able towards counter-revolutionaries, spies, criminals. With
Cilka, it can always appear that Yelena is instructing Cilka
in her work. Raisa and Lyuba too. But Cilka does notice
they often talk to her quietly, out of earshot of others.
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She has seen other prisoner nurses and orderlies on the ward, and they are spoken to mostly politely, professionally and directly.
‘If something changes, I promise I will have Antonina
Karpovna bring you to me.’
‘Yelena Georgiyevna,’ Cilka says, ‘please, isn’t there any
way she can stay on?’
‘We have to be very careful, Cilka,’ Yelena says, looking
around. ‘The administrators do not look kindly upon what
they call “shirkers” – people who want to get out of doing
their work.’
Cilka looks at Josie. ‘I’m sorry.’
Josie huffs. ‘Will everyone please stop saying they are
sorry that I can now use my hand? This is ridiculous. We
should be happy. We should be happy.’ Tears roll down
her face.
Startled by the tone in Josie’s voice, Lyuba comes over.
‘Are you all right?’
Josie displays her hand to Lyuba.
‘I see. It has healed nicely.’
A small laugh escapes from Josie. ‘Yes, Lyuba, it has
healed nicely and from now on I am going to be happy
that I can use both my hands.’
She stands up, pulls her coat tight around herself and
turns to face the door. ‘I’m ready to go.’
As Cilka opens the door for her, a tall man rushes in,
with a piece of paper in his hand. He clips her shoulder.
‘Excuse me,’ he says, looking back at Cilka with an
apologetic expression as he hurries past. He has dark
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brown eyes in a pale, elegant face. Cilka is not used to a man being polite to her and doesn’t reply, but she holds
his eyes for a moment before he turns to the desk, to his
task. He’s in prisoner clothing. As she and Josie head out
the door, Cilka looks one more time at the man’s back.
* * *
That evening the sight of Josie’s unbandaged right hand
receives mixed responses from the other women. Pleased.
Indifferent. Some are glad of an extra person to help with
the task of moving the coal dug from the mines into the
trolleys that takes it to waiting trucks and places beyond.
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
the unbandaged 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.
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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 the Cyrillic
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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 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
waste without 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 intro-
duced, by first name and patronymic – Yury Petrovich.
The patient is unconscious, his wounds obvious, the
bandage around his head soaked with blood. Cilka stands
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silently behind doctor and nurse, peering round 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.’
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‘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?’
‘Nineteen.’
Yelena’s brow furrows. ‘One day, if or when you feel
up to it, please know you can talk to me about it.’
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Before Cilka can answer, Yelena walks off.
On her third visit to the dying patient, a prisoner who
had an accident while working outside, Cilka writes the
time and the words ‘ no pulse’. She takes a moment to
pause and force herself to look at the face of the man she
has just declared dead. She flicks back through the paper-
work, searching for his name.
Bending down as she covers his face, she whispers, ‘Ivan
Détochkin – alav ha-shalom.’ May peace be upon him.
She has not uttered these words in a long time.
Auschwitz-Birkenau, Summer 1943
‘What did he say to you? We want to hear every word, and
did he look at you while he was talking? Tell us, Gita, we need to hear.’
Cilka sits on the grass at the side of Hut 29 with her
friends Gita and Dana. Magda is resting inside. It is a Sunday afternoon, summer, with no wind to carry the ashes spewing from the nearby crematoria their way. Cilka, in her position as block leader, has been allowed some freedom of movement, but Lale is the only male prisoner they’ve ever seen inside the women’s camp. That morning he had appeared. The girls knew what to do, to lessen the risk for their friends – encircle Gita and Lale, giving them just enough privacy for a whispered conversation. Cilka had strained to hear and had caught snippets; now she wanted the detail.
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‘He was asking me about my family,’ Gita replies.
‘And what did you say?’ Cilka asks.
‘I didn’t want to talk about them. I think he understood.
So he told me about his.’
‘And? Has he got brothers and sisters?’ Dana asks.
‘He has an older brother called Max . . .’
‘I love that name. Max,’ Cilka says, putting on a gushy,
girly voice.
‘Sorry, Cilka, Max, is married and has two small boys of
his own,’ Gita tells her.
‘Oh well, never mind. What else did he say?’
‘He has a sister. Her name is Goldie and she is a dress-
maker. I could tell he really loves his mumma and sister.
That’s good, isn’t it?’
‘That’s very good, Gita. You want to love someone who
is good to the other women in his life,’ says Dana, mature beyond her years.
