‘Do you know why these gates are open?’ Mandel demands of Livi.
Struggling to stay calm and to avoid the woman’s eyes, Livi explains that Sundays are visiting days, and that the women are allowed to mingle with friends who live in the opposite camp.
The officer tosses a large key at Livi and tells her to lock both sets of gates: everyone is to remain where they are and if they’re not where they should be when the gates are shut, they will be punished. Striking her heels into the horse’s flanks, Mandel rides off.
Livi begins to warn the women they must return to their camps, that they must pass on the message, and hurry. She starts to make a great show of pulling the gates closed as women streak past her to their rightful blocks. They are screaming at Livi not to lock them in as Mandel gallops up once more.
‘Hurry,’ shouts Livi to the stragglers. ‘Hurry!’
Livi is locking the gate as Mandel jumps down from her horse and strides up to her. ‘I told you to lock the gates immediately,’ she screams into Livi’s face.
From the corner of her eye, Livi sees Rita approach, but she can’t save her from the fist swinging into Livi’s face. Knocked off her feet, Livi lies stunned on the ground. Her bladder releases and she feels hot urine puddle beneath her. Mandel, her work done for the moment, climbs back onto her horse, and issues her final blow: ‘Send her to the hole!’ she screeches at Rita, before riding off.
Rita offers Livi a hand and hauls her to her feet. ‘I can’t get you out of this.’ she says, but the young girl can’t speak: she knows that she is lucky to be alive.
Livi follows Rita to the back of the women’s camp. There, a girl is standing, up to her shoulders, in a hole in the ground. There is no way Livi can drop down into it, it’s too narrow. Instead, she must climb through a short dirt tunnel and come up into the hole. It is only once she is fully upright that Livi understands the torture of this punishment. Back to back, their arms trapped by their sides, neither girl can move – they can barely breath – and they must stay like this all night.
When Cibi returns to the block that evening for dinner, Rita explains that Livi has been sent to the hole.
‘I need to see her,’ Cibi pleads. ‘Please, Rita. She can’t do it alone.’
‘She has to. You go anywhere near her and you’ll end up in there too, or worse.’
‘But she’s my little sister, I have to look out for her.’
‘She’s a lot stronger than you think. She’ll be back at work in the morning, you can see her then. But tomorrow night, she will return to the hole.’
*
Livi isn’t cold, she is numb. She can no longer sense her hands and fingers and it feels like her chest is caving in with each breath she takes. She and the girl she is pressed up against exchanged names after Rita left, but then there was nothing else to say, and it hurt to talk. She senses Agatha feels the same, because the girl remains silent. During the night, Livi nods off but then starts awake. This happens a hundred times, maybe two hundred.
In the morning, Rita hoists the girls out of the hole.
When Cibi sees her, she is afraid for a moment. Livi’s blouse is torn and filthy, the curls which have started to grow back are caked in mud. Livi holds her shirt closed, having lost all the buttons in the tunnel.
‘Aren’t you happy to see me?’ Livi asks, forcing a grin, and Cibi runs to her, crushing her against her chest, brushing the dirt out of her hair, repeating over and over, ‘Are you all right? Are you OK?’
Vanoushka finds Livi a new blouse.
As she puts it on, she notices the number stitched onto the lapel. ‘I have a new number. Look, Cibi – now I have two,’ Livi tries to joke.
‘That means I can sleep in and you can answer for me at rollcall.’ Vanoushka laughs.
That evening, Livi reports to the hole for another sleepless night on her feet. A very tall female SS officer in a spotless uniform is watching Agatha climb out. She turns to Livi. ‘Your sister told me it was The Beast who sent you here,’ she says.
‘It was,’ says Livi, wondering if this is a trap. Agatha scurries away into the dark.
‘You see this?’ The officer points to the insignia on her uniform. ‘I outrank the bitch. She can’t throw her weight around here like she used to, and I’m enjoying undoing every single order she gives. Go back to your block, little girl.’
Without having to be told twice, Livi races back to the arms of her sister.
CHAPTER 18
Vranov nad Topl’ou