Chasing Colours

25. Rosalyn

(Edith)

I wondered how many days had passed since I had been brought to the camp. The officers, screams, whips, gun shots, rats, bugs and bread had become an integral part of our everyday lives. Sometimes, at night or at work, male officers would enter the women's' quarter, stripping them off, beating them up or sometimes just plant a bullet in them for fun. The lady officers would sometimes shove them out if bothered but otherwise, just roll their eyes at them like nothing of this mattered.

The winter, the hunger, the exhaustion or the pain was not something mere words could describe, It was violent; an experience different from what was known to me. 

All we could hope for was that we weren't next. One day at work, a SS officer had walked in on our workplace and chosen a Pole girl who had been around Ingrid's age to serve him at night. For the next four days, we didn't see her. Her mother had cried and wouldn't sleep at night. When she would ask the guards about her, she would just be shaken away. On the third day, she was shot out of annoyance when she had tried to escape from her barrack at night in search of her daughter.

The next day, the girl had been returned. Bruises had coated her body and her lips reddened and swollen. She was then informed about her mother, she had wailed uncontrollably and women around her desperately tried to keep her calm for it would be a punishment for the whole barrack if officers heard her. As we sat and watched, one of the officer had entered, had her threatened and had pulled the crying mess out. She was not heard of again. As painful as it had been to watch, I had soon gotten numb with the feeling. Perhaps, Rosalyn was right; you get used to it.

Would I feel more fear than I already had? Could I feel more pain than I already had?

I had spent most of my further days with Rosalyn and Harriet. Harriet had decided to let go of her coldness towards me and had just accepted my existence for Rosalyn's sake. After every tiresome day, we would just wait to get back to our barracks. Afterall, it was yet another day when we had managed to survive. Nothing felt better than sitting down after the paining day's work.

One such night was when we had come back, I tried to rub my palms to get some warmth into my body when Rosalyn had come back to sit beside me. She was blowing into her bruised palm as she had complained about rusting nails that had scraped her while Harriet just rolled her eyes at her nuisance.

Harriet had reached up to my hair, trying to braid the unkempt hair. I had looked to Rosalyn in the horror of losing my hair to Harriet's merciless attempt on it. Harriet mentioned nonchalantly,

"Ah, the time when I had hair. My man would have loved seeing me hairless like this saying finally, he had a buddy. That bald Dummkopf." Before we knew it, we had been giggling at Harriet outbursts.

Suddenly, Rosalyn's voice had quietened. She had just looked at back and forth between Harriet and me, and smiled. We turned our attention to her. She met our eyes and immediately got flustered, "No. No. Continue talking. I am here."

Harriet let her hand drop and we focussed on Rosalyn waiting for her to speak.

Rosalyn had continued smiling, tear droplets starting to form in the corners of her eyes as she spoke, "It would have been my son's fifth birthday. Alfred. The handsomest, might as well add."

Harriet had turned towards her to speak when Rosalyn chuckled and cutting her off, "No, no. It's fine. I know he wouldn't be alive in here. We had come in together and had been taken almost as soon as we had entered. I might not even see him again. I have accepted that but just that he says 'momma' a lot in his cute voice in my mind sometimes, I like it." Harriet had nodded and kept herself quiet.