Cilka's Journey

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-10

Chapters 11-15

Chapters 16-20

Chapters 21-25

Chapters 26-30

Chapter 31-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Chapter 31-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 31 Summary

Content Warning: This study guide contains depictions of genocide, rape, sexual assault, suicide, and drug addiction.

Cilka watches over Alexandr. She examines him and sees his face is badly swollen, his left cheekbone and nose are broken, his abdomen is severely bruised, and his left knee is swollen and twisted. Despite this, he has no significant injuries. Cilka asks another nurse why they aren’t treating him; the nurse doesn’t know but tells Cilka that someone caught Alexandr smuggling written information out of the camp. In between caring for other patients, Cilka tends to Alexandr, careful not to draw attention to herself and her actions.

Alexandr is unconscious for four days. One morning, he awakens and tells Cilka that he thought she’d given up on him. Yelena then allows Cilka to tend to him, which she does for the next six days. Alexandr’s knee injury prevents him from walking without pain. He remains on the ward for another two weeks, during which he and Cilka spend much time talking. Cilka asks Yelena if she can stop going out with the ambulance, and Yelena understands that Cilka no longer wants to risk her life and is thinking of her future.

Cilka’s final ride with the ambulance is to a mine collapse, where both men affected by the collapse die. On the return to the hospital, Cilka says she won’t be working on the ambulance anymore. Fyodor tells Cilka how much he’s enjoyed working with her and wishes her well. Kirill, however, is silent. Once back at the hospital, he asks Cilka if she will change her mind and has considered what he wants. Kirill storms away, leaving Cilka confused by his reaction.

Chapter 32 Summary

Yelena tells Alexandr and Cilka that she can only keep him on the ward for a couple more days. As Cilka goes through her rounds, she spots Kirill. He questions what’s going on between her and Alexandr, obviously jealous. Cilka asks him to leave. Cilka learns that Alexandr is in Vorkuta for giving information he translated for the Soviet Union to the resistance. They tortured him for days, but he didn’t disclose any information or names. Alexandr wrote poems in his head during his torture, but his job in Vorkuta allowed him to write some of them down. He started hiding information in propaganda until someone caught on. Now he hopes to share his poetry with Cilka. Alexandr tells Cilka he loves her, but she panics and leaves the ward. She goes to the nurses’ quarters and tells another nurse that she’s feeling ill and should stay away from the hospital for a few days.

In a flashback to Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1944, Lale comes to Block 25 to thank Cilka for saving his life. Cilka tells Lale that Gita loves him and that she couldn’t watch Gita suffer over his safety. Lale tells her she’s brave for resisting the Nazis by staying alive and leaves the block.

Chapter 33 Summary

Yelena wakes Cilka early one morning and tells her that someone beat Alexandr during the night. Cilka goes with Yelena to the hospital, and they both dress for the operating room. They examine an unconscious Alexandr’s injuries and try to piece together what happened. Yelena tells Cilka and another nurse to be careful because someone obviously wants Alexandr dead. They take Alexandr back onto the ward and put him in a bed behind a screen at the end of the row. Cilka insists on being his nurse. She also talks to the patient who was next to Alexandr. He says he woke up to find two men beating Alexandr and that they threatened him into silence. Yelena tells Cilka they’ve changed the hospital records to fake Alexandr’s death. Cilka sleeps next to Alexandr that night. The next morning, Cilka wakes to find Alexandr looking at her. He slowly recovers, walking only with Cilka’s assistance. The hospital employees learn that the camp’s population is decreasing because the administrators are releasing many prisoners early. One day, when Alexandr is able to walk on his own, Yelena pulls Cilka aside and tells her she will discharge Alexandr in two days to a nearby hut outside the camp’s general population. She also tells Cilka that she is moving to a different hospital.

That night, Cilka returns to Hut 29 and tells them about her feelings for Alexandr. She also tells them about her experience at Auschwitz, including her role on Block 25. The women are sympathetic and tell her they had guessed she’d been there. The women’s reaction gives her hope that Alexandr will still love her despite her experience. On Alexandr’s last day in the hospital, Cilka questions how to say goodbye. Before she can talk to him, a nurse tells her to report to the administration building. Cilka checks in with the receptionist, who hands her an envelope with money and a letter releasing her from Vorkuta.

Cilka hands the guard the letter at the prison gate and continues walking to the town beyond the prison. She is sad about not saying goodbye to her friends and feels dizzy at the thought of her freedom. Cilka walks through town to the train station, where she learns that the next train to Moscow leaves tomorrow and that she must find somewhere to spend the night. The following day, Cilka hears the approaching train and runs to the station, crowded with other prisoners taking the train. Two men push her out of the way as she tries to board the train. A man in front of her falls, and when she stops to help him, she sees that it is Alexandr. They find an opening in the train car and get inside. Cilka and Alexandr embrace, and Cilka cries into his chest as the train pulls away from the station.

