by Anna Ellory
After I had finished and the sun pinched at my eyes, I was greeted by Stella.
‘Stella? What’s wrong?’ I asked, looking at her creased face.
‘Your Hani, gone.’ She was breathing fast, ‘Pretty lady, please you help her?’
I bent and kissed Stella on the top of her head. Inhaled the innocence lost, and gathered myself.
‘Let’s go,’ I said with an assurance I did not feel.
But a week has passed and still no Hani.
I am sleeping alone.
The Kommandant sets me to work interpreting letters; I’m looking for addresses and locations of those being sought by the SS.
Canada is full of clothes, jewellery, money. There are medical supplies here as well. Pills with no labels, everything has its place. Yet possessions do not matter in Ravensbrück.
My other job, aside from reading the letters they find, is to write to families telling of the death of their loved ones. The forms are pre-printed, I write the names and addresses on them. I get to sit and read and write. I thank Aunt Maya every single day for teaching me because French, Dutch and Polish have saved my life.
I get to wash twice a day and I have access to so much paper. My letters to you can be longer now. When I write, I do so not to you, because I cannot know you will receive them, I write to the memory of you and that keeps you alive, and the language that I fell in love with; with you.
I ask everyone I know and all the people I meet about Hani. I think of the children and their ‘grandmamma’ and I cannot get the look of disgust from my mind. Finding Hani seems to have taken a deeper meaning, I trade my food for information. I look for Hani like I am possessed. I am sick to the stomach, I do not eat and struggle to rest; I am exhausted. The work I have is much better now as I fear I would have fallen asleep in the sun and the sand. I would have died there. Here I am safe. I sit next to an old school teacher. She is quiet but will nudge me gently if I fall asleep when the guard comes back around. I do not know her name. I do not want to ask it. We work in silence.
I sleep alone, and although there is more space, I cannot rest. Her presence in this place has been all I have known. I am without a shadow, alone in the sun.
Miriam cries next to the empty bed. How much effort Frieda went to to write letters to her father, and now she is all alone. She feels such sympathy for the woman, her father’s lover, that she cannot stop the tears from falling. For Miriam knows what it feels like to be all alone.
The next letter is the one about Eugenia, which in its rightful place comes next, and she realises with a sinking heart that the following letter will complete Eugenia’s story and she doesn’t want to hear it at all. The silence grows around her like a storm. She thinks about the flames, the matches, and this steadies her, remembering the mother and baby with the little socks, waiting for something. She reads.
Eugenia sucked in a deep breath, nodded her head to herself then on her exhale she talked, fast, her words joining together, stumbling over each other.
Eugenia jumped out of her skin and bashed her head on the top of the box. She felt the soldiers before she heard them, moving like shadows, then the putrid smell of smoke.
The baby cried out at the din, but the mother quietened it as Eugenia’s skin crawled with fear. She could taste burning and could touch the smoky tendrils as they snaked around her. Imagining wisps penetrating the box like long skeletal fingers. She feared being burnt alive.
‘Search. Search,’ they shouted.
The main door opened and the crash of objects followed. In the room, she heard heavy boots and it felt like the soldiers were standing on her lungs.
A jack in the box before it pops up, every sinew of her body pulled so taut. She couldn’t trust herself not to spring out.
The footsteps moved away.
Then the lid of the box opened.
The woman and baby. Opened to the day. Eugenia shrank away from the light and curled as small as she could into the dark recesses of the box. And at this angle she could see higher, she saw them.
Their deep voices shouting a mockery of empty words.
They pulled the mama up by the hair. Her breast was still out, the baby sucking hard to stay attached. The force brought the baby to his feet. He stood. Alone. Shock still.
But the mama, she screamed and screamed and kicked and flew at the men, stretching out to her baby.
They held the mama easily, despite the effort she put in to get to the baby. One of them carefully picked him up. Held him in his own thick hands. The mama screamed again. The baby cried too, hands reaching for each other – hers long and thin, his small and fat.
