Cilka's Journey

by Heather Morris

  “Hurry up. People are dying out here while you take your time putting your bloody layers on,” the driver yells, revving the engine impatiently.

  The man Cilka followed opens the back door of the modified truck, indicating for her to get in. The ambulance takes off before the doors are closed, sending her flying. The passenger in the front seat leans around, smiling as Cilka tries to shove herself up against the side, bracing herself for more violent driving.

  “Haven’t seen you before. What’s your name?”

  With her hands planted firmly on the floor, her legs spread apart for support, Cilka checks him out. His friendly grin reveals a few large crooked teeth. He is wiry and olive-skinned, with heavy eyebrows framing bright eyes.

  “I’m Cilka. This is my first time out.”

  “Hey, Pavel, it’s her first time,” the gruff driver says. He is bulkier and broader than Pavel. “From what I saw of her, it’ll probably be her last as well—look at the size of her.”

  “She may prove you wrong there, Kirill Grigorovich,” says Pavel. The two men cackle away. Kirill winds down his window as he nears the closed front gates, which are lit up by the searchlights of the compound. Sticking his head out the window, he screams at the sentry as he speeds toward him.

  “Open the fucking gates, you moron! Can’t you see we’re in a hurry?”

  The gates are barely open when the ambulance races through, and a torrent of abuse from the sentry follows.

  Crunching the gears, Kirill winds up his window and shakes the snow off his hat.

  “Excuse me,” Cilka says loudly, ensuring she is heard over the revving engine.

  “Find out what she wants,” Kirill says.

  Pavel leans back over the seat, staring at Cilka.

  “Pavel … is it? What can you tell me about where we’re going? What kind of accident is it?”

  “Yes, I’m Pavel Sergeyevich. We’ll find out when we get there.”

  “But surely you know if there is more than one patient?”

  Kirill cackles away, his big shoulders shaking up and down in his coarse peacoat. They are prisoners, she thinks. Trusties with a good job, driving back and forth with cigarette breaks in between.

  “That you can be sure of, honey. When any part of a mine collapses, there will be more than one casualty.”

  “So, you do know what happened. Why couldn’t you just say so?”

  “Well, well, what do we have here, Pavel? A nurse with attitude. Listen, printsessa, you just do what you do when we get to the scene and we’ll transport them.”

  Cilka looks around her in the back of the ambulance. Two stretchers are stacked against the side of the truck, and two containers slide around the floor. One comes to rest against Cilka’s leg.

  Cilka edges the top off the container to examine the contents. An assortment of instruments bang against each other. Rolls of bandages, bottles of medication. Cilka lifts each one, identifying exactly what she has to work with. Dragging the other container over she finds the equipment for hanging a drip and two bottles of saline solution.

  The road is pockmarked; the ambulance swerves around boulders, bounces against snow piled at the side of the road, visible in the headlights.

  “Time for action, honey, we’re here.”

  The ambulance screeches to a halt, throwing Cilka against the front seat.

  Before she can steady herself, the back doors are thrown open. Hands reach in and grab the stretchers. A hand is held out for her to take and she is helped down. Cilka notices the numbers roughly sewn on their jackets.

  She takes a moment to have a quick glance around. At first she can see nothing in the dusk and sleet. Then she begins to make out figures: men moving about aimlessly, some screaming orders. Cilka, Pavel and Kirill make their way to the opening of the mine, toward the ladder-like structure with the wheel on top. A guard strides over.

  “An upper tunnel is caving in; we’re not sure when it’s going to be safe to go down.” The wheel above them creaks to a stop as an elevator cage full of soot-blackened men arrives at the top. The men spill out.

  “There are still injured men down there,” one of them says, holding his hat in his hand.

  “We have to go and get them,” Cilka yells.

  “Who’s this?” the supervisor asks Pavel.

  “It’s the nurse they sent with us,” Pavel answers.

  “Not much to her,” the supervisor responds, looking Cilka up and down.

  Cilka rolls her eyes. “Let me go in and see if I can help,” she says.

