Echoes

Amadea had fallen silent as someone showed her her bed. As she was young and strong, she was assigned to a top bunk. The weaker, older people got the bottom ones. She was wearing wooden clogs they had given her during her “processing,” when they had taken her boots and given her camp identity papers. They had ordered her to take off Véronique's custom-made leather riding boots, which had instantly vanished. Another guard had taken her warm jacket, and said she didn't need it, in spite of the freezing weather. It was a welcome that consisted of terror, deprivation, and humiliation, and reminded Amadea once again that she was the bride of the crucified Christ, and surely He had brought her here for a reason. What she couldn't imagine was her mother or sister enduring an existence like this, and surviving. She forced herself not to think of it now, as she looked at the people around her. It was nighttime by then, and everyone had come back from their jobs, although many were still outside on line, waiting for dinner. The kitchens cooked for fifteen thousand at a time, and even then apparently there was never enough to feed them.

“Did you just come on the train from Cologne?” a thin woman with a raging cough asked her. Amadea saw that her arm had been tattooed with a number, and her hair and face were dirty. Her nails were broken and filthy. She was wearing nothing more than a thin cotton dress and clogs, and her skin was almost blue. The barracks were freezing too.

“Yes, I did,” Amadea said quietly, trying to feel like what she was, a Carmelite, and not just a woman. Knowing that and holding fast to it was her only source of strength and protection here.

The woman asked her about several people who might have been on the train, but Amadea knew no one's names, and people were all but unrecognizable in those circumstances. She recognized none of the names or descriptions the woman offered. Someone else asked the woman as they came in if she had been to the doctor. Many of the doctors and dentists who had been forced out of practice earlier had wound up here, and were doing what they could to help their fellow inmates, without benefit of medicines or equipment. The camp had only been open for two months, and already it was rife with typhoid, as someone warned her. They told her to drink the soup, but not the water. And as was inevitable, given the numbers living there, there were almost no facilities for bathing. Even in the freezing cold, the stench in the room was overwhelming.

Amadea helped an old woman get onto her bed, and saw that there were three women in the beds next to her. The barracks she'd been sent to were a mixture of women and children under twelve. Boys over twelve lived with the men separately. Some of the very young children were housed somewhere else, particularly those whose mothers had been sent on to other camps, or been killed. There was no privacy, no warmth, and no comfort. But in spite of that, there was the occasional burst of good humor, as someone said something, or cracked a joke. And in the distance, Amadea could hear music. The guards walked among them from time to time, kicking someone roughly with a boot, or shoving someone, with their guns in evidence at all times. They were always looking for contraband or stolen objects. Stealing a potato, someone had told her, was punishable by death. If anyone disobeyed what rules there were, they were severely beaten. It was essential not to anger the guards, in order to avoid the inevitable reprisal that would result.

“Did you eat today?” the woman with the cough asked her. Amadea nodded.

“Did you?” Amadea was suddenly grateful for the fasting that had been a way of life in the convent. But there, their fasts had included healthy food and vegetables and fruit from the garden. This was literally starvation rations. Amadea noticed too that a number of people did not have tattoos, and she didn't know what the difference was between those who did and those who didn't, and was hesitant to ask them. They were already suffering so much, she didn't want to intrude on them further.

“It took me four hours to get dinner.” They started serving in the morning. “And when I got there, they had no more potatoes, just soup, if you can call it that. It doesn't matter, I have dysentery anyway. The food here will make you sick quickly,” the woman warned, “if you aren't already.” Amadea had already seen that the toilet facilities were alarming. “I'm Rosa. What's your name?”

“Teresa,” Amadea answered without thinking. It was so much a part of her by now that even after her months of seclusion with Gérard and Véronique, Amadea was unfamiliar to her.

“You're very pretty,” she said, staring at her. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-four.” Amadea would be twenty-five in April.