Cilka's Journey

by Heather Morris

  “Excuse me, can I take a look at her?” Cilka says as she takes her coat off, dropping it onto the floor.

  The commandant’s wife, Maria, turns around as she stands.

  “Hello, you’re…?”

  “Cilka Klein. Hello again, what has Katya been up to this time?”

  “Cilka Klein, yes. Please, can you help her, she’s in so much pain.”

  Cilka moves to the side of the bed, bending down to try to examine the girl who continues to thrash about.

  “What can you tell me?” she asks her mother.

  “She didn’t eat her dinner last night and complained of pain in her stomach. My husband gave her something to settle her—”

  “Do you know what he gave her?”

  “No, I don’t know. She didn’t come for breakfast. I checked on her and she said the pain was back and wanted to sleep. I left her but when I returned a short while ago, she was like this, and won’t say anything. Please, what’s wrong with her? You have to help her.”

  Maria’s jewelry clatters on her wrist as she gestures emphatically.

  “Let me have a look at her.”

  Cilka attempts to restrain Katya’s flailing arms.

  “Katya, this is Cilka, I’m here to help you,” she says soothingly. “Can you please try to lie still and show me where it hurts? There’s a good girl. I want to look at your stomach.”

  Cilka glances back at the door where the guard, Pavel and Kirill all stand watching.

  “You three, get out and shut the door. I’ll call you when I want you.”

  She turns back to Katya and hears the door close.

  “That’s better, now let me see your stomach. You’re doing well, Katya, you’re a brave girl. I know that. We met before, when you fell off the roof and broke your arm.”

  Katya settles somewhat, allowing Cilka to lift her nightdress and look at her stomach. She can see it is distended.

  “Katya, I’m going to gently touch your stomach. Tell me when I hit the spot that hurts the most.”

  Starting up beneath her rib cage Cilka gently pushes down, quickly moving her hands a few inches at a time. As she moves down to the lower abdomen, Katya cries out.

  “What is it, what’s wrong with her?” Maria fusses. The room carries the deep, rich smell of her perfume, making Cilka’s nose twitch.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t be sure, but if we get her into the ambulance and to the hospital, the doctors there will be able to diagnose and treat her. I’m going to give her an injection to help with the pain and then we will transport her in the ambulance.”

  Cilka can feel how her knees sink into this soft, plush carpet. How nice it would be to lie down in here. To be cared for by a mother, worried over, in this pillow-laden bed.

  “I’ve sent someone to tell my husband. He should be here soon. Maybe we should wait and take her in his car.”

  “The sooner we get her to the hospital the better, if you don’t mind. I’ll ride in the back of the ambulance with her and look after her.”

  “All right. I trusted you once before, I’ll trust you again. And I would like the doctor to be Yelena Georgiyevna again too.”

  “Pavel,” Cilka calls out.

  The door opens. Pavel and Kirill stand in the doorway.

  “Bring me the medicine.”

  Kirill hurries over, placing the drug box on the floor and ripping off the lid.

  Cilka quickly locates the medication she wants, fills a syringe and gently injects Katya in the arm. She holds her arm while the pain medication takes effect and Katya settles.

  “Get the stretcher, quick, and take the boxes back with you.”

  The two return with the stretcher. Cilka and Maria lift Katya as the stretcher is placed on the bed. Gently they lower her onto it, wrapping her up in blankets from her bed.

  “Let’s go,” she says to Pavel and Kirill. Turning to Maria, she says, “Do you want to come with us in the ambulance or can the guard bring you in a car?”

  “I want to come with you.”

  “You’ll need to ride up front. I will be in the back with Katya.”

  The guard hands Maria her coat. Cilka grabs hers on the way out of the room as they follow Pavel and Kirill to the ambulance.

  Cilka climbs in the back first and helps Pavel slide the stretcher toward her. Kirill has the engine running, shutting the back doors. Pavel hops into the front. The guard holds the door for Maria and helps her sit next to Pavel.