  “Didn’t you hear me, girl? The tunnel is still collapsing. Do you have a desire to die?”

  “No.” Cilka raises her chin.

  She advances toward the now empty elevator cage, looking back at the men.

  “If you want to go in, go, but I’m not coming with you,” the supervisor says.

  “I can’t go alone. I don’t know how to operate this or where to get off.”

  “I’ll come,” Pavel says, without conviction.

  “I’ll take you to the level,” the miner with the hat in his hand says. His teeth are chattering. Cold, or shock? Cilka wonders.

  Wrapping her scarf over her mouth and nose, she steps into the cage. Pavel follows, loading the equipment in, too. The miner clears his throat, then pushes a lever, and the lift jolts into action, lowering slowly into dusty gloom. Cilka checks the lamp Pavel handed her as they set off.

  They go down, and down and down. Cilka tries to keep her breathing steady.

  The lift stops at a tunnel entrance. Cilka clears her throat. She unlatches and pushes aside the lift cage door.

  “It’s a bit of a walk,” the miner says, indicating he will stay where he is. “Just keep to the left.”

  Cilka and Pavel do as he says.

  “We’re here to help you,” she begins to yell out. Debris enters her lungs and she coughs. “Call out so we know where you are.”

  “Here, over here,” she eventually hears from somewhere in front of her. The voice is weak, scared.

  “I’m coming, hold on. Keep talking.”

  “I’m here! Keep walking.”

  By the light of her lamp, Cilka sees a hand waving at her. Scanning the area she sees three other men, not moving. She hurries to the man who had been calling out.

  “I’m Cilka Klein.” She kneels and gently lays a hand on his shoulder. “Are you trapped?”

  “My legs, I can’t move them.”

  Cilka examines the man, seeing that his lower legs are pinned by a large chunk of rock. She gently pushes him down flat and checks the pulse in his neck as Pavel arrives beside her, opening the container.

  “What’s your name?” Cilka asks the injured man.

  “Mikhail Alexandrovich.”

  “Your legs are under a boulder, but I think we can move it as it’s not that big. You have a nasty cut on your head, which we can wrap up to stop the bleeding. Mikhail Alexandrovich, I need to go and see to the other men. Do you know how many of you were in here when the collapse began?”

  “Four of us. The others had gone for a break. We were loading the last wagon.”

  “I can see three others,” she says, waving her lamp around.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “Check on the others. I was calling their names but none of them answered.”

  Cautiously, Cilka steps over the rubble covering the floor of the mine tunnel. On reaching the first man she checks for a pulse, finds one. Pulling back an eyelid, she holds her lamp above his eyes—one reacts. Running the lamp over his body she sees he is not pinned down, just unconscious.

  “Pavel Sergeyevich, go back and convince that miner to come and help us. Take this one first. He’s unconscious but you can move him.”

  “Be right back,” she hears as Pavel heads back to the lift.

  Cilka finds a second man. Immediately she can see he is trapped under fallen rock. She finds no pulse.

  The third man groans as she holds her lamp above his face.
<
br />   “My name is Cilka Klein, I’m here to help. Can you tell me where you’re hurt?”

  The man groans again.

  “It’s all right. I’m going to have a look and see if I can find your injuries.”

  She quickly identifies a badly broken arm, twisted in an unnatural position. A large rock is pressed up against his side. Gently, Cilka pushes on the man’s chest, from side to side, then further down his abdomen. He cries out in pain. With difficulty she pulls at his clothing, undoing his coat so she can see. Pulling his shirt and undergarments from his trousers causes him immense pain. Cilka sees the crush injury below his rib cage.

  She hears the crunch of footsteps in the tunnel and Pavel is back with the miner, each carrying a stretcher. She scrambles over to the unconscious man.

  “Load him up and get him out of here,” she says. “And then there’s another who can be taken out, but you need to go carefully. He’s badly injured and in a lot of pain. Get both of them out of here and I will tend to him in the ambulance.”

  As they take care of those two men, Cilka goes back to the first man she spoke to, the one who is trapped.

