‘Not like that!’ snaps Rita, grabbing it from her. She cracks the bulb open against the side of the wooden bunk. The cloves fall to the floor and Livi bends to pick them up. She watches Rita peel the skin off a single clove, which she hands it to Livi. ‘Like this.’
Livi takes the clove and pushes it into Cibi’s mouth. Cibi stirs and tries to spit out the garlic, but Livi clamps a hand over her mouth, shutting off her airway. Suddenly, Cibi’s eyes fly open.
‘Are you trying to kill her?’ Rita slaps Livi’s hand away.
Cibi’s eyes slowly focus on the two women looming over her.
‘Don’t you dare spit it out, Cibi,’ warns Livi. Cibi begins to chew. ‘Do you remember the onion you gave me when I was ill?’ Livi takes Cibi’s hot hand and holds it to her chest. ‘Well, this your onion.’
After Rita has left them alone, Livi retrieves the small knife from her pocket and slices the cloves into two, which she feeds to Cibi until the whole bulb is gone.
Cibi stays in the block for the rest of the week, only joining Livi outside on Sunday, their day of rest, to sit in the sun. As they walk to their favourite spot in the camp, a place where they know they will meet other girls from Vranov, they pass a lone figure sitting in the dirt.
‘Isn’t that Hannah Braunstein?’ asks Cibi.
The sisters sit down beside Hannah. She is picking at the sores that cover her arms and legs.
‘Hello, Hannah. Do you remember us? Cibi and Livi, from Vranov?’ Cibi asks, gently.
Hannah looks up, and a small smile of recognition flits across her sallow features.
‘We used to come to your mother’s bath house on Sundays,’ Livi adds.
‘I remember. You were always nice to me.’ Hannah looks past the sisters. ‘Where is the other one? Aren’t there three of you?’
Cibi and Livi exchange a pained look. ‘She’s still in Vranov with our mother and grandfather,’ Cibi replies.
‘Are you all right?’ Livi presses.
‘I’m OK.’ Hannah goes back to picking her sores.
Cibi wraps her arms around the girl, drawing her close. She strokes her back, her arms, and whispers words of comfort. Cibi tells her she will get better.
Livi moves behind Cibi and begins to part her hair, searching for lice. Cibi’s chestnut waves are growing back, but who knows for how long? With delicate fingers, Livi begins to draw out the lice and squash them between her fingernails.
‘Hannah, would you like me to murder your lice when I’m finished with Cibi’s?’ she asks.
‘No. Thank you, Livi. I’ll let my lice die with me.’
‘You’re not going to die, Hannah. We won’t let you,’ insists Cibi. ‘You’re not well. You’ll get better. I’ve just been ill, and look at me now.’
Hannah doesn’t respond.
‘Promise me you’ll ask your kapo for some medicine for your sores?’
Hannah sighs and meets Cibi’s eyes. ‘I promise. I’ll ask her. But for now, will you just sit with me in the sun?’
‘Of course we will,’ Cibi says. ‘And we’ll meet next Sunday, too. You can show us how much better you are.’
The following Sunday Cibi and Livi hurry to the same spot, but Hannah isn’t there. They ask the girls from her block if they have seen her, one of whom tells them that Hannah was taken to the hospital and never returned. Livi remembers Rita telling her how they were clearing out the hospital and wonders if it has happened again. In silence, the sisters walk away to find a space where they can sit in the sun and murder each other’s lice, alone.
Cibi worries this episode will plunge Livi back into despair, but the warmer weather, along with a cache of food they recently found in the sorting room, are working to keep her sister’s demons at bay.
Over the summer months, new arrivals stream into the camps, and more and more selections take place. Cibi surmises this is mainly due to a lack of space, in Auschwitz or Birkenau, to house them all. Time and time again, Cibi and Livi stand together with their block while the officers examine the girls’ naked bodies for injuries, wounds or sores, the sight of which would immediately consign them to the gas chambers. But the SS officer, Grese, kept her promise: those with the four-digit numbers are always returned to the block.
As the seasons change, autumn giving way to an early winter, Livi is struck down with typhus. Cibi desperately scours the contents of the incoming suitcases for onions, garlic or anything she can give to her little sister for strength. She finds a bundle of cloth hiding what looks like tiny green plums. She brings them back to the block, but before she feeds them to Livi, she takes a bite, and spits it out in disgust.