Page 112 of Cilka's Journey
“Load him up,” she tells the men. She lingers over a last hug from Elena, then follows the stretcher outside, jumping into the back of the ambulance. She glances one more time at her friend before giving the patient her full attention. She again asks the questions she knows the doctors will want her to answer on arrival.
On her way back to her living quarters that afternoon she stops and picks as many flowers as she can carry. Placed in pots,jugs and someone’s mug, they greet the other nurses as they return.
The white nights are back. Cilka and the nurses take their evening walks outside. Occasionally, Cilka thinks about risking a visit to the general compound to see her friends, to wander between the huts, share in the laughter that only comes at this time of year. And could she, finally, find the words? Something within her still closes over at the thought. She knows that she would be recognized by some of the men and boys, that she is still not safe, and so she stays away. She does not see Alexandr on those evenings—perhaps their shifts are out of sync—but she often glances to the administration building anyway, just in case.
She is almost grateful when the winds return, the sun goes down and her temptations are no longer a threat. But then winter arrives with a vengeance. With the new concessions gained at the expense of dozens of lives in the fateful uprising a year ago, work grinds to a halt on many days as prisoners are no longer expected to work in the bitter cold, with temperatures well below freezing, and constant darkness. Many days, the prisoners cannot leave their huts—the snow piled so high throughout the camp that even walking to the mess for meals is not possible. The road between the camp and the mine is blocked, making it difficult for either trucks or the train to collect the coal needed throughout the Soviet Union.
Futile attempts are made by prisoners to shovel snow away from their huts and create a path to the mess. Some succeed, but many give up as more snow arrives faster than they can clear it.
Paths are created between the medical and nursing staff quarters and the hospital.
The injuries presenting for Cilka and the others to treat nowoften arise from brutal beatings as bored men and women forced to stay indoors for days on end release whatever energy they have in physical violence. Cilka hears of, and sees, some beatings that are so severe the loser doesn’t survive. Like caged animals with nothing to live for, the prisoners turn on each other. Cilka’s gently flowering optimism starts to shrink back down inside her. This is always, she thinks, the way people will treat each other.
Poor sanitation, as the prisoners become reluctant to venture outside for the most basic of human bodily functions, leads to illness and this also fills the ward. The doctors often lament that they are wasting their time treating patients who will return all too soon with the same symptoms, the same ailments. And then the weather lifts and the temperature rises the few degrees needed for the prisoners to be sent back outside, to work.
“Ambulance going out,” Fyodor shouts.
“Coming,” Cilka replies, grabbing her coat and the new, softer scarf Raisa gave her recently.
“Where are we going?” Cilka asks as the ambulance turns away from the front gates.
“Not far, just to the other side of the administration building,” Kirill tells her.
“Another heart attack. One of the commandants doing it with someone he shouldn’t have?” Cilka jokes.
Fyodor and Kirill stare at her, taken aback.
Several men stand around, blocking their view of the patient. As Cilka walks toward them she notices a piece of timber lying nearby, covered in blood.
“Get out of the way,” Kirill calls.
They step aside and Cilka sees a man lying on the ground, not moving, the blood draining from him turning the white snow all around him an ugly shade of red. As Fyodor and Kirilladvance toward the man, Cilka freezes, fixated on the blood-stained snow.
Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1944
The loud pounding on the door of Block 25 wakes Cilka. Disoriented, she looks around the room. She has been dreaming, and it takes her a moment to remember where she is. Crawling out of her bed, she takes the coat that doubles as an extra blanket and pulls it on, then slips her feet into the boots waiting for her next to her bunk and pulls on her thick gloves.
Opening the door from her single room out into the large room where dozens of women have just spent their last night on earth, she screams at the pounding door, “Coming, we’re coming.”
She walks between the two rows of bunks, screaming at the women: “Get up, get up and get out of here!”
She shakes each of the bodies awake, giving them a gentler, last message with her eyes. In between her screams, loud enough for the SS to hear, she softly mumbles and whispers—prayers, an apology, a frustrated sort of rumble. Not enough to bring herself to tears. And not looking them in the eye. She can no longer do that. The women in Block 25 know what fate awaits them. No one speaks or resists; an eerie calm surrounds them as they file into the middle of the room.
As Cilka opens the door, the blinding sunlight reflects off the powdery snow surrounding the building. She hears the engine idling on the truck waiting just outside the fence.
The women wait behind her, the keeper of the death block. “Get out!” she screams. “Come on, you lazy bunch, get moving, quicker.”
She holds the door open as one by one the women exit the block and walk between the SS officers guiding them to the back of the truck. The last woman is struggling to walk; a gap has opened upbetween her and the woman in front. Cilka sees the nearest SS officer pull his swagger stick from its holder on his belt and advance on the woman. Cilka gets to her first, screaming at her as she slips her arm around the woman, half dragging her toward the truck. The SS officer puts his stick away. Cilka doesn’t let up on her screaming until she has helped the woman onto the truck. The doors are slammed shut, and the truck drives off. The SS officers wander away.
Cilka stands watching the truck leave. She is completely hollowed out, though she feels bile in her throat. She doesn’t see the prisoner until she is a few feet away.
“Murderer,” the prisoner hisses at her.
“What did you say?”
“You heard me, you murdering bitch. You have as much blood on your hands as they do,” she says in a shaking voice, pointing to the departing truck.
The woman walks away, turning back, glaring at her.