Epilogue Summary

In Košice, Czechoslovakia, in January 1961, Cilka and Gita meet in a café for the first time in 20 years. They embrace and look each other over, noting how healthy and beautiful they have become. Gits explains that she and Lale reunited after their time in Auschwitz. Neither woman was able to have children. Few people know about Cilka’s past; she has created a new life with Alexandr.

Chapter 31-Epilogue Analysis

In the story’s climax and resolution, the narration focuses on resolving Cilka’s significant internal and external conflict, and the question of whether or not she will be able to escape Vorkuta hangs heavily over the action in this sequence. In a departure from traditional storytelling, there are actually two separate climaxes within the overall story. The more obvious one occurs at the novel’s conclusion, when Cilka and Alexandr physically escape the horrors of Vorkuta by boarding the train together, for this event illustrates that Cilka is finally free of her despair about finding love because of all she’s seen and experienced. However, because Cilka’s internal conflict is more central to the novel’s overall meaning, the true climax of the story actually occurs much earlier, when she finally tells the women of Hut 29 about her experience at Auschwitz, including her position as leader of Block 25 and her role in sending hundreds of women to their deaths. Cilka’s internal conflict about her position at Auschwitz has been a heavy burden during her 10 years at Vorkuta, and it isn’t until she confesses the truth of her past to her hut-mates that she finally receives proper redemption for her past actions. Most significantly, when Cilka tells her friends about her experience, they offer her support and compassion, something she didn’t expect. The fact that the women never asked about Cilka’s past—especially given Hannah’s persistent bullying—demonstrates their love and respect for her. Thus Cilka’s act of revealing the truth to her friends is the novel’s true climax, and her freedom from Vorkuta and eventual train journey to Moscow with Alexandr, while climactic in a more material sense, might better be classified as part of the novel’s resolution.

Another significant element of this section is the rise in conflict before the story’s climax and resolution. Before Cilka’s redemption and freedom, she faces additional conflict. This increased conflict adds to the novel’s tension and suspense, making the climax and resolution more meaningful and satisfying. One example is Kirill’s anger over leaving ambulance duty and seeing Cilka talk to Alexandr. Cilka’s beauty puts her in a volatile position with men. She never asks for this, but it is vital to her conflict and experience. With Kirill, she doesn’t know he has feelings for her until he becomes angry at her for leaving the ambulance. It’s demonstrated further when he becomes jealous of Cilka’s relationship with Alexandr. Cilka suspects Kirill tells someone that Alexandr is still alive, leading to his second beating. She can’t prove it, but the violence that occurs around her and because of her demonstrates the latent power that Cilka has over men, even if she cannot control it.

Another example of Cilka’s heightened conflict stems from her release from Vorkuta. The release comes so quickly and unexpectedly that Cilka doesn’t have time to say goodbye to the people who have meant so much to her over the past 10 years. As Cilka says a couple of times in this section, she doesn’t live life; it simply happens to her. Her inability to say goodbye devastates her, and she is forced out of the camp and into the unknown with no more than what she’s wearing and the envelope of money. Further, once out of the camp, Cilka has nowhere to sleep as she waits for tomorrow’s train. She must find shelter in the town outside Vorkuta, adding irony because her freedom provides her less protection than being in prison. When Cilka is finally reunited with Alexandr, their ability to leave Vorkuta together symbolizes the redemption they both deserve and foreshadows the life they will go on to build together.

Finally, the story’s quickened pace in Chapter 33 symbolizes Cilka’s immediate departure from Vorkuta and the pressure she feels as she finally gains her freedom in a world she no longer recognizes. Chapter 33 is broken into 10 sections, significantly more than any other chapter in the book. These short sections make the chapter’s organization choppy and somewhat disjointed, a deliberate effect that is designed to mirror the rushed series of changes that Cilka must weather when she receives orders to leave the camp and take the train for Moscow. Although this development should be a joyous occasion for the protagonist, who has endured so much struggle for such a long time, Cilka is instead terrified and unsure how to proceed, for after years of incarceration, the freedom of choice in such a chaotic world leaves her unable to cope with making the moment-to-moment decisions needed to preserve her well-being and safety in this new environment. Thus, Morris uses these short sections to symbolize Cilka’s mixed feelings about her release until she sees Alexandr fall from the train. Only then does Cilka feel safe, releasing years of suffering as she sobs into Alexandr’s chest as the train to Moscow pulls away.