They’re safe. Their memories are safe.
The woman has pulled her chair away and Magda crashes to the floor on her exit. But she’s on her feet in seconds, running for the front door just as the unkempt man is coming back inside. She pushes past him and is on the street again, waving the pillowcase triumphantly in the air.
‘I got it! I got it!’ she yells and the three of them run down the road. They do not stop running until they are two streets away. Only then does Magda realise she is limping. She has twisted her ankle in her fall.
‘Are you all right?’ Cibi asks.
‘Yes, I just hurt my ankle when I fell out of the ceiling,’ Magda says.
‘You fell .?.?. what?’ says Livi.
‘Never mind.’ Magda smiles. ‘I have what I wanted.’
‘But what do we do now?’ Livi persists. ‘Someone is in our house.’
‘Well, we can’t stay here. I think we should go back to Bratislava. At least we’ll be amongst all the other survivors,’ Magda suggests.
‘Well, whatever you’ve got in that pillowcase, Magda, it had better be a miracle, because that’s what we need right now.’ Cibi is grinning, trying to infuse in her sisters the courage she is yet to feel herself.
Part III
The Promised Land
CHAPTER 26
Bratislava
July 1945
A
gain, the three girls squeeze into a seat made for two on the train to Bratislava. They take no notice of the countryside as it streams away. There is nothing here for them any longer.
Instead, they pore over the photos in the pillowcase.
‘I wish we knew what happened to Uncle Ivan and the cousins,’ says Livi, staring at a photo of their uncle and mother as teenagers.
Magda sighs, and touches her sister’s shoulder. ‘We will find out sooner or later. They might even be in Bratislava,’ she says.
Magda watches her sisters as they re-acquaint themselves with the family snapshots. They had been apart for over two years and the siblings she found in Auschwitz in no way resembled those she knew in Vranov. Magda feels guilty – she can’t help it. While they suffered, she slept in their bed, ate the food they should have been sharing, enjoyed the company of the mother they so desperately miss. How will she ever find her way back to them, separated as they are by their experiences? She reaches over to stroke Livi’s hair, now thick and strong with the telltale reddish hues she and Cibi envy. She pulls a strand away from Livi’s face, tucking it behind her ear.
‘Bratislava is huge, Magda!’ Livi throws a photo onto the pile. ‘How would we find them? What are we going to do? Walk the streets hoping we’ll bump into them like they’re our neighbours?’
‘If you’ve got a better idea, then please tell us,’ Magda fires back. She is exhausted too.
But Livi is furious. Not with Magda, but with those who decided putting them on another train and abandoning them to their fates is some kind of recompense. Someone is living in their house. Their mumma’s house.
Magda gathers up the pictures and thrusts them back into the pillowcase, which she clutches to her chest.
*
Hours later, the sisters are crossing the main street of Bratislava. Several shops are open and there is an air of business as usual in the bustling city. It is late afternoon and their feet ache from pounding the pavement, hoping to spot at least one friend from Auschwitz or Vranov.
Livi’s eye lingers on the two, very thin, young men approaching.
‘They look Jewish,’ Livi says, nodding at the men.
‘They look Jewish,’ mimics Magda, with a grin. ‘How is that helpful?’
‘Well, they do!’ Livi pouts. ‘Aren’t we looking for Jews?’
‘That’s enough!’ snaps Cibi, and her sisters fall silent.
Cibi steps up to the young men. ‘I was wondering if you could help us,’ she says.
The men glance at each other and then at Cibi.
‘Happy to, if we can,’ says one.
‘We’ve just arrived in Bratislava,’ Cibi begins.
‘Which camp?’ the other asks.
‘Auschwitz-Birkenau.’
The men exchange another glance.
‘I’m Frodo, and this is my friend, Imrich. We were in Auschwitz, too. Where do you live?’
‘Vranov. But someone has taken our house,’ Cibi feels like crying, right there in the street. This is too hard. Every word spilling from her mouth paints a picture of their never-ending despair, but Frodo is smiling, nodding his head.
‘Don’t worry,’ he says. ‘We can help. There’s space in an apartment in our block where you can stay for a bit. The girls who live there are survivors too.’