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remember, as the ward overfills with desperate, frostbitten patients, that she cannot do more than she can do. And
still, often, her mind goes blank and she runs on automatic,
like an engine. Yelena notices, and tells her to take breaks, but if she could stay at the hospital twenty-four hours a
day, she thinks she would.
Returning each night to her hut brings conflicting
emotions. Not wanting to leave ‘her’ patients; needing to
see Josie and the other women to know they have made
it through another day of carrying, stacking, lifting,
picking, their eyes streaming tears from the icy wind onto
the fabric wrapped across their faces. She leaves earlier
than the women and comes back later, so she does not
have to sit idly while they wrap and unwrap themselves,
aching, head to foot.
And then there are the frequent night-time visits by the
men. Always outnumbered, the other women have very
few ‘nights off’, the men coming into their hut changing
often. Cilka and Josie’s protected status as the ‘camp wives’
of Boris and Vadim keeps them from being brutalised by
others, though not protected from the cries of their
hut-mates. One evening Josie laments to Cilka that she is
unhappy at Vadim’s failure to appear, finding herself jealous that he has other women he prefers to her. This is difficult
for Cilka to hear. She does not want to tell Josie how to
feel – she knows how this abuse can affect a woman, a
girl, in many unforeseen ways. But she does say that if she
were her, she would feel only relief when he stays away.
After a five-day absence, Boris and Vadim enter the hut.
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Josie jumps up, screaming at Vadim, accusing him of being unfaithful. Vadim slaps her hard in the face, before pushing
her down on the bed. Cilka is shocked – is Josie losing
her mind? She doesn’t want Josie to be killed. She wants
to hit Vadim herself, feels that fire burning inside her, but instead, later, she simply cautions Josie to be careful. It
feels wrong, and inadequate, but she doesn’t know what
else to do. For the next few days Josie ostracises her,
making comments to the others about the easy life Cilka
has in the hospital. The thaw in their relationship has
frozen back over. Elena, one night, loudly tells Josie to
grow up – they are all benefiting from the extra food Cilka
smuggles to them from the hospital, the uneaten patient
meals she has become expert at hiding in her clothing.
Indeed, each night she comes in and empties her pocket
on the edge of her bed, quickly breaking up the food so
no one else has to do it and be accused of uneven portions,
then turns away as the women leap forward and snatch
at it. If Antonina is not there, she tucks her portion back
in her pocket, as it’s rude to leave the temptation out in
front of starving eyes.
She turns away because it is so hard to see the women’s
unwrapped, bony fingers snatching. Their chapped,
sore-encrusted lips opening. Their veiny eyelids closing as
they take as long as possible tasting and chewing the food.
Cilka gives Elena a small, surprised smile for having
come to her defence. Though Josie’s words sting. Yes,
Cilka is strangely lucky. But also cursed. If they knew of
where she had been, for all those years, while they still
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had an abundance of food and drink and warmth. While they still had families and homes.
Elena remains a complex character for Cilka. Angry,
often uncaring, – yelling at the world and everyone in it
– yet also showing compassion and tenderness on occasions
when she is caught off-guard. She is just surviving, Cilka
has often thought. There is no one way to do it.
Elena’s friend, Hannah, speaking again now she has
recovered from her time in the hole, remains more antag-
onistic. The two women are close because, Cilka has found
out, they fought in the resistance together – the Polish
Home Army. Fighting both the Nazis and the Soviets.
Cilka is intimidated by their bravery. And it makes her
even more unwilling to share her past.
* * *
The next day, Josie hands Cilka two small spring flowers
she has managed to pick on her way back from the mine.
Brilliant purple petals with a red and black centre. Wispy
green fronds surround the delicate bloom. Cilka has seen
them poking through the ice near the hospital, a sign
spring is coming. The possibility of relief from the constant freezing, biting wind and snow gives a sense of hope that
life might become a bit easier for all of them.
Cilka tries not to make too much of the gesture from
Josie. Truth is, for the first time in here, she feels an
aching in her throat like she is about to cry. She swallows.
The flowers are placed in a chipped cup, now the pride
of each woman in the hut. They have all learned the art
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of stealing anything not nailed down; smuggling mugs from the mess; a small table discarded from an officers’
hut with a broken leg propped up on random bits of
timber; a battered kettle of permanently boiling water on
the stove. Antonina, sharing in the uneaten food Cilka
brings from the hospital, has chosen to ignore the ‘extras’.