  “I’m sorry—one of your friends is dead.”

  “The others?” he asks.

  “They’re alive and we’re moving them out. Now we have to think about how to move this rock off your legs.” She stands, looking around in the gloom, feeling helpless.

  “Don’t go, please.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. I can’t move it though, it’s way too heavy for me, and I don’t want to roll it off. I think it needs to be lifted off, so it doesn’t do any more damage. Hang in there, Mikhail Alexandrovich, I’ll get something for your pain also.” She hunts for the supplies that Pavel had placed in the tunnel and finds the pain relief. She returns to Mikhail.

  “Mikhail Alexandrovich, I’m going to give you an injection to help with the pain,” she says. “And then, when the men come back, we’re going to gently lift the rock from your legs and load you onto a stretcher. The ambulance is outside the mine and we’ll take you to the hospital.”

  Mikhail painfully raises a hand and brushes it against Cilka’s face. She smiles reassuringly at him. She takes scissors from the container and cuts through his coat and shirt, exposing his upper arm. She injects him slowly and watches as he relaxes, his pain diminishing.

  Cilka sits in the gloomy, quiet tunnel, waiting, coughing regularly. Eventually, Pavel and the miner come back.

  “All right,” she says, “you need to slide your hands under each end of the rock and when you have a good hold lift it off cleanly. Do not roll it or drop it on him.” She holds her lamp up for them. She holds her breath.

  The men lift the rock, wobbling slightly, and drop it down to the side, panting with exertion. Cilka looks at Mikhail’s legs—bone protrudes through the skin of his right shin.

  Pavel and the miner place Mikhail on the stretcher and they all hurry back down the long tunnel to the lift and up and out of the mine. The dead man will have to be removed when it is safer.

  With Mikhail loaded into the ambulance along with the other two injured men, there is no room in the back for Cilka. Kirill leers at her. “You’ll just have to ride up front with us. Get in.”

  Squashed between Kirill and Pavel, Cilka has to constantly remove Kirill’s big hairy hand, which is attempting to creep up her thigh. She winces at the cries that come from the injured men in the back as they are bounced around, Kirill showing no compassion or care for their injuries. She offers up words of comfort, telling them they are nearly there, nearly at the hospital, where doctors and nurses will take care of them.

  The drive cannot end soon enough for Cilka.

  CHAPTER 21

  Cilka reaches over and opens the passenger door before Pavel can. He finds himself pushed out of the ambulance, Cilka right behind him. Two orderlies approach and open the back doors.

  “This one, take this one first,” she points to Mikhail. “Then bring the stretcher back to get the other one.” She indicates the unconscious man lying on the floor.

  “Give me a hand,” Pavel calls out to Kirill as he pulls the other stretcher free from the ambulance.

  Cilka runs after the first patient, unbuttoning and flinging off her coat as she enters the ward. Yelena, another doctor and several nurses appear.

  “This one, Mikhail Alexandrovich—small head wound, both legs crushed by a large rock.”

  “I thought you said it was a small rock,” Mikhail whispers through clenched teeth.

  “I’ve got him,” Yelena says. Two nurses tend to Mikhail, assisting.

  “Over here, put him on this bed,” the other doctor calls out to Pavel and Kirill.

  “There’s one more coming. Unconscious but with a strong pulse, obvious head wound.”

  “Thanks, Cilka, we’ve got it,” Yelena says.

  The unconscious patient is brought in and placed on a bed. Kirill leaves immediately and Pavel wanders over to Cilka.

  “You did great work, stupid and dangerous work.”

  “Thanks, you too. I wasted too much time being angry with Kirill Grigorovich when I should have been helping the patients.”

  “Kirill thinks he was born to rule.”

  “Bad driver, bad attitude.”

  “You’d better learn to get along with him, or he can make your life hard.”

  This again, thinks Cilka. But she can’t stifle a laugh. He is far from the most intimidating figure she has met.

  Pavel looks puzzled.

