‘I’m coming with you,’ says Magda, taking her arm. They insist that Livi stay behind with Eva and the other women, and for once Livi doesn’t argue.
The sisters wander across the street towards a cobbled courtyard bordered by a row of small houses. They peer inside the windows, but again, there’s no one around. A large cowshed stands next to the house at the end of the row and Cibi beckons Magda forward.
Piles of hay litter the milking stalls, but there are no cows, and no milk. As they turn to head back to the warehouse, they hear a low moan coming from the stall at the far end of the shed.
‘Let’s go, Cibi.’ Magda is scared of losing their tentative freedom, and Cibi has risked too much for her already. But Cibi isn’t moving.
‘I’m going to take a look. Go and stand by the door and get ready to run.’
Cibi tiptoes over to the stall. From beneath a mound of hay a bare foot protrudes. She brushes aside the straw to reveal a leg, then a torso – a man. He is dressed in the rags of a Jewish prisoner. Cibi gets down on her knees and examines his body for an injury but finds none.
His eyes flutter open.
‘What’s your name?’ she asks, softly. He starts to speak, but his words make no sense to Cibi.
‘Magda, go and fetch the others,’ she calls over her shoulder.
Soon the whole group is standing around the sick man. Eliana pushes through with a wooden mug of cold water, which she holds to his dry lips. After a few sips, he closes his eyes and falls asleep.
For the rest of the night, the girls take turns to sit by his bed in the straw and talk to him, reassure him that the worst of their nightmare is over, that help is coming and he, just like them, will return home to his family. One by one the girls fall asleep and when the dawn breaks, flooding the cowshed with light, they wake to find he is dead.
‘We have to bury him,’ says Magda. ‘We’re not in the camps anymore. He deserves this final dignity.’
Livi and Eva find shovels, and in the courtyard, with the four Polish girls, they begin to dig deep into the grassy patch beside the cobbled clearing. Magda and Cibi search the one house whose door isn’t locked for food, but there is none there, either.
‘What are those for?’ Cibi asks. Magda is holding a bottle, a pen and a piece of paper.
‘You’ll see,’ she says, and the girls head back to the courtyard. As they’re shutting the door behind them, the front door of the house next door creaks open.
Magda and Cibi flinch, step away. But it’s just an old woman.
‘What are you doing? Who are you?’ she asks.
Cibi clears her throat. ‘Isn’t it obvious? We’ve escaped from the camps and we’re going home, but need to bury someone first.’
The old woman looks into the courtyard, where six girls are busy digging a hole in the dirt.
She sighs and shakes her head. ‘There’s a graveyard just down the road, you should bury him in there.’
‘You’re right,’ says Magda. ‘Of course. We should have looked for the cemetery.’
‘I would wait until after dark if I were you, someone might see you. You still have enemies in this village. Stay in the cowshed for now, and I will bring you what little food I have.’
When the woman has shuffled back inside, Cibi explains the new plan to the group. The old woman, true to her word, returns at dusk with hunks of black bread and potato soup in a small tureen. Barely a full meal for one person, the ten girls sip from the pan and pass it on, sip and pass until it’s all gone.
And then they wait for nightfall, huddled together in the dark, in the straw, their slow breathing the only sound in this strange, deserted village, which may or may not house their enemies.
Later, they take their shovels to the graveyard and dig another grave. Four girls drag the dead man to his final resting place and lower him into the hole. Magda scribbles the number on his shirt onto the piece of paper, slips it into the bottle and corks it. She throws it into the hole, and then all ten girls heap soil over the body.
The moon is full, lighting up their solemn faces. Cibi, Livi and Magda stand together, their arms around one another.
‘Someone should say the Kaddish,’ says Aria.
The girls bow their heads, and Magda begins to recite the words she knows from the funeral services in their synagogue. This is the first time she has spoken them aloud; they are not meant for the lips of women, but Magda had memorised them all the same. Soon all the girls are reciting the ancient Aramaic prayer.
‘If they find his number,’ says Magda, before they turn to leave, ‘they will be able to trace his family.’