Hanna
Ruby reminds me of my younger self in many ways.
There’s a determination about the girl. And while I didn’t think she’d be up to it at first, I must admit she’s certainly making herself useful about the place.
She seems to have taken to the crofting life, even managing to endure the Shetland winter.
The day after Up Helly Aa, I found her digging the plantie crub, preparing the ground for the kale seedlings, which are already beginning to sprout on the windowsill in the dining room.
It’s funny how the day after they burn the Viking ship always seems a tiny bit longer, the daylight just a little brighter.
Perhaps there’s something in it after all, and the flames really do help push back the darkness.
While we ate our lunch, she asked me to tell her what happened once the war had ended and the camps were liberated. It’s easier to talk about those times than about what went before, even though for Liv and me, the end of the war wasn’t the end of our ordeal.
*
Liv and I didn’t leave Auschwitz straightaway.
We were both too sick and weak to make the journey home and, besides, we had no one waiting for us back there.
Our status as Nacht und Nebel prisoners meant our names hadn’t appeared on official lists of Norwegian prisoners sent to the Red Cross in Sweden, who had organized convoys of white buses to collect the Scandinavian prisoners from German camps and bring them home.
The Russian troops who had first entered the camp soon moved on, but shortly after that, Polish Red Cross workers arrived.
It was a relief to hand over the care of the children, many of whom so badly needed proper medical treatment, although we were sad to say our goodbyes.
It would be a mammoth task to try to track down any surviving members of the families and get them back to their homes.
Many thousands of prisoners who were unable to return to their homelands were moved to displaced persons’ camps, left in limbo for yet more months.
But Liv and I were moved to a hospital block in one section of the camp to be cared for until we were well enough to travel.
We lay in beds side by side, between miraculously clean white sheets.
I was worried for my sister, though. Despite the better food and the medical treatment we received, she was unable to shake off the cough that caused her to bend double, gasping for breath.
She still couldn’t keep much food down, either, and wasn’t regaining her strength as I was.
Thankfully, we had a task to keep us busy.
Marta came to the ward to visit us and told us that she and Zygmunt were getting married.
They, too, were staying on in the camp, helping with the repatriation of former prisoners.
“So we’ll be married here! Can you imagine it, a wedding in this place?
I want the two of you to be there. And I want you to make me a dress.
Can you do that? Zygmunt has managed to organize the material for me; what a man he is! ”
Liv smiled her beautiful smile. “Of course we’ll make your dress, won’t we, Hanna?”
I groaned. “You know how bad my sewing is! But Liv will make it, and I will just do some of the bits that won’t show.” I was smiling, too, though. I could see what Marta was doing, giving my sister a purpose to help anchor her in the land of the living.
The hours passed more quickly as we sewed the fine white cotton that Zygmunt had managed to procure, and Marta’s simple wedding dress quickly took shape.
Liv embroidered the bodice with daisies, just like the ones we’d stitched onto our bunads.
A week later, we were allowed out of the hospital to attend the wedding, one of many that took place in the camps, as couples quickly found love and the promise of a new life ahead after being surrounded by so much death.
The ceremony took place in what had once been the officers’ mess of the camp, and afterward, we sat outside at trestle tables and toasted Marta and Zygmunt’s health with glasses of a fine French wine “organized” from the Germans’ storehouses.
I noticed how Liv left the food on her plate, how she raised her glass to her lips but didn’t drink. In the clarity of the spring sunshine, I saw how very fragile she was, and my heart shattered. She was dying.
I sat with her as we watched the bride and groom get up to dance.
Marta looked beautiful in the dress we’d made.
Her dark hair was growing back, emphasizing her big brown eyes, which glowed with love whenever she looked at her husband.
As they waltzed, the skirt of the dress flowed like seafoam on the breeze, reminding me of home.
I was filled with a sudden longing to be there, out on the water in a boat skimming across the waves, or swimming among the kelp in the bay beneath Pappa’s hut.
I knew that only then would I feel truly free again.
The touch of Liv’s hand on mine brought me back to earth. “I think I need to go back to the hospital now,” she said softly.