They shot her. In the neck. She folded on top of herself like a blanket.
The baby outdid his mother in the screaming, a caterwaul of noise escaped his bright red lips. Eugenia sobbed. But the baby scratched, he bit and kicked at them. Hands outstretched to the mama on the ground. They had a harder time holding the baby than they did the mama. He flapped around in the man’s arms, trying to get to the floor. To his mama.
Another man must have pulled out his gun, but Eugenia heard, ‘Don’t shoot, you’ll waste the bullet or miss and hit me!’
They laughed. Laughed like it was a game.
The baby screamed, constant.
‘Then-his-skull-went-crack, against the side of the box,’ Eugenia said it so fast, it took a while for me to register what she’d said.
The silence was held within our bunk. We heard Stella’s gentle snores and Bunny pulled her closer.
When the soldiers left, Eugenia got out of the box. As fast as she could.
The mama was on the floor, face down, shot in the back of the neck; Eugenia turned her. Her eyes were open, body straight, arms outstretched to her baby who was also on the floor, crumpled, one shoe off his little foot.
His round face was broken, wonky, his baby eyes closed.
Eugenia pulled on the mother’s arms and dragged her, leaving a long smear of shiny blood on the floor. It took some effort to pull and push and the mama fell heavily into the box. She was tiny, so skinny and young. Her eyes . . . vacant. Eugenia got back out and picked up the baby. His head fell back. Floppy and wrong. His little mouth was open and she saw two tiny little teeth. He smelled of milk and blood.
Eugenia placed the baby into the mother’s arms. Snuggled them in as tight as she could, even tried to wrap the mama’s arms around him. Eugenia placed one of her hands on the baby. And used her jacket as a blanket over them both. Eugenia tried to close the mama’s eyes, but she was unsure if she should. Maybe she needed to watch over her baby in heaven.
Eugenia tucked them in and closed the lid.
Eugenia looked up at me, as I scribbled away.
‘I do not know their names,’ she said. ‘They don’t exist. No one who loved them will know how they died.’
And Eugenia took another deep breath, picked up the patch of cloth that was resting in her lap and sewed a running stitch along its seam, as methodical and precise as ever.
Henryk, her story seems to whisper in the crevices of my mind. After all, fear is contagious. I tell myself that although we die in body, the memories of us will live on. In the hearts of those who know and love us, for as long as they live, we survive. Eugenia lost everyone that day, so I entrust her memory to you, so that she does not have to die twice.
Yours, always.
Miriam feels sick, the snakes that fed through her skin slime and shiver inside her again, from what she reads, not from a dream now.
The baby.
A thought. A flicker, a flash and then gone. The baby.
Tears swim in her vision. She gets to the bathroom and washes and washes and washes her hands.
Eugenia believed she no longer existed. What about her? What was she doing to prove her worth in life, to live when all these incredible women died?
Darling Miriam, my wife, my love.
She can hear his voice, feel the texture of his hands along her cheek, then moving to the
back of her head, caressing her neck.
I will never, ever hurt you.
She can feel the kiss as his lips pressed themselves into her neck.
My most precious wife, I will always be with you.
She hears words spoken in love, but words which have left more than a scar.
She looks into the mirror until her features blur into his words and she can feel his breath on her neck, and hear his voice.
‘What are you going to do, Miriam?’ she says to her reflection.
22
HENRYK
The world came back into focus quickly after I met Miriam for the first time. I became a father and a man. I sorted out the wire that hung corner to corner in our little room, so that when Emilie was hanging up the towelling for Miriam’s nappies she didn’t have to balance on a footstool with half its leg missing. I held and hugged and fed and looked at the small person I had, unknowingly, created. And I looked at Emilie, with Miriam’s arms wrapped around her neck like a monkey, radiating in motherhood, and felt proud that I had given her something.
Something good.
Miriam’s appearance in our lives changed everything. We were parents, and I followed Emilie’s guidance and found my feet. I was watching Emilie settle Miriam on our mattress; the abandoned cot in the upper hallway of the block felt too empty to fill.
