The Cage

One day, Helen, the camp elder, tells the young women to pack their belongings and prepare to move. She looks “pale and nervous” (200). She encourages them to move quickly, to avoid reason for punishment, but one girl “boldly” responds: “Since when do they need a reason?” (200). Riva packs her journal, which she calls her “friend” and “only belonging,” inside her blouse (201).

The commandant tells them that bombs are coming and that everyone is about to die. She tells them that they will “die first,” though, and the prisoners “gasp with horror” (201). They are loaded onto trucks and sent to “the other camps,” and Riva tries to arrange to go with Karola and Tola (201). The guards separate Tola awayand it appears to be intentional; Tola turns to Karola to complain that “they are separating us again” (202).

In the truck, they search for clues about where they are. Those on the road pass a “glance at the famished, horrified passengers of the trucks and turn their heads,” while others “ignore” the truck (203). When Riva sees “the barbed wire” of the “new cage,” she wonders how the passersby outside, in their “cozy little homes,” feel (203).