As they trudge toward the buildings that will become home, following the person in front, unaware who is leading them or directing them, a woman with a broad, weathered face sidles up to them. The sun might be attempting to shine but the windchill bites into any exposed skin—they are so far north that even though it is late summer there is snow on the ground. The woman is wearing layers of coats, strong-looking boots, and has her hat pulled down and tied beneath her chin. She leers at Cilka and Josie.
“Well, aren’t you the lucky ones! Got yourselves men to protect you, I hear.”
Cilka puts her head down, not wanting to engage in or encourage conversation with her. She doesn’t see the leg extended in front of her, tripping her, so that with her hands in her pockets she falls flat on her face.
Josie reaches down to help her up, only to be hit in the back and sent sprawling herself. The two girls lie on the damp, frosty ground, side by side.
“Your looks won’t get you anywhere with me. Now get moving.”
Cilka pulls herself up first. Josie stays lying on the ground, eventually taking Cilka’s hand as she is helped to her feet.
Cilka risks looking around. Among the hundreds of women, dressed the same, heads shaven, faces buried in coats, it is impossible to identify the others from their train carriage.
As they enter a hut, they are counted off by the gruff woman. Cilka had thought maybe she was a guard, but she’s not in uniform, and as she walks past her, Cilka notices the number sewn on her coat and hat. Must be like a block leader, Cilka thinks.
The room has single beds lining one side, a space in the middle with a stove throwing out a version of heat. The women ahead of them have run to the stove and push and shove, hands extended toward it.
“I’m your brigadier, and you belong to me,” the leader says. “My name is Antonina Karpovna. An-to-ni-na Kar-pov-na,” she repeats slowly, pointing at herself, so no one can misinterpret her meaning. “All right, you lucky zechkas, I hope you realize you have one of the best prisoner huts in the camp.” Cilka thinks she must be right. No bunks. Actual mattresses. A blanket each. “I’ll leave you to sort yourselves out,” the brigadier says with a wry grin, before departing the hut.
“What’s a zechka?” Josie whispers.
“I don’t know, but it can’t be a good word.” Cilka shrugs. “Probably means prisoner or something like that.”
Cilka looks around her. None of the beds have been claimed; the women ahead of them ran straight to the stove. Grabbing Josie’s arm, Cilka pulls her away to the far end of the hut.
“Wait, let’s find beds first. Sit on this one.”
Cilka claims the end bed, pushing Josie onto the one next to it.
They both examine what they are sitting on. A thin gray blanket over an off-white sheet covering a sawdust-filled mattress.
Their rush to find somewhere to sleep doesn’t go unnoticed by the other women who now also scramble for beds, pushing and shoving each other as they too claim the place they will sleep tonight and for however many more nights they survive.
It becomes obvious there is a bed for everyone. Hats are taken off and placed where a pillow would be, had one been provided.
Cilka glances to the space across from the end of their beds.
Two empty buckets look back at her. Toilets. She sighs. For as long as she remains in this hut, she will be reminded of her greed to secure what she considered the best place to sleep. She thought she would have a little privacy: a wall on one side of her, Josie on the other. There’s always a catch to a good position, to comfort. She should know that by now.
Having established their place, Cilka nudges Josie and they move toward the stove, hands outstretched. Cilka senses she has made some enemies already, on day one.
Josie is shoved in the back by a large, tough-looking woman, her age indeterminate. Josie sprawls forward, smashing her face on the hard, wooden floor. Blood seeps from her nose.
Cilka helps Josie to her feet, pulling the girl’s shirt up to her face, covering her nose, staunching the blood.
“What did you do that for?” a voice asks.
“Watch it, bitch, or you’ll get the same,” the bully says, getting in the other girl’s face.
The other women observe the exchange.
Cilka wants to react, to defend Josie, but she still needs to know more about how the place works, and who these women are, whether there’s a possibility of them all getting along.
“It’s all right,” Josie splutters to the girl who defended her, a young, slight woman with fair skin and blue eyes. “Thank you.”
“Are you all right?” the girl asks in Russian-accented Polish. She keeps touching her own shaved head.
“She will be,” Cilka answers.
The girl examines Josie’s face with concern.
“I’m Natalya.”
Josie and Cilka introduce themselves.
“You are Russian?” Josie asks.
“Yes, but my family was living in Poland. For many decades. Only now they decide that is criminal.” She lowers her head for a moment. “And you?”
Josie’s face crumples. “They wanted to know where my brothers were. And they wouldn’t believe me when I told them I didn’t know.”
Cilka makes soothing sounds to Josie.
“I’m sorry,” Natalya says. “Perhaps let’s not talk about it now.”
“Or ever,” the bully says from her bed, turned away from the rest of them. “It’s all just variations on the same sob story. Whether we did something or not, we have been branded enemies of the state and we are here to be corrected through labor.”
She stays facing away from them. Sighs.
The fire crackles in the stove.
“Now what?” someone asks.
No one is prepared to suggest an answer. Some of the women wander back to their chosen beds and curl up, going deep into their own silent thoughts.
Cilka takes Josie by the arm and leads her to her bed. Pulling the blanket back she urges the girl to take off her shoes and lie down. Her nose has stopped bleeding. Cilka goes back to the stove. Natalya is carefully placing more coal from a nearby bucket into the red-hot cavity, using the end of her coat to open and close the door.
Cilka looks at the coal pile. “There’s not enough to get us through the night,” she says, as much to herself as to Natalya.
“I’ll ask for more,” Natalya says in a softly spoken whisper. She is rosy-cheeked and delicate-limbed, but looks strong. Cilka can see in her eyes she thinks everything is going to work out. Cilka knows how quickly that feeling can be taken away.
“We could perhaps just watch and see what they do. Ask for nothing and you lessen the risk of a beating.”
“Surely they won’t let us freeze,” Natalya says, hands on hips. The whisper is gone. Several other women push themselves up onto an elbow in the beds where they lie, listening to the conversation.
Cilka takes a moment to look around at all the faces now turned to her. She can’t accurately tell all the women’s ages but thinks she and Josie are among the youngest. She remembers her own words spoken only a matter of hours ago. Don’t stand out, be invisible.
“Well?” is thrown at her from the bully at the front of the hut.
All eyes are on her.
“I don’t know anything more than you. I’m just guessing. But I think we should go easy on what coal we have left in case we don’t get any more today.”