Cilka's Journey

by Heather Morris

  “Well, so can you, now your ‘husband’ has got you a job in the mess.”

  “I will eat all of my lunch because I fought in a resistance against these bastards, and the Nazis, too. Unlike some people here.” She looks pointedly at Cilka.

  “Keep your fucking voice down, Hannah,” Elena says. “Attacking the only Jewish woman in here, one would think you were just like the Germans you fought against.”

  Hannah looks indignant. Cilka’s heart is racing. The blankness is coming over her.

  “She…” Hannah points at Cilka. She goes to say more, then lets a smile come across her face. “I could tell you about all the things she has done to preserve her own flimsy little life.”

  “No life is flimsy,” Elena says.

  Cilka feels sick.

  “Do you know how Josie is doing?” Olga asks, cutting across the tension, her fingers darting in and out, weaving her spell, embroidering another gown.

  Cilka finds her voice. “I haven’t seen her for a while now, not since they made her go back to work when Natia was four weeks old. I’m told she is doing well; she is working in the administration building, and she is feeding the baby herself, plenty of milk apparently.”

  “That’s probably why little Natia is getting fat.”

  “I never said she is getting fat. Just chubby.” Cilka tries to smile.

  “Please give her our love, however you can. Maybe one of the nursery staff will pass it on,” Olga says.

  “I will,” Cilka reassures them. “She knows how much you all care.” She looks pointedly at Hannah. “But I will ask the staff to pass it on anyway.”

  “What’s going to happen when…” Elena whispers.

  “Don’t think about that,” Cilka says. “Two years is a long way ahead.” The truth is, Cilka finds it incredibly hard to contemplate the separation. She knows too much about the pain of mother and daughter being forced apart. She knows too much about whole families being broken up, dehumanized, murdered. She cannot let herself think what might happen to Josie and Natia, or what might happen to Josie if Natia is taken away from her.

  “Do you think there is some way we can see her and the baby, I mean, just for a minute?” Olga asks.

  “Maybe in summer,” Elena suggests.

  “That’s an idea. When it’s warmer and we can be outside on a Sunday. I love that idea, something to look forward to,” Olga says.

  Hannah huffs. “There’s no getting through to you all.”

  Smiles return to the other women’s faces at the possibility of seeing the baby. The faraway look Cilka sees in their eyes tells her they are dreaming of, visualizing, holding an infant. Cilka knows several of them have children waiting for them, including Olga. It’s not something she is often able to talk about, but when she receives her limited letters she sometimes passes them around to share what her two boys—who are living with an aunt—are getting up to. She is often silent for days afterward, with emotions playing across her face, no doubt picturing every little detail her sister has included in the letter.

  * * *

  Before the moon and stars disappear and the white nights return, the camp is struck down with typhoid. The accommodation hut nearest the hospital is emptied of its residents to create a new ward. The infectious ward.

  In the washroom cleaning up after a birth, Cilka is joined by Petre. She hasn’t seen him in this room before and immediately braces herself for news she suspects she doesn’t want to hear. He leans against the door looking at her.

  “Just say it,” she says abruptly.

  “We—”

  “Who’s we?” she interrupts.

  “Sorry, some of the other doctors you’ve worked with, here and on the general ward.”

  “Go on.”

  “We know you have spent time in another prison, another camp, and that maybe there you were exposed to typhoid.”

  His eyes are focused on the ground.

  “Do you want me to confirm or deny that?” she says, both terrified and exhausted.

  “Have you?”

  “Been exposed to typhoid? Yes.”

  Auschwitz-Birkenau, Winter 1943

  Ever since her mother died, Cilka has been spending less time in the main compound, too afraid of seeing the women who are starting to turn, the ones who will soon be sent to their deaths. The ones who will soon be coming to her, the ones she will have to force herself to feel nothing for. But her mother had told her to look after Magda. And she wants to.

  But her strong, kind sister is just as vulnerable as the rest.

  There is also the fact that the other women, besides her friends, have begun to give Cilka a wide berth. Those that dare spit on the ground when she walks past, call her the worst names they know. Death clings to her. And so do the SS.

  One Sunday afternoon she has forced herself out, to check on Magda. Cilka and Gita are sitting beside Gita and Magda’s block, away from the door. She can’t bring herself to go in yet, as Gita has told her that Magda has been lying down all day, that she is worried. Cilka watches as Gita sifts through the new grass, searching for the elusive four-leaf clover. They are currency here: with a clover she can buy extra food or prevent a beating.

  Gita is talking quietly about her latest stolen moment with Lale. He had walked beside her as she left the administration building, slowly going back to her block. They hadn’t spoken, just exchanged stolen glances, which said a thousand words.

  The quiet is broken by hysterical screaming. It starts inside the block and intensifies as a girl runs outside. Cilka and Gita look up; they both recognize the girl and jump to their feet, running toward her; she is heading to the edge of the women’s camp and into danger.

  “Dana, Dana,” they both scream.

  Catching up to her, they grab an arm each as Dana collapses, sobbing.

  “No, Cilka, no…”

  Cilka’s heart sinks.

  “What, Dana? What is it?”