I helped her to her feet, and we blew kisses to Marta and Zygmunt, then slipped quietly away from the celebrations, Liv leaning on me as we made our way back to the ward. She was no weight at all, her body as fragile and insubstantial as a sheet of white cotton.
I sat at her bedside, and we talked about the wedding while I tried to get her to drink a little of the weak broth that was all her body could tolerate.
But the effort exhausted her. She reached for my hand, and her eyes soon closed.
I watched her for a while, the rise and fall of the sheet covering her chest scarcely perceptible as she took each shallow breath.
It was no wonder she was tired out after the day’s excitement, I told myself, refusing to accept what had become so apparent.
Tomorrow would be quieter, and she would start to turn the corner.
I began to draw my hand gently away from hers, but her eyelids fluttered open again, and she caught hold of my wrist. Her eyes met mine and she smiled, then looked down at the numbers crudely inked into our arms.
“I knew you did it,” she said softly. “You had your number altered, didn’t you, that day when you took little Miriam back to the tattooist?”
She traced the blurred figures and held her arm alongside mine.
“So we are both 47912. Twins in every way. And I know why you did it, too. I saw how you spoke to Nurse Olga, how you made sure you were the one they did those things to, and I was the one they put in the isolation room as the control. I didn’t realize at first…
and when I did, it was too late to say anything, or we’d both have been killed straightaway. ”
A single tear trickled down her cheek. “Thank you for always protecting me, Hanna. I’m sorry I’m not as strong as you, though.”
I laid my head alongside hers on the pillow.
“Hush now,” I soothed her. “Save your strength. Get some sleep. You know you are the reason I made it through. I wouldn’t be here without you.
You’ve always supported me, too, when I’ve needed it the most.” I squeezed her hand.
“As soon as we’re both well enough, we’ll go back to Norway.
Back to the hut. Spring is coming now, and the sun will just be showing its face above the hills there.
We’ll be back by summer, returning like the storm petrels to our safe harbor… ”
Her eyelashes fluttered on her damp cheeks as she fell into a deep sleep, a faint smile lifting the corners of her lips as she dreamed of home.
*
Next morning, Marta came to visit us on the hospital ward. Draped over one arm, she carried the dress we’d made for her.
“Thank you for making me beautiful for my wedding day,” she said, carefully hanging it over a chair beside Liv’s bed. “And now I’m returning this to you, so each of you can wear it on your own wedding days.”
I think she still wanted to give us hope.
I know she saw how Liv was failing. She hugged us both, but I saw the anguish on her face as she turned away that day, recognizing how fast Liv was slipping away.
So many of those who’d survived the harrowing treatment meted out in the camps never saw their homes again.
By that evening, Liv couldn’t lift her head from the pillow to take a sip of water from the cup I held to her lips. She whispered something I couldn’t hear, and I bent close to listen, seeing the urgency in her eyes.
“Live for me, Hanna. Promise me you will go on for both of us.”
I shook my head, not wanting to hear the words. But she was insistent.
“Please. You have to promise me.” She turned her head slightly and pointed a finger toward the wedding dress hanging over the back of the chair. “Wear it for your own wedding so I can be there with you.” Her eyes were huge in her shrunken face as she turned her gaze back to me. “Do you promise?”
I did. I only made the promise to give her peace, because I didn’t believe I could survive losing her.
With an effort, she pulled something out from beneath her pillow. It was the shawl, with all the names stitched into it, so many of them now embellished with a little white flower.
“It’s your turn to sew a daisy next to my name, Hanna,” she whispered. “I’m going to be with Mamma and Pappa.” She swallowed, with effort, then spoke again. “Please find Erik’s parents and tell them that I’m with him again, too.”
The tears poured from my eyes as hers closed.
“Never forget your promise to me, Hanna,” she murmured. “Live your life well, for both of us.”
I sat with her, long after she’d drawn her final breath, one hand holding hers, the other clutching the shawl. And in the end, they had to get Marta to come and pull me away while they drew the sheet over my sister’s lifeless body and gently carried her from me.