prelude

Sister Jadwiga glides past me, slows down, leans across the pew and shapes my fingers into a perfect steeple pointing at heaven, and not a nail bitten igloo clutching itself in desperation. She rests a long cool finger on my back, so that my bum is not resting on the pew, and I’m kneeling properly and not crouching before God. She slowly puts her finger to her lips to shush me, even though I’ve said nothing and points to the statue of His Mother, The Virgin Mary, as if to say, ‘she’s listening’.

The Mother of God does not look at me. Her morning blue eyes flicker in the candlelight and shadows, coyly looking at other things, when the Wehrmacht soldiers crash in. One soldier follows the Stations of the Cross down one aisle. Another follows the Stations of the Cross down the other. Out of the corner of my eye, the one nearest has stopped, and is short- sightedly examining the wood carving of Jesus receiving his Cross. My prayer, to become invisible, has been answered. I do not think I know anything about anything about uniforms, nor do I need to, the strut and swagger of the officer’s heels clicking down the central aisle lets even Sister Jadwiga know who is in charge. The soldiers meet before the altar, their rifles now slack, with their backs to God. They look at Sister Jadwiga, and then me, as if we are exhibits in a macabre exhibition. The officer barks out a command, and like attack dogs, the two soldiers rush towards me. The officer’s heels click formally together, as a kind of salute, or a farewell: to God or Sister Jadwiga I’m not quite sure. Her mouth shapes into an unspoken ‘Hail Mary’ as she lowers her eye, and then her knees, a lesson in kneeling, eyes front, as the incense and beeswax swallow us up, as if we’d never been there and are forgotten.

The sky darkens and it is close to rain. One of the soldiers, touches my elbow, as formal as a dinner- dance, as he guides me up into the truck. The young soldiers who herd us are kitted for war, with their steel helmets, rifles and grenades in their belts. But a squadron of well-fed flies buzz at our faces making no distinction between German, Pole or Jew. There are others, like me, orphaned relics of young women, sitting with patched up coats and sleeves, a tapestry of misery. I sit on the hard board, bolted on to the side of the truck, and settle myself into silence, that the roar of the engine cannot fill. I sneak a look at the other women. Each woman holds herself upright by sheer will, as if wearing a medicinal brace, or a corset, swaying, with the truck, as if in prayer, but our feet shuffle, still running in our other lives. Our memories fall behind with each mile we pass. There is a sigh, a cough, and a gradual leaning into each other, that seems to say we are alive, and that is enough. Only the bumping of the long road seems real.

There are four Germans. The older of the two sit near the cabin dozing, wrapped up in their greatcoats, the canvas of the lorry colouring their faces and smudging cheekbones. Unmoving. They are like Teutonic Knights on a chest board. The younger of the two sets of soldiers, sit in the cold, like bookends at the tailgates, smiling and smoking through the square fringe of their helmets. Our silence begins to unnerve them. They prattle endlessly, like tour guides, looking out and explaining with some satisfaction, the destruction of our streets and towns to each other. The banging of their feet and the strident sound of a marching song catches even the older men unaware. They join in, and look at our faces, and see only their victory, and we know that we are near their barracks.

The truck accelerates into a quadrangle, once a school, and brakes abruptly. The soldiers braced themselves, for this is part of their act, and smartly jump out. There is a cheer. And many hands paw at us in an attempt to help us down. One of the girls sniffles and then child like tears form like ice drops on her face, but it makes no difference. Our bodies are pinched and grasped and plucked like fowl, so that our clothes begin to tear and come away in their hands. A drunken SS officer, barely able to stand, flings himself forward; rebuffed he pulls out a Luger and shoots nothing and no one. But it is enough. The baying stops. Apart from our crying there is silence.

A man in a white coat steps into the gap. ‘Do any of you women speak German?’ he asks very politely.

I hold my hand up as if I was still in Herr Mittel’s classroom.

We follow him through a corridor of humanity. It seems everyone is drunk, but him and us. He takes us into a gymnasium, the wooden floor still marked out for games. But there is only different sized pieces of mattress and a clothesline that divide trailing bits of blanket hung out like washing into different zones. There is a chair and a pitcher of water sitting to the left that mark out each tent city. This is where the men sleep I thought.

A woman watches us, leaning against a pommel horse, her mascara running and cigarette smoke framing her face like a question mark. ‘Thank God,’ she says, when she sees us. ‘There’s about 150 of those bastards and only six of us. Well seven,’ she shook her head, ‘if you count Anna.’

‘Fraulein, if you please,’ said the doctor, extending his arm out, guiding me away from the rest of the prisoners, to what looked like a cupboard, but which was fitted out with a light, radio, desk and chair. ‘But I’m a virgin,’ I said.

‘That’s good,’ he said smiling, ‘then you will not infect the men with any of your syphilis.’

I imagined myself pushing a great stone ball up a hill and letting it roll back down to crush the Nazis. But I knew that was not what he meant, but said nothing.

‘Call the other females one at a time, give me their identification card and ask them to undress so that I can examine them,’ he said.