In the morning, Magda opens her eyes to the dazzling glare of the sunlight bouncing off the pure white snow beyond her cave. She listens, hears nothing and slowly crawls outside. Her bones creak and complain as she stretches and jumps up and down to get the blood flowing.
Making her way back through the forest she is on edge, alert for signs of other people. It would take nothing for someone to report a strange girl wandering the woods early in the morning. Echoing into the streets, as she walks home, are the excited cries of children unwrapping their Christmas gifts.
Yitzchak opens the door before her hand is even on the latch. There is an urgency in his eyes as he grabs her arm and draws her inside. He shuts and bolts the door before making his way to the window to peer outside. The coast is clear: no one has seen her arrive.
‘They came twice, Magda,’ he says, his eyes still on the street. ‘The last time was only an hour or so ago.’ He turns to her. ‘I think you’ll need to stay away longer in future.’
‘I have hot tea for you. Come and have something to eat,’ Chaya calls from the kitchen.
From the folded blanket Magda produces the parcel of food Yitzchak had so carefully prepared for her last night. She has not touched it.
‘I gave you the food to eat, Magda. How do you expect to stay warm if you have nothing inside you?’ Yitzchak chides.
‘I wasn’t hungry, Grandfather – I was too busy sleeping. And now you can share it with me.’
Chaya takes the heavy coat from Magda’s shoulders, stroking it lovingly before she returns it to the cupboard in the bedroom.
CHAPTER 17
Auschwitz-Birkenau
December 1943
T
here was to be no special meal and no day off this Christmas. There was, however, a gift from Cibi for Livi. That night, as they climb into their bunk, Cibi, with a great flourish, pulls a small, knitted, white woollen hat from her pocket. It even has ribbons.
‘What is this?’ Livi squeals.
‘A hat, silly! It will keep your head warm. Let me put it on for you.’
‘I’m not a baby, Cibi, I can do it myself. But isn’t it a bit small?’ Livi is tugging it hard over her ears. It’s a snug fit but Cibi is delighted. She ties the ribbons into a neat bow under Livi’s chin.
‘I can feel my head getting warmer.’ Livi is equally thrilled.
‘Now, lie down,’ Cibi instructs.
Livi does as she’s told and Cibi tucks a blanket around her body.
‘Come and see my baby,’ she calls to the girls in the room, laughing. They gather around, smiling at the girl in the white bonnet. She is seventeen now, but so thin she looks like a child.
‘Where did you get it?’
‘I found it in a case of baby’s clothes,’ Cibi says, proudly, refusing to relive the pang of sadness that had gone through her when she had first opened the case.
‘Can you get me one?’ another girl asks.
‘And me? I’d like to be a baby too,’ one quips.
‘I’ll see what I can find. I never thought to look at the children’s clothes.’ Cibi pauses and gestures to the emaciated figures standing around them. ‘Look at us, we’re no bigger than children, anyway.’
Livi sleeps well that night, the best she has all winter. Each morning, she carefully tucks the bonnet under her mattress.
*
‘You still here? I thought you went to God a long time ago.’
Cibi is at her desk in the Kanada office. An SS officer stands before her. She remembers him from the demolition site. ‘You’ll go to God before me,’ Cibi hisses, under her breath.
‘I barely recognise you,’ he says. He looks her up and down. Her hair is even longer now, the waves sitting on her shoulders. She wears mostly clean clothes and she thinks she could pass for a secretary in any office.
‘Would you like to move to the Kanada at Birkenau? I can arrange it,’ he says. Despite her hostility and bravado, he is eyeing her almost kindly. ‘You survived when I didn’t think you or any of the early arrivals would – I’m just offering you a new job so you don’t have to walk to and from Birkenau every day,’ he says, and then adds, ‘We’re not all monsters.’
‘Aren’t you?’ says Cibi. ‘And, no, thank you. I’ve done my share of sorting dirty, stinking clothes.’
‘What about the post office? I could have you moved there, if you’d prefer.’
Cibi looks up from the typewriter. Is he playing with her, she wonders.
‘I would like that,’ she says, slowly. ‘Are you being serious?’ A job at Birkenau would suit her very well. The walk is lonely without her sister, especially during these bitter winter months.