‘Ilava prison. Do you remember Mr Klein? He was there.’
Cibi looks puzzled. ‘Our maths teacher? He was in the prison too?’
‘He was. He remembered you. We talked a lot, but then .?.?.’ Magda falters, remembering the cattle wagons.
‘What?’
‘Then I was brought here, Cibi.’
Just then, girls begin to pour through the doors; it’s the end of the day, which means Livi will be back any minute.
‘Listen, Magda, I don’t want you to be frightened by what you see and hear in this camp – you’re safe now, you’re with your sisters. I’m going to go outside to prepare Livi. Will you wait here?’
Girls continue to arrive, several glancing Magda’s way before collapsing onto their bunks.
Outside Cibi paces. Where is Livi? Why does she have to be late, today of all days? Finally, Cibi sees her and runs to meet Livi, who listens, incredulous, while she learns that Magda is there, in the block, waiting to meet her again. But before she runs inside, Livi’s eyes ask another question, and Cibi shakes her head. No, Mumma and Grandfather are not here.
Magda meets Livi in the middle of the vast room, and once more girls gather around to cheer this happy reunion.
That night, for the first time in almost three years, the Meller sisters are together.
*
The next day Cibi takes Magda to the post office and puts her to work. Luckily, Volkenrath left for Auschwitz the day before and their new supervisor has no idea who should be working there and who shouldn’t. Cibi knows none of the other girls will give them away after hearing their story.
‘What’s her number?’ Rosie asks Cibi. Cibi reaches for Magda’s left arm, pushing up her sleeve, and is shocked to see bare flesh. Without a number her sister doesn’t exist.
‘You don’t have a number?’ Rosie breathes.
Cibi is still staring at Magda’s arm. ‘She’s just arrived, Rosie, of course she doesn’t have a number. What will we do?’ Cibi is panicking and Magda wants to comfort her, to tell her it doesn’t matter, that they will sort it out somehow, but Cibi knows this place, and it is clear that this missing number is a very bad thing.
‘I saw the tattooist working outside a few minutes ago,’ Rosie says. ‘Maybe he’s still there, he could do it.’
‘What number?’ bursts out Magda. ‘What are you talking about?’
Cibi pulls up her sleeve, revealing the tattoo on her left arm. Rosie does the same.
‘Stay here,’ Cibi says, heading for the door.
‘Where is she going?’ Magda asks.
‘To see Lale,’ Rosie tells her. ‘He’ll give you a number, and then you’ll be as safe as the rest of us.’ Rosie grins, and Magda begins to understand the grim sarcasm of the Birkenau girls.
Outside, Cibi finds Lale sitting at his small desk, patiently inking numbers into the arms of men. Two SS guards hover close by, their backs to the queue, and Cibi takes her chance and approaches the desk.
‘Lale.’
‘Hello,’ he says, looking up from the arm he is about to tattoo.
‘I need your help,’ Cibi says, urgently.
‘Go on.’ Lale traces the numbers written on the man’s arm with his tools. The man tenses, but doesn’t otherwise react.
‘My sister is here; I’ve smuggled her into my block but she doesn’t have a number.’
Lale pauses and looks at Cibi. ‘Where is she?’
‘In the post office. We work in the post office.’
‘Then go back to work, and when I’m finished here, I’ll find you,’ offers Lale, before bending once more to his task.
An hour later, true to his word, Lale pokes his head round the door of the post office, and beckons for the sisters to come outside.
His bag of tools waits for them in the shadows of an adjacent building.
‘I’m Lale,’ he tells Magda. ‘And I hear you need a number.’
Magda is scared. She has seen Cibi’s arm, the arms of all the girls in the post office, and by now she knows it will hurt to have this indelible mark stabbed into her flesh.
‘I can’t give her a four-digit number, Cibi. It will have to be a more recent one.’ He pushes up Magda’s sleeve and punches A-25592 into her skin. Magda does not flinch.
Cibi exhales a long sigh of relief as the number appears on her sister’s arm. Later this evening, she will beg Rita to add her to morning rollcall and, finally, Magda will officially exist in Birkenau.
‘Go back to work, girls,’ he says to the sisters, packing away his tools. ‘Tomorrow will be a good day.’