It seems that whatever contraband Klavdiya is looking
for, it is not these items. The hut is taking on a cosy
appearance. Olga, the embroiderer, who managed not to
give the needles back on the first night, has been teaching
several others her craft. Threads from the ends of sheets
have been taken and turned into beautiful doilies which
are strung about the hut. Cilka has continued to help
herself to discarded bandages, cleaning them in boiling
water and donating them to the embroidery group. Several
of the scarves that cover the heads of the women have
delicate embroidered edges.
On their monthly visits to the bath hut the women hand
over their lace-edged scarves along with their other clothing for de-lousing while they quickly run a sliver of soap across their bodies, and rinse off from a vat of thankfully hot
water. Their pubic area hasn’t been shaved again, after the
first time, and they are allowed to let their hair grow back, unless they are found to be infested with lice. Most of the
women hack their hair short during the bathing sessions.
Cilka lets hers grow a little longer. The clothes come back,
warm and stiffly hung over a pole, and they have to grab
them before they are unceremoniously dropped on the
floor. Sometimes the stronger women elbow their way to
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a new scarf or warmer coat, and so the lace detailing begins to spread throughout the wider brigade.
* * *
Spring is sweet but too short. The snow that
has covered
the ground almost since Cilka arrived melts quickly as
day-time temperatures increase. Now the sun is brilliant,
reflecting off the nearby hills.
When summer arrives, darkness shrinks down until, one
day, there is no night at all. There is no need for spotlights in the yard, unless it’s very overcast. Some of the women
in the hut from further south in Europe react to this
phenomenon with panic – it seems to go against nature.
The men enter the hut and now the women have to see
them clearly, up close. Several of the women do not hold
back, telling them what ugly pigs they are, and are
punished for daring to say so.
Sleep becomes difficult for some as they struggle to shut
their eyes in light as bright as day. Tempers flare, and the
harmony of the hut is shattered with both verbal and
physical fights breaking out.
When Cilka is caught with a nodding head by Yelena,
the doctor asks how she is coping with the white nights.
‘The what?’ Cilka asks.
‘The white nights. We will be in daylight for twenty-
four hours each day for a while. Everyone adjusts differ-
ently.’
‘I can’t sleep, and when I do fall asleep it’s only for
short bursts.’
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‘And others in your hut?’
‘Some are fine, most aren’t. Fights seem to break out
over nothing. How do you cope?’ Though she imagines,
in the staff quarters where Yelena sleeps, there may be
adequate curtains.
‘Your first summer will be your worst. Well, for many
their worst. There are others who never adjust and struggle
each year; some simply go mad. They can’t cope with the
sleep deprivation, the change in their body rhythms – it
does something to their head.’
She seems very casual about this, Cilka thinks. ‘Could
that happen to me?’
‘You will be fine, Cilka.’ Cilka hasn’t got used to Yelena’s
enduring faith in her. ‘You need to make a blindfold and
cover your eyes and slowly let your body adjust. Tell the
other women to do the same,’ she says. ‘I’m sure if you
look in the linen area you will find some old blankets that
have been thrown out. Take a break, take a pair of scissors,
go there and cut up enough strips for the women. All you
can do is offer.’
Cilka doesn’t need to be told twice. In the linen room
she experiments with blankets and other materials she
finds until she is happy with the comfort level of having
something wrapped around her head. Not too itchy, not
too smelly. Twenty lengths are cut and stuffed throughout
her clothing. It’s incredible to even be using scissors. In
the hut, the women sometimes cut material by running a
just blown-out match along it.
That night, a Sunday where they have only had a half-day
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of work, Cilka distributes the blindfolds, and the women start to settle in their beds, the hut still lit up by daylight.
The sound of voices talking outside is heard. They wait
for the men to arrive but the door stays closed. The voices
continue. Several women get out of bed and cautiously
poke their heads outside. Elena opens the door and the
voices grow louder.
‘What’s going on?’ Cilka calls out.
‘There are people just walking around and talking; it’s
like a party out there!’
They all jump out of bed and rush to the door and
windows. Everyone fights to get a look. Slowly, they all
venture out.
‘What’s happening?’ Elena asks a group of women
walking past, chatting away.
‘Nothing. What do you mean?’
‘Why are you outside in the middle of the night?’ Elena
asks.