  “What’s happened?” Gita says.

  Dana slowly lifts her red-rimmed eyes to Cilka. They are full of regret. “She was so weak, it was typhoid … She hid it so you didn’t have to … And then it happened so fast.”

  “No, Dana, please, not Magda.” Cilka clutches at Dana’s arm. Please, please, not my sister too.

  Dana nods slowly. “I’m sorry, Cilka.”

  Cilka feels an intense pain course through her body and up into her head. She leans over and retches, feels arms around her, under her arms, helping her up. Gita is crying softly next to her.

  “Cilka,” Dana says, her voice choked with tears. “She told me just this morning how much she loves you. How brave you are. How she knows you’re going to get out of here.”

  Cilka lets Dana and Gita hold her, the way she held them when they lost their families. This is what they share—unfathomable losses.

  “I have to see her,” Cilka says.

  Her friends go into the block with her and help her to sit in the bunk across from Magda’s body. Cilka wants to cry and scream but it comes out more like a yell, a fury. And then, as soon as it has come out of her, it goes back inside. Her crying stops. She stares, shaking, but feeling blank. She stays like that for a long time, and her friends stay with her. Then she stands and closes her sister’s eyes, clutches both her friends’ hands in turn, and leaves the block.

  * * *

  “Did you get the disease? Have you had symptoms?”

  “No and no,” Cilka says, her mind numb.

  “That means you probably have an immunity to it, meaning you can get exposed and not suffer the symptoms or become sick. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, I understand. Why do you need to know?”

  He shifts on his feet.

  “We need nurses to work on the infectious ward, which is now overflowing with typhoid cases; we need nurses like you who can work there and not get infected.”

  “Is that all?” she says, with a strange mix of fear and relief.

  He looks surprised. “What did you
think we would be doing to you?”

  “I don’t know … injecting me with the disease to see how I fared?”

  Petre cannot keep the shock from his face. He looks away, speechless.

  “I’ll go,” she says hastily. “I’ll work on the ward; there are many days here I’m not really needed. If you need someone in my place, please … there are many capable women in my hut.”

  He nods, but he is not really listening. “I think Yelena Georgiyevna was right about where you have come from.”

  “I come from Czechoslovakia.”

  He sighs, knowing it is not the full answer. “To think we would experiment on you, or on anybody for that matter, in the manner you just said.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Cilka says, panicking. “I didn’t mean to say that. When do you want me to start?”

  “Tomorrow is fine. I’ll let them know you’re coming.”

  Cilka finishes cleaning up before dashing to the nursery next door. Natia is rolling around on the floor, attempting to snatch at a nearby rag doll. Her little face lights up as she hears Cilka call out her name. Cilka sweeps her into the air, and, hugging her tightly, she paces the room, whispering words of love and promises to return as soon as she can.

  She hopes by saying these words they will come true.

  * * *

  A white surgical gown, face mask and thick rubber gloves are handed to Cilka as she enters the infectious ward. As she is tied into the gown at the back, she looks around the ward, trying to process the scene. Every bed has at least one patient, some two; others lie on the floor with no mattress, covered only by a dirty sheet or blanket. She tries to steady her breathing.

  The nurse helping her into the gown introduces herself as Sonya Donatova.

  “It looks as if we’re going to be busy here,” Cilka says. “Please tell me what you want me to do.”

  “Very happy to have you, Cilka. Come with me, we’re doing rounds. I’ll introduce you to the others later.”

  “Can we not get more beds in here? No patient should have to lie on the floor.”

  “We move the ones who are not going to make it onto the floor; it’s easier to clean the floor than a mattress. You’ll get the hang of it.” Something turns in Cilka’s gut. Bodies on the floor, on the ground, with no hope of living another day. So, she is back here again. Her curse.

  Cilka watches as two nurses gently lift a patient from a bed and place him on the floor nearby. She overhears one of them say: “He’s on hourly time of death recording.” Once a blanket has been tucked under his frail shivering body, a note is made in his file and placed by his feet. Cilka sighs, feeling the familiar sensation of her body beginning to leave her, icing over.

  She follows Sonya to a bed where a delirious, screaming woman thrashes about. Sonya dips a small towel in a nearby basin of water and attempts to place it on the woman’s face. She is smacked in the hand and upper body by the flailing limbs.

  “Help me cool her down. Take one of her hands and hold tight.”

  Cilka grabs one of the woman’s arms, forcing it down by her body. Sonya holds the other arm and with her free hand attempts to place the wet towel on her face and head, only partly succeeding.

  “She only came in yesterday. She is young and has got to the delirious stage really quickly. If we can cool her down and break the fever, she has a chance of surviving.”

  “Couldn’t we just bring some snow or ice in and apply it to her skin?”

  “We could, that’s one way of cooling someone down quickly, but it could be too quick and would shock her system. No, I’m afraid we have to do it fast but not that dramatically.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

  “No, you made a good suggestion, it’s just not the right one. No one expects you to know what to do the minute you walk in, unless of course you have worked here before.”

  She has not, but she has seen the final stages of typhoid enough times. And the aftermath.

  “I came here from maternity. Does that answer your question?”