Emilie was singing whilst rubbing circles on Miriam’s back, and the nagging feeling that I had had for a few weeks came clattering over me and took the air out of my lungs.
‘Emilie,’ I said in hushed tones as she shuffled around, busy with her hands. She rarely stood still and never made eye contact. I wondered what she had been through, pregnant and alone. I wondered if she could ever forgive me. ‘Emilie, I need to try and find Frieda,’ I said.
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘What good can possibly come from that?’
‘I have to try. I have to try and find out what happened to her.’
Emilie was pottering around not looking at me. ‘Emilie, please. Let’s talk about this,’ I said.
‘Why? Henryk, why are you doing this again? We have a baby, a future!’ She shook her head, took a deep breath and came and sat in the chair opposite. ‘You really want to know?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
Emilie took my hand in hers. ‘Henryk, Frieda died, in the hospital after the place . . . the place you were held. After it was liberated,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t want to tell you this way.’ She tried to hug me, but my body was completely stiff, unyielding to her touch.
‘No,’ I said. In our one-room apartment, in the aftermath of the war. Everything seemed black and yet brilliant white.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘No,’ I stood. Pacing the room, ready to run. I wasn’t sure where I was going. ‘No,’ I said again. ‘How can you know?’
‘I know,’ she said sadly.
‘You can’t.’ I ran my hand through my hair and then over my eyes. ‘How? How did she die?’
‘Henryk, please calm down.’
I was walking from wall to wall, a caged animal.
‘I found you, at the hospital, you remember? She was there too.’ Emilie looked at her feet. ‘She died in the hospital.’
‘No!’ I shouted. Then I collapsed in the chair. ‘Emilie why are you saying this to me?’
‘I didn’t tell you straightaway because, Henryk, you couldn’t even feed or dress yourself.’ She took a breath. ‘She was dying. Henryk, she wanted to come to you, but she couldn’t. Here . . .’ She stood quietly and walked over to the old chest.
It had been the only furniture left in the apartment when we acquired it, mainly because it was too heavy to steal. She dug to the bottom and removed a sheet.
I stood as she placed it on the table, and carefully unfolded it. I remember looking and thinking that Emilie must have known what I had done, otherwise why confront me with this.
A uniform, I presumed my own, was folded on the table.
‘It was hers.’
‘You wanted me to know that she was there, that I had done this to her. I killed her, Emilie.’ It wasn’t loud, the confession. It was silent, a whisper. Emilie tried to pull me into her soft body, but I couldn’t yield. I was transfixed by the empty dress. An uninhabited uniform, the evidence of what I had done.
Emilie was still talking. ‘I cared for you, I wanted you to get better, for me and for Miriam. I didn’t want to set you back. I know I should have told you sooner, but I didn’t know how to. So please, you need to let it go. It’s over.’
In such a jumble her voice seemed to journey around me. Look for her, I heard. Look for her. Yes, I thought. I shall. But how? The dress was empty.
‘Where is Frieda?’ I asked.
‘She died.’ A worried look entered Emilie’s eyes and she dragged me to sit with her and get me to focus on her face, but the dress, laid out, the stripes, the stitched pocket. I kept looking at it.
‘She didn’t die,’ I said.
‘How many people did you see who lived in that place?’
I turned to her, her dark eyes were on me and I held both her wrists in my hands tight. ‘She wasn’t there. She didn’t die.’ Emilie pulled away, but I didn’t let go of her wrists.
‘Look.’ She pointed to the dress.
‘Please, tell me this isn’t true. Please, Emilie. Tell me you don’t know where she is, tell me anything. I’ll do anything, anything, but please. Tell me it’s not true. Please.’
She held my gaze steady. ‘I am so sorry, Henryk.’ She matched my intensity with her own, and I was empty.
Hung-empty. A void. Blank. An utter bleakness clouded my vision, turning everything two-dimensional, space sucked out colour like a vacuum. Everything and everyone now a series of featureless shells. All flat, like the empty dress.