‘It’s not the middle of the night yet, and we’re outside
because we can be. Is this your first summer?’ one of the
women asks.
‘Yes,’ Elena tells her. ‘Well, most of us arrived right at
the end of the last one.’
‘If you have the energy, you may as well enjoy being
outside for a while without having someone standing over
you forcing you to work.’
‘I didn’t think it would be allowed.’
‘Rubbish. You stay inside in winter because it’s too cold
and too dark to come outside. I could read a book out
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here, if I had a book to read, so why not enjoy it? It won’t last for long.’
The women wander off.
‘I thought . . .’ Josie stammers.
‘I guess this is something else our beloved Antonina
Karpovna didn’t tell us,’ says Elena. ‘Come on, let’s go
for a walk and have a proper look at our prison.’
For the first time in a long while Cilka sees smiles on
the faces of some of the women. Despite their exhaustion
from the work week, they walk, several arm-in-arm, outside.
Cilka supposes this will only happen on Sundays, when
the half-day off allows them to be slightly less exhausted.
The prisoners gaze at the sky; see the mountains of coal
darkening the horizon. They breathe in the fresh air, their
enemy in the winter when it sears their throats, burns their
lungs. For the first time they see men milling around
together in the central area where the men’s and women’s
camps meet, not posing a threat to them. Some respond
to their smiles with a girlish giggle. A sense of freedom
comes over them.
Josie squeals.
‘Find who?’
Cilka is surprised by the first face that comes into her
mind: the messenger she has seen on the odd occasion at
the hospital, the brown-eyed man who had been polite
when he accidentally ran into her. They haven’t spoken,
though he has nodded hello a couple of times.
‘Vadim and Boris. Let’s find them and walk with them.
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Won’t it be lovely to just walk and talk to them, get to know them, not just—’
‘I don’t want to find Boris. Why can’t we just be
together? We don’t need them, Josie.’ Cilka has tried to
be understanding of Josie’s naiveteĢ, her need to think of
this as a real connection, but it disturbs her greatly.
‘But I want to see Vadim. Are you coming or am I going on my own?’ a petulant Josie says.
‘I’m not interested,’ Cilka says coldly.
‘Well, if that’s the way you feel . . .’ Josie stomps off.
Cilka watches her go, before wandering away on her
own.
Cilka struggles with this freedom – it is so new to her.
She keeps looking at the perimeter with its guard towers,
looking for guards who could mow them down with their
weapons. This is how on edge they felt in that other place.
She doesn’t know the r
ules here yet. She is one of the first
to go back to what is, to her, the safety of Hut 29. She
waits patiently until they all return, particularly Josie, whom she regrets leaving alone, before going to sleep, making
sure they are all back. Then she ties on her blindfold. The
women continue to murmur happily as they settle, this
small freedom giving them a moment of contentment.
* * *
For eight weeks, the sun never leaves the sky. Cilka begins
to relax and properly join in on the Sunday evening strolls
around the camp. She, along with the other women in her
hut, explores the environment. They keep their whole
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bodies covered, and wrap scarves around their faces, to ward off the mosquitoes. She struggles to convince Josie
she doesn’t need to find Vadim and be with him, that he
is not her future.
One evening, Hannah begins to walk beside Cilka,
pulling her away from Josie with a firm grip just above
her elbow. Up close, Cilka can smell the stale sweat in her
clothes, the grease in her hair.
‘What do you want?’ Cilka asks.
‘You know, in the war, people like me and Elena
worked to resist every oppressing force – the Nazis, the
Soviets . . .’
‘I know. You’re a hero.’
‘While some people just lay down and gave themselves
over to them, even benefiting from this coupling while watching everyone around them die.’ Her grip intensifies
on Cilka’s arm. Cilka feels sick. Hannah keeps walking,
forcing Cilka to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Cilka says
flatly.
‘I’m not going to give away my source . . . but that’s a
nasty little secret you’ve kept from us.’
Cilka swallows, feeling fear, rage. It must have been that
woman from the train, who had also been in that other
place.
‘So, is it true what this woman was saying? She seemed
desperate to tell someone. She didn’t seem long for this
world.’
‘I have nothing to say to you.’
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Cilka spares a thought for the woman who, like her, had survived that place only to end up here. And worse, who might never leave.
‘So it is true. You’re just a common whore who gets
what she wants by sleeping with the scum of mankind.
Well, well, well.’