The girls in Magda’s group, painfully moved by this reunion, hug one another too, echoing the sisters’ embrace.
‘Livi? Where’s Livi?’ Magda is desperate know.
‘She’s here, Magda. She’s as well any of us can hope to be,’ Cibi tells her.
‘Can you take me to her? Now?’
More and more girls gather around. There is little enough good news in this place, and just a glimmer of it is contagious. Everyone wants to hear their story, but Cibi is suddenly aware of the potential danger of being discovered in an area where she should not be.
‘Which one is your block?’ Cibi asks her sister urgently, taking her hand.
But Magda doesn’t move for a moment. She is staring at Cibi as if she’s finally seeing her.
She looks her up and down slowly, touches her short hair, her shoulders, arms. ‘What have they done to you, Cibi?’ Magda is crying again, but Cibi can’t do this right now. She knows what she looks like, she knows her face is gaunt and her body fleshless. They need to keep moving.
‘We can talk later, Magda. Come on.’
*
Magda’s block is the same as any other, featuring desperate girls sitting on their bunks staring into space. Cibi opens the parcel and pulls out the clothes, instructing Magda to change. While she is undressing Cibi hands the box to one of the numb-faced girls.
‘There’s food in here, you can share it.’
The girl looks inside the box, her eyes go wide. She nods at Cibi, and smiles a ‘thank you’。
Once the sisters are outside again, Cibi finds Magda’s friends. ‘I need your help,’ Cibi tells them. ‘You won’t get into any trouble, don’t worry. OK?’
When the girls nod eagerly, Cibi thinks they must like Magda very much to take any sort of risk after what they have been through.
‘The block leader saw me come in alone, but I want to leave with Magda. I need you to distract her while we slip out. Can you do that?’
The girls, grinning now, nod again and move towards the front gate. Cibi and Magda press against the walls of the block closest to the gates.
The girls start chattering loudly, arguing as they head towards the gate. Once they have the attention of the kapo they escalate their fight, pushing and shoving, now moving past the gate towards the opposite side of the camp. The kapo begins to follow them, telling them to stop talking, to walk in orderly lines, to return to their block.
And Cibi grabs Magda’s hand and the sisters slip through the gate and speed-walk towards the women’s camp. Cibi takes her into Block 21, which is empty. There is still an hour to go before everyone returns. Now they sit on Cibi and Livi’s bunk, arms wrapped around each other, in silence.
Finally, Cibi takes a deep breath. There is one question that can’t wait for Livi’s return.
‘Mumma? Grandfather?’ is all she needs to say.
Magda looks at her lap, her shoulders begin to heave. ‘I don’t know where they are,’ she sobs.
‘It’s OK, Magda. It’s OK. Were they on your train?’
‘I don’t think so. I didn’t see them, anyway. We got separated a while back.’
‘That’s good news. Maybe they won’t come here at all.’ Cibi is gentle with her sister, keen to spare her the painful questioning, but at the same time she needs to know what has happened to their mother.
‘We were at home until July,’ Magda tells her.
‘Really?’ Cibi is delighted to hear this. ‘Just a few months ago?’
‘Yes. But, Cibi, there’s so much to tell you – too much. And I want to know so much too. When did you and Livi come here?’ Magda looks around the block, at the bunks, the grey concrete, and shivers.
‘We can talk about that later, with Livi. Can you tell me a little about Mumma and Grandfather and what happened?’
Magda nods. She wants to talk about them, but at the same time she doesn’t want to make their absence real.
‘They started clearing Vranov of all the Jews in July and that’s when they caught up with us. We were together for a while and then the Hlinka took me away.’ Magda is suddenly lost in her memories and falls silent.
‘Took you where?’ Cibi nudges.
‘They took me to Banská Bystrica, to a school, but then the Resistance arrived and freed us.’ Magda’s eyes shine for a moment as she remembers her night behind the dumpster. ‘I was actually free, Cibi, can you believe it? But then the Germans caught me and took me to a prison.’
‘A prison?’