‘Who said anything about being in love?’ Gita throws
back at her.
‘Gita loves Lale . . .’ Cilka sing-songs to her friends,
letting the sunlight and their friendship momentarily block out the horror surrounding them.
‘Stop it, both of you,’ Gita says, but she is smiling.
Exhausted by hope, the three young women lie on the
grass and close their eyes, letting the warmth of the sun transport them away from where they are.
* * *
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That afternoon as Cilka is putting on her coat, readying to leave the warmth of the hospital and face the freezing
temperatures outside, she sees Yelena.
‘Yelena Georgiyevna, I need to talk to you—’
‘Cilka! I’ve been looking for you. Yes, let’s talk.’
Before Cilka can say anything, Yelena continues, ‘My
colleagues are impressed with you. They asked if you had
any nursing experience.’
‘No, I told you . . . I’ve never been a nurse.’
‘That’s what I told them. We chatted about you and we
were wondering whether you would like to train to be a
nurse.’
This was all happening so fast.
‘I . . . How can I do that? I’m a prisoner here.’
‘What better way to learn nursing than by doing it.
I’ll be your teacher. I’m sure the other nurses will help
and be grateful for the extra pair of hands. What do you
say?’
‘I don’t know . . . Yelena Georgiyevna. I don’t know if
I belong here.’
Yelena puts a hand on Cilka’s shoulder. Cilka tries not
to flinch at the intimacy of the touch.
‘I know I don’t know you very well, Cilka. But you are
good at this, and we would like your help. Will you think
about it?’
Yelena smiles warmly, like a sister. Cilka swallows. She
can hardly bear it. The guilt she feels is overwhelming.
She thinks of her hut-mates after they come in, huddling
by the stove, unwrapping wet fabric from their frozen feet,
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groaning. But she also thinks of Olga’s face when she hands her the real tea she has just boiled on the stove.
This is a terrible decision and she doesn’t know why, again,
she has been singled out.
‘Can I ask, Yelena Georgiyevna, why you are here?’
‘You mean, what did I do to be assigned this position
in Vorkuta?’
Cilka nods slowly.
‘Believe it or not, Cilka, I volunteered to be here.’ She
lowers her voice. ‘My family always believed in a . . .
greater good.’ She nods to the sky. It is forbidden to talk
about religion, but Cilka understands what she is getting
at. ‘My parents devoted their lives to helping others. In
fact, my fath
er died doing so, fighting a fire. I try to honour them by carrying on their mission.’
‘That’s very good of you,’ Cilka says. She feels over-
whelmed.
‘Although,’ Yelena says, her brow creasing, ‘I must admit
I did believe, broadly, in the project of the Soviet Union
– the Motherland calling, and all that – but it is quite
different to be here.’
Cilka sees her turn to look back at the people lying in
the beds behind them.
‘I’d best stop talking now,’ she says, and pulls her face
back into a smile.
‘Thank you, Yelena Georgiyevna, for telling me. And I
just hope the women in my hut can find better work too.
And soon.’
‘I understand. I do too,’ Yelena says. ‘See you tomorrow.’
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Yelena takes her hand off Cilka’s shoulder, goes to leave.
Cilka remains facing her.
‘Is there something else, Cilka?’
‘Josie – could Josie do my clerical job?’
Yelena thinks for a moment or two. ‘Not just yet. Maybe
if we can use you full time as a nurse, we will bring Josie
here. But will she be able to learn . . . ?’
‘I’ll teach her. She’ll be all right.’ It is a risk, thinks
Cilka. If Josie can’t pick up the tasks, the language, as
quickly as Cilka, will she be punished? A punishment
worse even than going back to outside labour?
‘We’ll see,’ Yelena says, and walks away.
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CHAPTER 8
Long days and nights of darkness. The temperature
drops to well below anything Cilka has ever experi-
enced. She continues working in the hospital, never far
from her guilt, trying to assuage it by smuggling back food
for the women in the hut. Bread, vegetables, margarine.
Real tea. Just enough for them to eat each evening, lest
there is another raid by Klavdiya Arsenyevna. Antonina
Karpovna gets a larger portion than Cilka’s hut-mates each
night.
Over the next few months, Cilka absorbs all that she is
shown and told at the hospital like a sponge. She becomes
so good at giving injections that patients start requesting
her. They will often wait, desperate, until she is free to
tend to them. The fact she is minimising pain rather than
exacerbating it is a wonder for Cilka. She does still try to
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