Page 30 of Cilka's Journey
In darkness. In snow.
At dinner Josie makes a big deal about holding a piece of bread in one hand, her tin mug in the other. She offers to fetch the coal and grabs a bucket to head out the door. She is stopped by Natalya and told to wait a few days—they don’t want her struggling and spilling their precious supply of heat.
When the men invade the hut that night Vadim notices theunbandaged hand. He asks Josie about it. Strokes it gently. Kisses it. Cilka overhears this display of tenderness. These men only treat you with care in order to soften their own image, so you might be more open to them. It is still a selfish act, a trick.
CHAPTER 7
Cilka drags her feet the next morning, walking through spotlit darkness to the hospital. She will tell Yelena again that she has been very grateful for this opportunity, but she should return to working in the mines, or digging, or building—anything as difficult as the work her hut-mates are being forced to do.
She watched Josie walk away from the camp this morning, her body nudging Natalya’s. The two of them have become close. A pang of jealousy gripped Cilka. The small thaw in Josie yesterday as she showed her her unbandaged hand had given her hope they might regain the closeness they had.
In truth, the hospital work has been challenging and draining, despite her fortune in being indoors. Not only does she have to communicate in Russian and in the Cyrillic script, and learn to understand the established ethics, relationships and hierarchies, but most of all, she has to deal with the unexpected reactions of her body and mind to being around the sick and dying. She has managed to hide—she hopes—what is going on, but Raisa did mention the other day that it was amazing how Cilka was not at all squeamish. That she could be around blood and bone and wastewithout ever flinching. Raisa, who had been sent here after graduating, Cilka found out, said it had taken her months to become used to seeing bodies in these various states of disease, injury and malnutrition. Cilka hated the mixture of horror and fascination on Raisa’s face. She shrugged, turned away, said in a monotone: “I guess some of us are just like that.”
But the job is distracting her from her troubles too. Always a new problem to solve, something new to learn. If she did continue working here it would almost feel like a life, a way of keeping herself shut off from the memories of the past and the horror of her present situation.
Yelena is occupied when Cilka gets in, and Lyuba and Raisa understand her mood and conspire to keep her busy and take her mind off Josie. Cilka is grateful for their efforts.
“Come with me.” Lyuba beckons Cilka to follow her to where a male doctor is standing at a bedside. She has seen him working around the ward and has been briefly introduced, by first name and patronymic—Yury Petrovich.
The patient is unconscious, his wounds obvious, the bandage around his head soaked with blood. Cilka stands silently behind the doctor and nurse, peering around them to watch the examination taking place.
The blanket is pulled up from the bottom of the bed. A needle is rammed firmly into the heel of one of his pale, lifeless feet; blood spurts out, covering the sheet. There is no reflexive movement from the man. The doctor turns to Cilka, handing her a clipboard, bypassing Lyuba. Lyuba nods encouragingly and stands beside her.
“No movement from foot on needle prick.”
Cilka writes, after first glancing at a clock at the end of the ward to record the exact time of her notation. Lyuba whispers to her whenever she pauses, uncertain. Cilka is concentrating hard.
The bleeding foot is covered, the doctor walks to the top of the bed and roughly stretches the patient’s right eye open, then covers his face.
“Pupils fixed and dilated,” Cilka writes next.
“Slight pulse, irregular.” Again, noted.
Turning to Cilka, Yury Petrovich speaks quietly, “Do you know how to feel for a pulse in the neck?”
“Yes,” Cilka replies with confidence.
“Good, good, show me.”
Cilka pulls the blanket away from the man’s face, mimicking what she has seen. She places two fingers under the curve of the jaw, applying pressure. She feels the flutter of a faint pulse.
“Check on him every fifteen minutes, and when you can no longer feel anything, declare him dead and let the porter know. Make sure you note the time in the record.”
“Yes, Yury Petrovich, I will.”
He turns to Lyuba. “She’s a quick learner, we may as well use her. They don’t give us enough nurses to have them checking on patients filling beds by taking too long to die. Make sure you sign off on what time she records.” He nods at Cilka and Lyuba and then moves off to another part of the ward.
“I’ve got to check on a patient,” Lyuba says. “You’ll be fine.” She walks off.
Cilka looks at the clock, working out exactly when it will be fifteen minutes since she noted the words “slight pulse, irregular.” She is still standing by the bedside when Yelena walks up to her and asks her what she is doing. When she explains, Yelena smiles reassuringly. “You don’t have to wait by the bed. You can go and do other things—just come back every now and then and don’t worry if it’s not exactly fifteen minutes, all right?”
“Oh, thank you… I-I thought I had to stay here until he died.”
“You’re really not afraid of death, are you?”
Cilka drops her head, the image of a pile of emaciated bodies flashing through her mind. Their desperate, final sounds. The smell of it. “No, I’ve been around it enough.” The words slip out.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Yelena pauses. “How old are you again?”