  The drive to the hospital is silent, Maria’s perfume filling the truck.

  Word has reached Yelena that the commandant’s daughter is en route. She is waiting for them.

  Following a quick examination, she tells Maria she will need to take Katya to surgery straightaway. She is certain she has appendicitis, but won’t know for sure until she opens her up. If correct, Katya will be back on her feet within a couple of weeks.

  “Can I come with you?” Maria asks.

  “Well, no, not really, Maria Danilovna. I’ll leave Cilka here with you; she can tell you what we’re doing.”

  “No, I’ll be fine while I wait for my husband; I’d rather she was with you.”

  “Let’s go, Cilka, scrub up.” To the orderlies standing nearby she says, “Take the patient to the operating room, please. We’ll meet you there.”

  As Yelena walks off, Cilka quickly speaks to Maria.

  “She will be fine. We will have the two of you back together as quickly as possible.”

  As Cilka walks from the room she hears the booming voice of the commandant. She takes a moment to watch as he wraps his wife in his arms and she tells him, in a voice thick with emotion, what she knows. Man, woman, child, and the luxury of caring only about one another.

  * * *

  Yelena tells Cilka she can go and get Maria and the commandant and bring them to Katya, who remains asleep, minus her appendix. Cilka stands at the back of the room while Yelena explains what the procedure involved, the recovery period, and offers to stay the night with her.

  Maria thanks her, asking if it would be possible for Cilka instead to stay the night with Katya and her. She’s not leaving. The commandant wants his daughter brought home but agrees she can spend one night in her own room here, away from the prisoners. Chairs are brought into the operating room for Cilka and Maria. There will be no more operations today.

  CHAPTER 24

  Katya wakes several times during the night. Cilka checks on her, and administers further injections for the pain, while Maria reassures her daughter that she will be home soon.

  After settling Katya once again, Cilka sits back down, aware that Maria is staring at her.

  “Is everything all right?” she asks the wife of the commandant who imprisons her.

  “I don’t know how to thank you for your kindness, your care. Watching you with Katya overwhelms me. I don’t know why you are here, I don’t want to know, but will you let me talk to my husband, ask him to help you?”

  Cilka doesn’t know where to look.

  “Do you mean that?”

  “Yes, we owe you so much. If it was up to me, you wouldn’t spend another night here. Katya is very special to Alexei Demyanovich. Don’t tell anyone, particularly our sons, but I think he does have a favorite child, and it’s that young girl lying in the bed.”

  Cilka stands and walks over to Katya. Looks down at her: fair and pretty, soon to be moving out of girlhood. Cilka moves a wayward strand of hair from her face.

  “I’ve never had a child,” Cilka says, feeling safe in the warm, quiet room. “But I am a daughter. I know the love of a mother and a father.”

  “One day you will, Cilka, you are young.”

  “Perhaps.”

  It is too much to reveal to Maria, this well-fed, cared-for woman, that she doesn’t think this will happen for her, ever. If it was possible, surely it would have already happened. She no longer functions inside like other women.

  “Let me help you leave this place and it could happen sooner. This is onl
y a temporary post for my husband. We may be back in Moscow soon. This may be your only chance to let me help you.”

  Cilka sits back down, turning her chair slightly to face Maria, looks her in the face.

  “Could I use your offer of help for someone else?”

  “Why would you do that?” a clearly perplexed Maria asks.

  “Because there is a mother here, in this camp, who is very dear to me. Her little girl, Natia, will be two in a few weeks. As soon as she turns two, she will be taken away and Josie will never see her again. If there is anything you can do to stop that happening, I wouldn’t know how to thank you. I would be so, so grateful.”

  Maria looks away, overcome at hearing this. She looks at her own daughter and holds a hand across her stomach. Surely she knows what goes on, Cilka thinks. Maybe she has just never allowed herself to think what it is like for the prisoners, the women; their suffering.

  Maria nods her head. She reaches out and takes Cilka’s hands.

