‘Have you got it here?’ Magda asks.
‘No, Aunty, it’s too big to bring all the way over to Israel, and anyway, it’s still in the exhibition. But we do have a photo of it here, in the gallery catalogue.’
Odie hands the catalogue to Livi. Cibi and Magda lean in to look at the photo.
They gasp as one when they see etched into the base of the towering glass structure the numbers 4559.
‘That’s your number,’ Cibi says.
Livi cannot speak. Ziggy makes his way over and places both his hands on her shoulders. Cibi takes a sip of wine, her breathing slow and heavy. Magda wipes her eyes and turns to her daughters, who are leaning in for a hug.
Pam is trying to speak, but her tears are making it difficult to get the words out. ‘Do .?.?. do you like it?’ she manages, finally.
Livi hands the catalogue to Magda and embraces her son and daughter-in-law. Odie cries on her shoulder. ‘I didn’t know how else to honour the three of you and what you did to survive and give us our lives,’ he sobs.
‘You honour me by being my son,’ Livi tells him, setting Pam off once more.
Karol is on his knees, hugging his mother. Eventually, he gets to his feet and picks up his glass, clinking it with the ring on his finger. Once more there is silence in the room. ‘As the eldest of the sisters’ children, I would like to say a few words,’ he announces.
‘Like mother, like son,’ Magda says.
A moment of stunned silence is followed by raucous laughter.
‘OK, OK, so I learnt from the best – thank you, Mother,’ Karol says to Cibi. ‘No, seriously, just for a moment, before we return to our merrymaking .?.?.’
‘And more drinking,’ Cibi adds.
‘And more drinking,’ Kari agrees, then continues: ‘We have always known we have a very special family and everyone who has joined us continues to make it special. Odie and Pam, we miss you in Canada and don’t see enough of you, and now you present us with this amazing tribute to the sisters. We want to thank you for what you have created in their memory.’ Raising his glass, he yells, ‘To the Three Sisters.’ A chorus of ‘To the Three Sisters,’ rings out.
‘My glass is empty,’ Cibi says.
‘Someone please give my mother another glass of wine,’ Yossi calls out.
Within the rush to fill glasses, help themselves to more food, and resume conversations, Livi, in the middle, stretches an arm around each of her sisters.
‘Where’s Ziggy? He should be with us,’ Magda says.
‘I’m right here, Magda,’ Ziggy says behind her, leaning between Livi and Magda. ‘If I had a glass in my hand, I would raise it and say, “Cheers to Mischka and to Yitzchak,”’ he says.
‘To Mischka and Yitzchak,’ the sisters say, looking around the room. The six of them made each and every one of the people present today.
Cibi starts to say something and stops.
‘What is it, Cibi?’ Ziggy asks.
Cibi closes her eyes. A thousand memories race through her mind. ‘We kept our promise, didn’t we? To Father, to Mumma and Grandfather.’
Livi takes her sister’s hand. ‘Do you remember the onion, Cibi?’ she says. Cibi nods. ‘To this day, whenever I chop an onion, I think of how you saved my life.’
‘The bunk,’ whispers Magda. ‘Remember the bunk we shared? Every night, however terrible that day had been, I knew that if I could cuddle up close to you both in the dark, I would never be alone.’
‘We saved each other’s lives,’ says Cibi. She raises the sleeve of her left arm and her sisters do the same. Their skin is wrinkled now, but the numbers are as clear as the day they were stabbed into their arms. ‘When they put these numbers into our skin, they sealed our promise. Somehow, they gave us the strength to fight for our lives.’
The sisters are silent as the party mills around their hunched frames. The dead are never far from their thoughts, and now each of them pictures the countless empty rooms around the world that should be filled with laughter, with husbands, sons and daughters, with grandchildren, nieces, nephews and cousins.
‘We might not be much to look at now,’ says Livi, grinning. ‘But once we were the Meller girls.’
AUTHOR’S NOTE
M
enachem Emil （Mendel） Meller, the sisters’ father, died on 27 October 1929. He is buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Ko?ice, Slovakia.
Civia ‘Cibi’ Meller was born on 13 October 1922 in Vranov nad Topl’ou, Slovakia. She died on 25 November 2015, in Rehovot, Israel.