Lynda Plante - Entwined

"Magda's, Mama Magda's, quickly please, I am in a great hurry."

She knew they would be looking for her, she had little time before she would be found, but she had to know why the big fat woman had called her Ruda... She knew Ruda was free now, she had released her, and she felt a strange new sensation. The feeling of loss was disappearing because, she was sure, Ruda was alive.

Luis had let Ruda sleep, sitting by her at first, almost as if guarding her. He kept an eye on the clock; she had already missed the chance to have a pre-show rehearsal. He had explained her absence by saying she had a migraine. Would she be capable of doing the show that evening? Her first spot was eight-forty-five, and he knew that if she did not feel any better, he would have to withdraw the act.

"Luis? What time is it?" She stood in the doorway, her face very pale. She was shaking badly. He rushed to her and helped her sit down. "You've missed the rehearsal, sweetheart, but don't worry..."

"Oh God!"

She let her head droop as he slipped an arm around her shoulders. "They've been fed, and after last night's workout they won't need a run today. You just rest, I've made you a hot chocolate."

She closed her eyes, leaning on the bench cushions. He held out the steaming mug. She smiled, and pushed it aside with her finger. "You always burn the milk."

He crouched down in front of her. "What happened?"

She sipped the chocolate, and gave a wan smile. "Ghosts."

"You want to talk about it?"

She shook her head. He went and sat opposite her. "Will you be fit enough for the show tonight?"

"Try and stop me!"

He chuckled, but he was very concerned; she seemed to have no energy, her body was listless, her eyes heavy.

"Is it about the box? The tin box? I wasn't prying, I was looking for my old albums. I found it, I know maybe I shouldn't have opened it, but to be honest I didn't think you'd find out."

"You shouldn't have opened it, but you did, so that is that." She put the mug down. "I'd better check on the cats."

"No, I've done it, there's no need, and the boys are there. You just rest, gather all your strength for the show."

She nodded. He was disconcerted; it was unlike her to agree to anything he ever suggested. He snatched a look at his watch; there was still time. She stared through him, beyond him, her eyes vacant.

"I found you all curled up in the shower, I carried you in my arms like a baby. Bet you haven't let anybody do that to you for a long time, huh?" He was trying to make light of it, attempting to draw her out.

"Nobody ever held me when I was a baby, Luis, nobody, only... only my..."

He waited but she bowed her head. "Sister?" he interjected. "You said you wanted your sister. I've never even heard you talk about a sister before. I mean, were you dreaming?"

Ruda shuddered, and she clasped her arms around herself, staring at the floor, her voice so soft he had to strain to hear her.

"You know when we went to the Grand Hotel, after we'd been to the morgue? Something happened inside me. I had a feeling... so many years, Luis, I've tried, tried to find her, but — she was called Rebecca. We were taken in a train, hours and hours on a big dark train. Rebecca slept, but I kept guard over her, I watched out for her, she... she didn't talk too well, I used to talk for her."

She leaned back with her eyes closed, remembering the noise of the iron wheels on the rails. She could hear the rat-tat-tat of the wheels and everyone crying, howling, screaming... they were crushed and pushed and trodden on as the big doors were inched back. Had it been days or hours? She lost count, but at last the rat-tat-tat had stopped.

Rebecca was crying because she had messed her panties, done it in her panties, she cried for Mama, but they had no Mama, she was gone, and then they heard the voices, screaming.

"Women to the left, men to the right, women and children to the left, men to the right. Neither of us knew right from left."

"Any twins... twins over here, twins here, dwarfs, giants... twins..."

Ruda was picked up and thrown into a group of shrieking women. Rebecca fought and shouted to her sister, and the guard had picked Rebecca up by her hair and tossed her across to another group. The screaming went on and on. Pushed and kicked, they were herded toward a long path, at the end of which were gates, big high gates. Fences, with barbed wire as high as the sky, surrounded hundreds and hundreds of huts.

Ruda dodged between legs, squeezed under the weeping women and screeching children. At the gates she caught up with Rebecca, holding a strange woman's hand. A guard started shouting orders, Ruda tugged at his sleeve.

"My sister, my sister!"

The guard looked from one to the other, then grabbed them and hauled them into the back of a truck, just inside the perimeter of the gates. "Twins... Twins!"

The truck rumbled and swayed over potholes and ditches, a truck filled with children, boys, girls, all shapes and sizes, identical faces clinging in terror to each other.

Luis sat next to her, he wanted to hold her, comfort her, but she kept leaning back with her eyes closed. He heard only part of what she was saying; she lapsed into silences, and then odd words came out, some in Polish, Russian, Czech, and German. She was seeing with her adult's eyes what she had seen as a tiny child: the carts of skeletons, the strange eerie women with their shaven heads... the screaming women giving birth on a stone slab, and the babies snatched away, the afterbirth still covering their tiny bodies, thrown onto a seething mass of dying babies... the weeping and wailing never ceased, and the cold icy wind never stopped, the snow and ice freezing the memories like crystals.

They clung to each other, slept together, and played together. They had no mother, no father, no brothers, no religion, no surname; all they knew was that they were sisters, Ruda and Rebecca. Protected by being a pair, they fought as one.

In comparison to the other inmates, the twins were fed well. They were given not only clean clothes but toys, and their childish laughter tore into the tortured minds of the rest of the inmates. Men and women clung to the wire meshing that segregated these special children and screamed abuse at them. They hated them because they were playing. Some mothers clung on in desperation to see the faces of their children, and some crept out into the freezing night, and twisted their rags into ropes to hang themselves with.

But the twins who were old enough to understand knew it would only be a short time before the innocent laughter stopped. They knew what was to come. They had seen the twins carried back to their bunks in the dead of night from the hospital. They had seen the tiny, broken bodies lifted from the stretchers, disoriented by the drugs and chemicals that had been pumped into their young veins. Those who knew wept in silence, because they knew that one day it would be their turn.

Gradually even the new inmates, the fresh arrivals, the ones as young as Ruda and Rebecca, began to understand. When the nurse called out the numbers to go to the experiment wing, they trembled in fear.

Papa Mengele had a particular liking for the two tiny girls; he singled them out regularly, to the jealousy of the other children. They had sweets, occasionally even chocolate.

Mengele was fascinated by the way they interacted. Rebecca, slow to talk, began a sentence and Ruda completed it. They often spoke and moved in unison. Their closeness absorbed him, and for many weeks he simply watched them play together.

Ruda reached out and held Luis's hand, clenching it tightly, as the words and sentences were dragged painfully from her memory. At times her voice was so low he had to bend over to hear her.