Cilka feels as inanimate as the snow. Her eyes blur over the bony, bowed bodies, but her feelings have been taken away. It started when Schwarzhuber placed her in that tiny room at the front of Block 25 and began his regular visits. She found she could become just a series of limbs, just bone, muscle and skin. She didn’t choose it. It just happened. She thinks it might be a bit like when she was a child and badly scraped her knee – though she saw the blood it took a long time to register the hurt.