  Sonya laughs. “You are definitely not expected to know anything about treating typhoid, just as I would pretend I wasn’t a nurse if someone came to me in labor—that’s scary, two people to worry about.”

  The cool towel is having an effect; the patient is becoming subdued, and the manic movements associated with fever subside. Was Magda like this in her final hours? She wonders now if Gita had been distracting her with the four-leaf clovers, sparing her these horrific images.

  “I think you will be all right with her on your own. Just keep wetting the towel and running it over her face and head, her arms and legs; you’re washing the sweat off and this will help cool her. I’m going to check on another one. Call out if you want help.”

  As Sonya leaves, Cilka rinses the towel in the basin, noting that the water is in fact very cold—small bits of ice visible. She takes over washing the woman, talking to her in a soothing voice. This voice seems to be something that Cilka uses naturally, no matter what she is feeling—or not feeling—when she is looking after a patient. It’s a low voice, a murmur, that tells a story beyond the moment of pain. Perhaps she does it just as much for herself.

  After a short while, the woman’s body changes from being drenched in sweat to being covered in goose bumps; her shivering changes, reflecting she is now cold, as she attempts to curl up in a ball. Instinctively, Cilka reaches for the blanket on the floor and wraps her up tightly. She looks around for Sonya.

  “Sonya Donatova, she’s now shivering with the cold. I’ve wrapped her in a blanket. What should I do next?”

  “Leave her and find another patient who needs cooling down.”

  “Where do I find more towels?”

  “Is there a problem with the one you’ve got?”

  “No, it’s just that … well, I used it on her.”

  “We don’t have the luxury of new towels for every patient, Cilka,” Sonya says with an apologetic look. “Take the towel you have to the next patient, and the basin of water. If you need more water, get it from the sink at the end of the room.”

  As her day ends, Cilka has seen six patients die, and fourteen new patients brought in. On two occasions, heavily gowned and masked doctors have come into the ward, walked around and spoken to the nurses in charge. It is clear to Cilka this ward is managed by nurses only. The doctors do not get involved with medical care. They visit to get the statistics on how many enter, and how many leave, either alive or to the mortuary.

  Cilka arrives back at her hut every night exhausted. Her days are spent cooling down and warming up feverish patients; moving men and women from a bed onto the floor when it is deemed they will not survive; helping to carry the deceased patients outside where they are left to be collected by others, unseen. She carries the bruises unintentionally caused by delirious patients she is trying to care for.

  She learns all there is to know about the disease, such as how to recognize the different stages and when to diagnose the more severe internal bleeding and respiratory distress that will likely lead to death. No one can explain to her why some patients get a nasty red rash over their bodies while others don’t, or why this symptom is not necessarily an indicator of a poor outcome.

  With the first flush of spring flowers and the melting of some of the snow the number of new patients presenting on the ward each day begins to decline. Cilka and the other nurses begin to enjoy caring for only a few patients each, giving them the attention they would have liked to have shown to all who went before.

  One day, Yelena appears on the ward. Cilka is overjoyed to see the familiar face of the doctor.

  “How are you?” Yelena asks warmly, wisps of blond hair escaping from her braids and framing her face like a halo.

  “Tired, very tired, and very happy to see you.”

  “You and the other nurses have done an amazing job. You have saved many lives and you’ve given comfort to others in their final moments.”

  Cilka tries to take
this in. She still feels as if she should be rushing about, doing more.

  “I … We did what we could. More medicine would have been helpful.”

  “Yes, I know, there is never enough medicine here. We have to make hard decisions over and over about who gets them, who doesn’t.”

  “I understand,” Cilka says, that rush of guilt coming again for the medicine she has stolen.

  “So, my girl, the question is … what do you want to do now?”

  “You mean I have a choice?”

  “Yes, you do. Petre will take you back on the maternity ward tomorrow. However, your friend Olga is also enjoying the work.” Cilka understands that what Yelena is saying is that going back may displace Olga from her now much better position in the camp. “And I was wondering if you would like to come back and work on the general ward, with me?”

  “But…”

  “Gleb Vitalyevich is gone. He was transferred a few weeks ago. The administrators finally looked at his mortality figures and decided, in the interests of productivity, it would be best that he move on.” She smiles.

  “Where to?” Cilka asks.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care. I’m just glad he’s no longer here. So that means you can come back to my ward. If you want to, that is?”

  “I do enjoy working with Petre Davitovich and helping the babies into the world.”

  Yelena nods her head, thinking she has her answer.

  “However, I would like to come back and work with you and the other doctors, where I can make more of a difference, if that’s all right.”

  Yelena wraps her arms around her. Cilka responds stiffly, moving one hand to Yelena’s back, then pulls away.

  “Of course it’s all right,” Yelena says. “It’s what I want; you do make a difference. Petre Davitovich is going to be very angry with me for stealing you away though.”

  “He’s a good doctor. Will you tell him how much I appreciate what he has done for me, what he has taught me?”

  “I will. Now go back to your hut and I don’t want to see you for two days,” she says, taking a pen and paper from her pocket to write a note. “Get some rest. What you have done here over the past few months, you must be exhausted.”