  “Let’s just say, I’ve seen worse,” Cilka says. She looks around at the efforts being made to comfort and treat these three men injured just doing their job, a job with no proper safety measures. She has seen injuries like this too many times. The prisoners are here for their productivity, as part of a quota, and they are expendable and replaceable.

  “But thanks for the warning, Pavel. I’ll keep my distance from him.”

  “Cilka, can you give me a hand over here?”

  Pavel watches as Cilka goes over to Mikhail, cleaning and rebandaging his head wound as Yelena continues the examination of his lower legs. Cilka glances occasionally at the doctor, reading her expression as serious.

  Yelena says quietly to the nurse assisting her, “Find me an operating room, we need to get him there straightaway.”

  “What’s going on? How bad is it?” Mikhail gasps, his hand reaching out for Cilka, grabbing her forearm, panic rising as he tries to lift his head to see his legs.

  “I’m sorry,” Yelena says gently. “I can’t save your right leg; your left is not as bad, and we should be able to keep it.”

  “What do you mean, keep one and not the other? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Yes, we need to amputate your right leg below the knee, it is too badly crushed.”

  “No, no, you can’t chop off my leg! I won’t let you.”

  “If I don’t, you will die,” Yelena says, keeping her voice steady. “The leg is dead. There is no blood flow into the lower part; if we don’t amputate it, it will poison you and you will die. Do you understand?”

  “But, how will I … Cilka Klein, don’t let them chop off my leg, please,” Mikhail pleads.

  Removing his grip from her arm, Cilka holds his hand and brings her face close to his.

  “Mikhail, if the doctor says she has to amputate your leg, then she has to. We will help you deal with this, help you recover. I’m sorry I could not do more.”

  “The leg was crushed on impact, Cilka, there’s nothing more you could have done,” Yelena says. “I’m going to go and get ready. Cilka, will you prepare the patient and I’ll see you in the operating room.”

  That evening Cilka doesn’t go to the mess for dinner. Exhausted, she drops onto her bed, and is instantly asleep.

  * * *

  Men and women in white coats waltz around her, laughing, some hold amputated limbs, tossing them to each other. Small children dressed in blue-and-white pajamas wander aimlessly between them,
their hands outstretched. What do they want? Food, attention, love?

  A door opens, sun streams in. A man enters, a rainbow halo surrounding him. He is dressed in a suit of immaculate white, doctor’s coat unbuttoned, a stethoscope around his neck. He holds his arms out. The adults lower their heads in respect, the children run toward him, excited.

  “Papa, Papa,” they cry out.

  Cilka wakes from her nightmare, but the memory that it awakens is just as horrifying.

  Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1943

  “Papa, Papa,” they cry out. Boys and girls run to the man who has stepped from his car. He is smiling warmly at them, his hands extended and full of candy. To the children he is a beloved father. Some call him uncle.

  Cilka has heard the stories. Every adult at Auschwitz-Birkenau has heard the stories of what becomes of the children when they leave here, in his car.

  Cilka watches from a distance, examining the slightly built man with not a hair out of place: his dark green tunic, without a crease or wrinkle, partially covers the white coat that indicates his rank of doctor; his clean-shaven face; his brilliant white teeth revealed by his big smile; his gleaming eyes; his SS cap tilted to one side.

  The Angel of Death, that is what they call him. Twice, prior to being sent to Block 25 and given a layer of protection, she’d had to parade in front of him. She had barely dared to sneak a look at him, whistling a tune as he flicked his hand to the left or the right. Both times she had escaped selection.

  The children clamber around him. “Pick me, pick me,” they squeal.

  Four girls are tapped on the head and handed candy, and they climb into the car with him. The other children go back to playing. Cilka bows her head in silent prayer for the four souls being driven away.

  * * *

  Cilka cries out, sitting bolt upright in bed, shaking, terror etched on her face.

  The women in the hut are all looking at her. Some from their beds, several others standing around the stove.

  “Are you all right?” Olga asks with concern.

  Cilka looks from one to the next, scanning the faces only partly visible in the moonlight. Pulling herself together, she drops her legs over the side of the bed.