Eva starts to cry and Livi throws her arms around the little girl. Cibi and Magda join the hug and the girls hang on to one another for a long time.
‘I am sorry, girls, but I need to take Eva now. Please, let her go.’
Slowly, the sisters release the child in their midst. The clerk takes Eva by the hand and walks away. Eva doesn’t resist, but she turns round, holding out an arm as if to catch hold of their hands.
‘How many more people can they take away from us?’ sobs Livi.
‘They will never take us away from one another again,’ Magda says, fervently.
In silence, the girls return to their block and wait for the final three days to pass.
*
It is a warm, late summer morning when the sisters join one of the five buses heading for Czechoslovakia. Livi gazes out of the window without speaking, lost in her thoughts of home and what awaits them. When the absence of her mother becomes too awful to contemplate, her mind darts back to Auschwitz, to Birkenau. Is that it? she thinks. They went through all that horror, and now they’re just being sent home, on a bus, as if nothing had happened? Rage spikes her body. Who is going to say sorry? Who is going to atone for their suffering, the senseless deaths?
But six hours is a long time to keep hate alive in your heart, and on the third go around, Livi joins her sisters and the rest of the bus in a loud rendition of the national anthem of Czechoslovakia, and a recital of prayers. Livi notices that while Cibi sings the songs, she clamps her mouth shut for the prayer.
The sisters stare at the countryside as it sweeps past. The chatter around them falls silent as they move through the ruins of Berlin and Dresden. They watch men, women and children picking through the rubble. They all look up as the buses sweep by, holding out their hands for food. These are the people who enslaved, starved, tortured and murdered us, thinks Cibi, bitterly. And now they dare to beg for our compassion.
The mood on the bus becomes more alert as they cross the Charles Bridge into Prague.
Some of the passengers are home.
The bridge is lined with hundreds of people, waving hands, flags and flowers, welcoming them. As they drive onto the bridge, Cibi thinks of the hypocrisy of these citizens. They had once thought nothing of turning their backs on the Jews of their city, willingly handing them over to Hitler.
She turns to Magda, her eyes flashing. ‘I never thought I’d see this,’ she breathes. ‘They abandoned us and now they’re welcoming us home?’
The convoy of five buses has to pull over after they have crossed the bridge, as the crowds are impassable. Then the doors are opening and the exuberant hordes are boarding the buses. The sisters are offered cake, chocolate, water, fruit – a man presses money into Magda’s hands. Livi starts to cry, overcome by the genuine outpouring of affection, by the cheering and clapping that engulfs them.
An elderly gentleman takes Cibi’s hand and raises it to his lips. Just moments ago she was angry, furious that their welcome was nothing short of hypocrisy, an act displaying not joy at their return, but guilt for doing nothing to save them. She is not so sure now, as she struggles to make sense of what is happening around them.
The bus driver takes the wheel, blasting his horn again and again to clear a path through the masses gathered outside. Soon the convoy arrives in Wenceslas Square, where the mayor is waiting to welcome the return of Czechoslovakian citizens. The sisters step off the bus, hand in hand, wary of becoming separated amongst the roaring crowds.
‘Prominte! Prominte!’ they shout. ‘We’re sorry!’
The mayor joins in the chant before calling for quiet. He tells them he is so happy they have returned home, that from now on they will be cared for. That what happened to them will never happen again.
Loaded with flowers, chocolate and cake the sisters join the other passengers and reboard their bus. Exhausted, exhilarated, they are taken to nearby army barracks where they will spend the night, in bunks they don’t have to share. They sleep well.
*
Their journey home only really starts when they take the train to Bratislava the next day.
Stepping onto the platform, each of the girls is struck with fierce, painful memories. On the tracks is a normal enough looking train; at least, it’s not made up of coal or cattle wagons.
But it’s a symbol of their captivity all the same.
‘Cibi,’ says Livi, her face crumbling. ‘I don’t think I can .?.?.’
Cibi is already weeping and Magda is shaking.
‘We can,’ sobs Cibi. ‘We’ve come too far, kitten. And this is the way home. Do you remember?’