“Luka!”
He stood with some other prisoners in a lineup at the entrance to the men’s bathroom — a wooden building that looked like a small barracks. I was in the line for the women’s bathroom, which was beside it. Luka’s head turned when he heard his name and his eyes met mine briefly, but his face stayed a mask of sadness. He stepped into the bathroom, and a few minutes later, came out. He walked past my lineup and when he got to me, he stopped.
“Stay out of the hospital,” he whispered.
“Move!” a policeman shouted at him.
A billy club glanced off Luka’s back. His eyes widened in pain but he did not cry out. The policeman grabbed Luka’s arm and shoved him back into line.
What a brave friend Luka was. How had he managed to find out about the hospital? And how kind of him to take such a risk to let me know. It surprised me that the hospital was somehow bad. If I’d had time to think about it, I would have assumed it would be the best place to be … Except … Larissa! It was a hospital-like place where she and I had been separated. Was she still there? Maybe in danger? Now I worried about her even more.
I was pulled out of my thoughts by a revolting smell that made my nose wrinkle. I looked up — my turn next for the bathroom.
Zenia was a little behind me in line, so she held onto my eating utensils. When I stepped inside, my bare feet landed in something wet. It was all I could do to keep from gagging. My eyes adjusted to the dimness and I saw six wooden doors. A woman came out from behind one and held the door open for me. Inside was a rough slat of wood with a hole in it. I held my breath and did what I had to as quickly as I could, trying to imagine that I was in my own outhouse at home, which had always been clean and fresh.
I nearly ran out of there, gulping in the fresh wintry air to clear my lungs of the stink.
“That bad?” Zenia asked, seeing the look on my face.
I nodded. She handed me my eating utensils and also her own. It was her turn for the bathroom.
Little Olesia was lined up behind Katya and Daria outside another small wooden barracks, so I stepped in behind her. Her freshly shaved head was covered with bright red bug bites. There was one long scratch from the barber’s blade under her left ear. Her feet were bare too, but she wore a skirt and a wool sweater — a much more substantial outfit than my own thin dress. She turned to me and sighed. “This place is awful.”
Just then the line moved forward and we stepped inside the building. It turned out to be our wash house. On the floor was a big metal basin that reminded me of a pig trough. Fifteen faucets came out of a water pipe that ran at waist height along either side of the trough. I turned on one of the taps and cold water gushed out.
“Is there any soap?” I asked Olesia.
“Only this.” She handed me a pail of white powder.
I shook some out onto my dampened hands, but realized right away that it wasn’t soap. It was a harsh bleaching powder that made my hands burn. I quickly rinsed most of it away, but used a small bit to clean my feet. With no shoes or socks and the cold dirty ground, I did not want to get them infected. The bleach stung as I massaged it into the tiny cuts on the soles of my feet, but it felt good to be a little bit cleaner.
I rinsed my hands off in plain cold water, then used a bit of the bleaching powder to clean my dishes and Zenia’s. There was nothing to dry myself or the dishes with, so again, when I got outside, the wintry air hit me.
The warden was waiting for us outside our sleeping barracks. She handed Zenia a stack of rough cloth patches, thread and needles. “You must wear these Ostarbeiter patches on your clothing at all times,” she said. “That way, everyone will know that you are Eastern Workers. Anyone found not wearing the OST badge will be shot.”
She ticked off each of our names on a clipboard as we entered our sleeping quarters. “Tomorrow is Monday. You will rise at four-thirty,” she said sternly. “When you hear the whistle, get up. No dawdling.”
Zenia gave each of us one of the patches. Now that I looked more closely, I could see that they were made of a coarse white material that had been stamped with striped bands of dark blue ink. In the centre were the initials OST.
Olesia sewed her patch on hastily, then climbed into her bunk. Zenia finished next. I watched as each girl did the job quickly and fell into an exhausted sleep. I was also tired, but to have a needle with thread made my fingers tingle with memory. Yes, the OST badge was ugly, and what it symbolized was even worse, but Mama always told me to find beauty where I could. Instead of stitching sloppily just to get it over with, I savoured every stitch, taking care to make each one perfectly. Even as it grew dark, my fingers became my eyes and a delicate pattern revealed itself. Thinking of Mama brought forth the image of those lilac blossoms. Hardly realizing it, my fingers created simple petal-like stitches — beauty to surround the ugly OST. If Mama were here, she too would have been able to make even prison clothing beautiful.
A beam of moonlight shone through a wooden window slat and illuminated Zenia’s pale face, wet with silent tears. I crept over to her bunk and huddled close. There was nothing I could say that would comfort her. I knew that we were all feeling lonely and frightened, but all of the other girls had managed to sleep.
I put my hand on her shoulder. “Is there something I can do to make you feel better?” I whispered.
She shook her head. “Nothing can help. I am all alone in the world.”
I was hungry and cold and frightened, but I could hold on as long as there was a chance that Larissa lived.
“But how can you know for sure?” I asked her. “There is always hope.”
Zenia pulled me close. I could feel her hot breath on my ear. “I’m Jewish.”
I felt like a rock had been thrown at my heart. None of the prisoners had yellow stars.
It was a miracle that Zenia herself had managed to survive for this long. I remembered when the Nazis came to our town. At first we were relieved that it was not the Soviets, for we thought no one could be as bad as them. My father had been one of the thousands they killed just days before the Nazi invasion.
My friend Sarah and her parents were just as hopeful as we had been. Germans were civilized, weren’t they? But then they took the Jews and shot them. Mama had tried to hide Sarah and her parents, so they shot my mama too. Larissa and I heard the shots from our hiding place in the attic.
There was only one difference between the Nazis and the Soviets: the Soviets killed by the cover of night, but the Nazis killed in full daylight.
If the Nazis found out that Zenia was Jewish, would she be killed on the spot? My hand went up to my neck and I caressed my crucifix. I had been powerless to save my friend Sarah, but could I help Zenia? My simple cross was not just jewellery and it was not only a symbol of my beliefs. It was all that I had left of my parents. But it also showed that I wasn’t Jewish. Should I give this to Zenia? Could I bear to part with it? But Zenia had so much more to lose. I had no choice. I had to give it to her.
I took it off, held it to my lips and kissed it goodbye. Then I pressed it into Zenia’s palm. “Wear this.”
Her eyes filled with tears but she said nothing. I tried to understand what she must be thinking — that wearing the cross was like denying her family, denying the religion her parents had died for. But she had to blend in. And she needed a reason to live.
“If you don’t live, who will tell your story when the war is over?” I asked her.
Her eyes met mine. She looked back down at the crucifix and her eyebrows knitted in thought. Another minute passed. Then she sighed and her eyes met mine. “You’re right.” She slipped the leather necklace that held my crucifix over her head. “Thank you.”