‘There! There they are!’ Cibi suddenly screams. Her hands grab the fence, shaking it as if to bring it down. Livi is frozen, her mouth open and soundless. Cibi tries to call out but her voice too, has suddenly deserted her. Another girl joins them. She doesn’t need to be told the sisters are looking for their mother. It’s obvious.
‘Mrs Mellerova!’ the girl shouts. Once, twice, three times.
Chaya hears her name and turns around.
‘Mumma,’ Cibi cries, banging her fists on the wire. ‘Mumma! Mumma!’
The snaking line of prisoners draws closer, there are only a few feet between them now.
‘It’s me, Mumma! Cibi!’
Chaya is looking around, her eyes failing to find her daughter. Yitzchak’s head is cocked, catching Cibi’s words in the air. And then Chaya sees her, and stumbles. Yitzchak catches her. ‘Cibi? My Cibi?’ her mother cries.
Mother and grandfather hang on to each other, diminished.
‘Yes, Mumma, it’s me!’ Cibi is struggling to speak – she can barely stand to look at them; her proud, once erect mother is gaunt, hunched, hanging on to an old man.
‘And Livi?’ her mother cries. ‘My baby?’
Cibi has forgotten Livi is standing mute beside her. She realises her mother and grandfather have not recognised her. She puts her arm around Livi’s shoulders, drawing her close.
‘She’s here Mumma. Here’s Livi.’
‘Mumma,’ Livi croaks. ‘I need you.’
‘My baby!’ Chaya wails, as Yitzchak catches her once more, her legs threatening to give way. But they can’t stop, the line is moving.
Cibi and Livi walk alongside them, their eyes locked onto their mother.
Chaya is trying to say something, but her words are strangled, unintelligible.
‘Magda!’ shouts Yitzchak. ‘Is Magda with you?’
‘Yes! She’s here. She’s fine,’ Cibi calls back.
Cibi watches Yitzchak lift Chaya’s hand to his mouth and kiss her fingers. He is saying something to Chaya: his lips are moving but the sisters can’t hear him. The old man is smiling. Smiling and nodding.
‘You are all together, my child,’ he says. The line of prisoners is turning away now, her mother is disappearing into the nameless crowd.
‘Mumma, Grandfather,’ pleads Cibi. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’
‘Look after your sisters, my darling.’ Her mother’s final words.
‘Mumma,’ Livi whimpers.
For the first time since leaving her home almost three years ago Cibi collapses. She sits on the ground, sobbing. In a few minutes it will all be over: her mother will be a corpse, she will never see Grandfather again. She hangs on to the fence, shaking it, shaking it, willing them to turn round and come back.
Livi kneels beside her, peeling her fingers from the fence.
‘They’re gone, Livi,’ she says, rubbing her face.
‘I know, I know,’ Livi whispers, kneeling and hugging her sister. The girls are crying hard now, beyond the comfort of each other’s arms.
‘Girls, you can’t stay here, it’s not safe.’ A male prisoner hovers over them, looking around anxiously. ‘Come on. You need to get up and go back to your block or wherever you should be.’
Their arms around one another, the sisters head back to the post office in silence.
‘You need to go back to work, Livi,’ says Cibi, at the door. ‘Don’t give them any reason to come looking for you. I’ll tell Magda about .?.?.’ The words catch in her throat, but Livi understands. She kisses her sister hard on both cheeks and turns to leave.
*
Magda is unaware of the horrors of the killing chambers, has not yet witnessed the piles of bodies wheeled through the streets towards the crematoria; all she knows is that her mother and grandfather are dead, and that she will never see them again. She buries her face in her hands and sits down to cry.
*
Before the day is over, a friend who works in the Kanada next to the crematoria, enters the post office and asks Cibi to step outside.
‘I think this belongs to you,’ she says, handing over a plain brown handbag. Cibi takes it, immediately recognising it as her mother’s. She smells it, holds it to her chest and closes her eyes. ‘How did you know?’ she whispers.
‘There’s a photo inside of your sister. And .?.?. and a wedding ring.’
Cibi flicks the clasp and opens the bag. The photo shows Livi at thirteen years old, smiling happy. And then she finds the ring. Slipping it onto her finger she wonders why her mother ever took it off. She’ll never know. She places the items back in the handbag and snaps the clasp shut.