‘I can feel them,’ Magda whispers. ‘Mumma is next to you, Livi, and Grandfather is beside Cibi.’
‘Well, I can’t feel them.’ Livi’s voice breaks. ‘And I’m not a baby, to be fed fairy tales.’
‘Would it help if I told you a story?’ Magda asks. ‘Not a fairy tale,’ she adds, hastily.
Livi is still staring at her boots. ‘Is it a happy story?’ she asks, quietly.
‘It is. It’s about the last time Grandfather and I went into the forest for kindling.’
‘Tell us the story. Please, Magda,’ Cibi says, desperately. Anything to keep their minds off this endless torture through the snow.
‘It was a glorious summer day,’ begins Magda. ‘Everything was alive in the forest, even the ferns waved to us when we entered. Grandfather was pulling that funny old cart of his, you know the one? The heat, it’s hard to imagine it now, but it was a blanket around my shoulders.’ Magda pauses, lost in her own memories.
‘Keep going,’ urges Livi.
‘Well, we were quite a way in, the bees and insects were going crazy, when I came across a sunny clearing.’ Magda turns to her sisters, a question in her eyes. ‘You remember the big oak, don’t you?’
Cibi and Livi nod. The girls are still walking, taking care where to place their feet, wary of rocks beneath the snow which might upend them any moment. Their toes are numb, every part of them feels dead, but Magda’s story of sunshine is beginning to thaw their hearts at least.
‘I noticed a flash of colour, just by the trunk of the oak, so I ran over to it.’
‘What was it?’ Livi asks, fully engrossed. ‘And don’t you dare say an elf or fairy.’
‘Don’t be silly, Livi. This is a true story.’ Magda wants to get it all out now. She wants her sisters to feel the heat on their skin, to be dazzled by the blinding glare of the sunshine when she looked up into the canopy of leaves. To feel their ears twitch with the buzzing of insects.
‘It was the most magnificent sword lily I have ever seen. Just one. Those beautiful pink flowers didn’t look real. Grandfather and I stared at it for ages, and then he asked me if I knew the meaning of the word “gladiolus”。’
‘Do you?’ Livi says, her forehead scrunching, as if she’s trying to recall the meaning herself.
‘I do. Don’t you?’
‘I do,’ Cibi says.
‘I don’t,’ Livi says. ‘Magda, please keep going with the memory. What did you say?’
Cibi marvels at their younger sister. They are surely headed for their deaths, yet she is lost in Magda’s story, caught up in the summer’s day, in the appearance of a magical flower.
‘The gladiolus symbolises strength, Livi,’ Cibi tells her.
‘And do either of you know what family of plant the gladiolus belongs to?’ Magda asks. She is stamping her feet as she walks, trying to get a little blood flowing into her toes.
‘Don’t tell me! Don’t tell me, I know this. Just give me a minute,’ says Livi.
Cibi and Magda give her a few moments.
‘Iris! It belongs to the iris family,’ Livi blurts out, with pride.
‘Well done, Livi. And now a harder question. Do you know what the iris symbolises?’ asks Cibi.
Livi thinks for a moment and slowly shakes her head. ‘I don’t think I ever knew that,’ she says, quietly.
‘Hope, little sister,’ says Magda. ‘It means hope. Seeing that sword lily before we were taken away gave me strength and hope. And that’s why I’m telling you both this story now. We Meller girls must stay strong and carry hope in our hearts.’
After a long silence, Livi says, ‘I can feel Mumma and Grandfather with us now.’
*
The girls are still marching as night falls. The sound of bombing still stutters in the distance, but the noises are definitely moving away. Someone whispers that the Russians are winning, driving the Germans back, and that they are marching away from the Russian fighters. The sisters struggle to free their feet from the snow with each step. It is now past their knees, but they keep going because the only alternative is a bullet.
They walk through the night and into the dawn, into the day. The snow has eased up and the sun shines on the thousands of walkers. Cibi, Livi and Magda step over the thin corpses of those who could not take one more step. They watch as other girls pause to remove the shoes of the dead.
‘How can they do that?’ gasps Magda.
‘We’ve seen worse,’ says Cibi. ‘And if we needed extra clothing, I’d do the same.’