anybody.” She also mentioned how she had visited her “after” in Košice, and Lale also told me that she had.
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