Nothing moved as I held on to Emilie, holding her eyes with my own, but just before I was about to crumble away into dust, her eyes flashed towards Miriam.
She stood quickly and went to Miriam, fast asleep, her bottom in the air, thumb in mouth. I watched Emilie fuss over the sleeping infant.
Emilie was lying about something, but why?
Was she sparing me a worse pain, knowing how Frieda died? Was there something she hadn’t told me?
Or was she ending something I never could?
Dazed and confused, I left the apartment and walked around the graves at Heerstraβe Cemetery. I looked at the grieving, shell-shocked faces that mirrored my own. It wasn’t true. And as I walked, without sleep, I knew that she was alive.
Because lights that bright do not just go out.
MIRIAM
The sky is dark when she returns to the letters, tears soaking her face and a vortex opening deep within her.
Things cannot be unheard or unseen, the images seep into her, and although she tries to detach, she wasn’t there, she cannot manage the images of the baby as they appear from the letter.
As the clock inches forward, and she hasn’t heard from Hilda, Miriam notices that time itself has changed: 4 p.m. used to be time to tend to her father, now 4 p.m. is nothing; 6 p.m. turning him, but now, nothing. Not having heard from anyone, and with nothing to do, her day is empty.
She finds the cord to the phone disconnected.
Shunting it back into its socket as fast as she can, knowing she may have missed the call after waiting for it all day. She calls Hilda. There is no answer.
She calls the hospice.
‘Hi, can I please speak with the nurse for Herr Winter, Henryk Winter. He arrived by ambulance today.’
‘No Herr Winter, I’m afraid,’ a deeply nasal woman says.
‘He . . .’ Miriam is cut off. She dials again.
‘I’m Henryk Winter’s daughter, he was due to arrive with you today.’
‘As I said, we’ve had no new arrivals today.’
‘Wait,’ Miriam says. ‘Can you check again, please?’
A huge sigh comes across the phone line. ‘As I said, no new
arrivals today.’ There is a pause down the line and a shuffle. ‘We had a Herr Winter pencilled into room four, but he didn’t arrive.’
‘What do you mean, didn’t arrive? Where is he?’
‘I don’t know. Look, the manager has gone home for the day. Call back tomorrow, I’m sure she’ll have more details for you.’
Miriam calls Hilda, again. No answer, again. She leaves a message trying to sound calm, but her voice comes out pinched and when she hangs up she feels like crying. She tries the medical centre, but they are closed. She doesn’t leave a message. She scratches her thumb and pulls the tiny bit of skin she uncovers with her teeth. She looks at the phone, and picks it up.
Shredding her thumb with her teeth, she dials another number. A number that once was her own.
‘Where’s Dad?’
‘Hello? Mim? Is that you?’
‘Where is my dad? What have you done?’
He yawns down the receiver and she can hear him stretching. ‘Was he transferred today?’
‘Yes,’ she says, suddenly unsure why she made the call.
‘Then he’s at the hospice surely?’
‘You know he didn’t get there. Where is my dad? What did you do?’
‘Miriam . . . Darling, have you taken your medication today?’ She places her weary hand on her forehead and takes it off quickly as the skin on her thumb burns to the touch.
‘Please, Axel, just tell me where he is, he needs me, and I’ll take the medications, I’ll do anything.’ The silence on the other end of the line goes on and on. ‘Please, Axel,’ she begs.
‘The professionals and I all agreed you are not of sound mind. And this, Miriam, this is you returning home, being my wife, taking the medications and getting well.’
‘What did you do to him?’ Miriam’s mind runs around a thousand scenarios. ‘Please.’
‘Do you agree?’
‘To come back to you?’
‘Yes, to come home.’
She bites down on her thumb, hard.
‘Axel. I’m not coming home,’ she says it. For the first time, out loud. There is only static at the other end. She can hear the change in him as the pause grows.