  “Give me her details. Natia and her mother will not be separated, if I can help it.”

  “Jozefína Kotecka,” Cilka says.

  The door to the room opens and Alexei Demyanovich enters surrounded by his bodyguards. He looks at the two women. Cilka jumps to her feet.

  “Thank you for looking after my daughter and my wife.”

  Katya wakes up at the heavy sound of boots on the wooden floor. Seeing her father, she calls out:

  “Papa, Papa.”

  Throwing a wink at his wife, Alexei sits on Katya’s bed, comforting her.

  Yelena appears and examines Katya.

  Everyone in the room is smiling. Cilka finds herself in the middle of a happy family occasion and doesn’t know how to respond. As Katya is helped into a wheelchair to be wheeled out for the ride home in her father’s car, Maria gives Cilka a long hug, whispering that she will take care of Natia and her mother.

  As everyone leaves the room, Cilka shuts the door behind them and sits on Katya’s bed.

  “A mother’s love,” she whispers.

  CHAPTER 25

  Yelena meets Cilka as she arrives at work. “Come with me.”

  Cilka follows.

  “Don’t take your coat off.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Just come with me.”

  Yelena walks briskly away from the hospital to the nearby administration building, a three-story stone building standing beside two similar ones. They head around to the back, a more discreet entrance. A guard outside opens it for them without question. They step into a small reception area. Cilka quickly takes in her surroundings, looking for threats, for anyone who might harm her. She steps forward to be close to Yelena, wanting the security of this woman she has come to trust. And then, there he is. Alexandr stands up from behind a desk. She has not seen him up close for so long. He is thin, like all prisoners, but put-together—composed. His hair neat, his skin clear; his brown eyes have a warm, open expression.

  “Wait here just one moment,” says Yelena to Cilka, and she nods to Alexandr and walks away down a corridor behind him and through a door.

  “It’ll be all right, Cilka,” Alexandr says quietly, clearly noting her distress, and showing he remembers her. He smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Cilka’s heart pounds.

  Josie has mentioned him a few times and she is always grateful to know he is well. Josie also tells her he writes poems on the corners of pieces of paper, before tearing them off and destroying them.

  Cilka goes over to the desk. She manages to speak. “I hope so, Alexandr,” she says. She looks down and does glimpse scribbles across paper in an expressive hand. She peers back up, cannot help her eyes going to his lips.

  “I…”

  Cilka hears a door close and looks up. Josie! Her friend runs toward her, clearly distraught.

  “Cilka, what’s happening?”

  Yelena is following Josie back into the room.

  “I don’t know,” Cilka says, heart still racing. “Yelena Georgiyevna, what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. Just wait a moment. I was told to bring you here.”

  Maria Danilovna walks into the room, Natia in her arms.

  Josie cries out and runs to her daughter, stopping herself before she snatches her from the well-dressed stranger’s arms. Maria hands Natia over, the little girl clearly happy and calm.

  “She’s a beautiful little girl, Jozefína,” Maria says. “Come.” She beckons them back down the corridor. Cilka glances at Alexandr, who nods at her and then sits back at his desk. They go into a dull gray room and Maria closes the door.

  Maria turns to Cilka. “I kept my promise.”

  “What’s going on?” Josie demands, clutching Natia, terrified.

  Cilka strokes Natia’s face, then Josie’s.

  “Josie, this is Maria Danilovna, the wife of Commandant Alexei Demyanovich. You have nothing to fear. She is helping you.”

  “Helping me how?”

  “Jozefína, I offered to help Cilka Klein after she saved the life of my daughter, not once, but twice—”

  “Well, it wasn’t really me—”

  “I’m telling the story, Cilka!” Maria says. “She saved my daughter’s life twice. I asked her what I could do to help her, in gratitude for her care. She didn’t ask for anything for herself; she told me about you and asked if I could help you and your daughter.”

  “I don’t understand, you offered to help her and instead you’re helping me?”

  “Yes, there is a car waiting outside. It will take you and Natia to the train station and from there to Moscow. A friend of mine, Stepanida Fabiyanovna, will meet you in Moscow and take you home with her. I’m hoping you will take up the opportunity of living with her, earning a small allowance by performing duties and helping in her home.”

  Josie, holding Natia, drops to the floor, sobbing, overcome. Cilka bends down beside her, hugging the two of them. Yelena and Maria look on, wiping tears from their own eyes. Natia wriggles free and reaches to put her tiny hands around Cilka’s neck. Cilka sweeps the little girl into her arms, holding her close. She kisses her over and over on the face until the little girl bats her away, causing Josie and Cilka to laugh through their tears. Slowly, they all stand up together.

  “Mumma,” Natia squeals as she thrusts her arms toward her mother. Josie takes her.

  Maria smiles warmly, wiping her eyes. “I’ll leave you to say goodbye properly. Give my best wishes to Stepanida Fabiyanovna. Tell her I will write soon.”

  As Maria Danilovna opens the door, Cilka runs after her, surprising herself by wrapping her arms around her. She catches herself, steps back.

  “How can I ever thank you?”

  “You already have. Take care, Cilka. I’ll be checking on you from time to time.”

  She gives them all one final nod, and leaves.

  The door opens again. It is a guard.

  “Time to go. The car is waiting, the train won’t.” He holds up a small bag. “The commandant’s wife asked me to give you this; it’s some clothes for the little one. I’ll put it in the car.”

  They walk back into the reception area. Josie quickly runs over to Alexandr.

  “Goodbye, Alexandr,” she says.

  “Good luck, Josie,” he says, pressing his hands over hers, over the child.

  As Josie walks back toward the group, Alexandr locks eyes with Cilka. She turns away, puts her arm around Josie and Natia, and walks out into the open with them.

  As they reach the car door, Josie looks from Yelena to Cilka. “I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave you.”

  Cilka laughs. Josie’s words are the most beautiful and absurd she has heard for a long time. She keeps the smile on her face, tries to fight back the tears.

  “Get in the car. Go. Find your brothers. Have a good life—for me, for all of us—and make sure that little girl does too. I’ll think of you always, and with nothing but happy thoughts.”

  One last hug, Natia squeezed be
tween them.

  The car door is slammed shut. Yelena and Cilka watch it disappear, neither wanting to move.

  “Of all the things I’ve seen since I’ve been here, this is what I will remember, what I will cling to when the darkness of this place threatens to envelop me. I don’t know how the commandant and his wife have managed it. Someone high up must have owed him a favor. Now back to work, there are other souls to save,” Yelena whispers.

  The sun breaks through the thick clouds for a moment. Cilka feels like she is breaking apart. “Leich l’shalom,” she whispers quietly, to Josie. Go toward peace.

  * * *

  That evening, Cilka tells the others of Josie and Natia’s departure, making light of her role in their release. Tears are shed. Memories relived. Happiness and sadness in equal measure.

  The conversation opens up, as it often does these days, about their lives before Vorkuta.

  Their reasons for being there are as varied as their personalities. As well as having been in the Polish Home Army, Elena had been accused of being a spy. And then she speaks to them in English, which has everyone in awe of her.

  “I knew, of course,” says Hannah, smugly.

  For five years they have lived with someone who speaks English. Several ask if she would teach them, just a little. A secret act of resistance.

  Other girls from Poland were also charged with helping the enemy, in a variety of ways. None of them mention prostitution. Olga shares again the story of how she found herself on the wrong side of the law for having made garments for a wealthy general’s wife. When her husband ran afoul of Stalin and was shot, she was arrested and transported.

  Margarethe begins to sob.

  “I die a little more each day, not knowing what has happened to my husband.”

  “He was taken with you, wasn’t he?” Olga asks, as though trying to solve the puzzle aloud.

  “We were taken together but sent to different prisons. I never saw him again. I don’t know if he is alive, but my heart tells me he is dead.”