The Kommandant's Mistress

by Alexandria Constantinova Szeman

  Yes, "a poem". One poem. On the entire, systematic program of Nazi-perpetrated violence against the Jews of Europe which has come to be known as the Holocaust.

  Of course, as soon as I made this decision, I realized that I knew nothing about the Holocaust, as it had never been spoken of openly in our family, and I had never learned anything about it in schools. Thus began my seven-year-journey of research on the Holocaust. I began with books, then moved to interviewing survivors when I couldn't find answers to some of my questions in books.

  My poems usually began with moral questions for which I had no answers. My first Holocaust poem, "Cutthroat: A Player Who Plays for Himself", attempted to deal with the fact that women who were raped in the camps were considered "collaborators" by their fellow survivors after the war and dealt with harshly. This seemed very unfair, so I wrote a poem exploring the situation from the perspective of a woman raped in the camps.

  Later, other questions arose: What if you were a Nazi, but truly believed that what you were doing was good for your country? What if you were the wife of a Nazi? (You could get a divorce, I suppose, though they were much rarer and more difficult to get during that time period than they are now.) What if you were a child of a Nazi: you can't "divorce" your parents; you can't even leave them when you're young.

  More challenging moral questions arose about the Jewish inmates themselves, most notably this one, which served as the basis of The Kommandant's Mistress: If you were an inmate in a Nazi concentration camp and the ultimate "good" was for you to survive, then is anything you did to survive also "good"? Would it have been permissible, for example, to steal food from another starving inmate if it meant that you yourself would have a greater chance of surviving? Would it have been "good" to kill another inmate if it meant that you yourself would survive?

  The only way I know how to explore answers to these questions in any meaningful way is to create worlds in which the characters themselves struggle, consciously or not, with those moral dilemmas.

  Writing My First Novel

  From Poems to Novel

  With each question came another poem, long after my dissertation had been completed and my degree awarded. My Holocaust poems, now gathered in the collection Where Lightning Strikes, got increasingly longer, including multiple characters, perspectives, and even dialogue. The editors of journals began to scribble notes on the bottom of rejection slips, asking, "Are you sure you're not writing fiction?" Finally, one day, I wondered that myself.

  I thought, "Maybe I should try to write a novel." As soon as that thought came, I heard the voice of the male protagonist of a poem I'd written called "The Kommandant" say, "Tell my story." Simultaneously, I heard the female protagonist's voice say, "You can't tell his story without telling mine."

  Indeed.

  I also saw the structure of the novel, with all three parts, including the controversial third part, the ostensible biographical encyclopedia entries on the two major protagonists. (Note the word "ostensible" as many reviewers, scholars, and readers have remarked that I merely fictionalized, in Parts One and Two, the "true stories" of "real people." I always thank them most politely since Part Three is as fictional as the rest of the novel and was, in fact, one of the most difficult sections to write as I had to write it in chronological order: something I do not do naturally, I'm afraid.)

  Readers, other creative writers, and attendees at conferences often ask how I "see" a novel in a glance. I don't know: it just happens. This is what it feels like, though: it's as if I'm in a strange room in the dark. For a brief instant, a lightning strike illuminates the room. In that moment, I see everything there and know something, but not all, about it, including the people. The vision is actually the easy part of the process as I don't have to do anything: it just appears. Unbidden, briefly, and only once.

  The difficult part is re-creating, with words, what I've "seen" in that room and what I learn about its inhabitants as I'm writing. (I've often wished I were a film-maker or director, imagining that it would be easier to re-create my vision in film, but since I've never made a film, I may be quite severely mistaken on this point.) Once, when I was writing The Kommandant's Mistress, someone asked how long I'd been writing on a particular day.

  "Six hours," I said.

  "And how many words did you get written?"

  "One paragraph."

  "One paragraph? You wrote for six hours today and only got one little paragraph written?"

  "Yes," I said, "but it's a really good paragraph."

  Writing the Novel

  Of course, I did all the research into how to write a novel, learning only what I already knew: that I had to have plot, characters, dialogue, etc.; all of which I'd already been putting into my poems. So, I learned how to write a novel as all novelists must learn to write one: by sitting down and writing it.

  The first and most important decision I made was to write a book that I myself would like to read, more than once (good thing, too, since I've had to read it so many times: proofreading, copyediting, at signings, conferences, bookstores; for book clubs, discussion groups, high school classes, college classes, students; etc. My advice for anyone who wants to write a novel? Make sure you write the kind of novel you want to read over and over and over again.)

  Next, I decided on the structure itself. I'd already seen the vision of it in Three Parts, with the final part consisting of the ostensible encyclopedia entries. I chose to have ten chapters with ten scenes each for Parts One and Two. An arbitrary decision. Just as the Holocaust poems' lines were broken according to arbitrary syllabic-count, I divided the chapters and scenes into a rigid, arbitrary structure to symbolically mimic the Nazi concentration camps. (Yes, Chapters One and Six of Part One, Max's section, do have eleven scenes each. I either miscounted or the artist in me was being more arbitrary than rigid, which symbolically fits the subject matter. It occurred to me as I was writing this Preface that the extra scenes ended up in Max's part of the book, i.e., in the Nazi's part. The artist is not, I assure you, always conscious of what is going on at every level of what s/he writes.)

  Having never written a novel before, I felt morally obligated to make an outline, which I dutifully did. For Part One, since I intended to write the Kommandant's part first. I wrote the first chapter over and over until I thought it was perfect. Then I showed it to select readers, swearing them to honesty in case it was the most frightful thing they'd ever read, and in case they couldn't understand what I was doing with all the time-shifting (without typographical warnings, like asterisks or extra space between scenes).

  One of my readers suggested that instead of using Unlimited Point of View as I had in the original story and poem, I use 1st person, getting us inside the Kommandant's head. "Otherwise," she said, "he won't be a real human being that we care about: he'll just be a Nazi that we're observing."

  I was stunned. How was I supposed to do a man's voice? A Nazi's voice? I had no idea. While I was trying to figure it out, however, I read Hemingway. His Voice seemed appropriate for the Kommandant, so, though I'd read all his novels and short stories already, I re-read them. Many times. In fact, besides the non-fiction, scholarly books or survivor memoirs of the Holocaust that I was re-reading while preparing for the novel, Hemingway's were the only other books I read. I was so terrified of losing my vision for the novel — having never written one — that I didn't want to be influenced by other authors' Voices, so I limited my book selection while writing.

  It took approximately nine months from the time I determined to write Parts One and Two in 1st person POV to the day I actually "heard" Max's voice. The breakthrough came when I realized that (1) Max didn't think he'd done anything wrong, (2) he believed he was doing his job and that he was good at it, and (3) he was just a regular man: he wasn't criminally insane, and he wasn't, technically, committing any crimes since he was acting according to laws implemented by the Nazi Party against the Jews.

  Suddenly, his voice came: "Then I saw her. There she stood
…"

  And so it began.

  After I rewrote the first chapter until I thought it was ready for readers, I showed it to them. They unanimously raved over its success, all of them saying they thought I "was on to something" and that I should continue in that vein.

  I soon realized, though, that I simply could not teach full-time and also write a novel the way I'd written my poems for years: on the weekends and during breaks from University. I felt like every time I wrote, I was diving into a pool of water, a very deep murky pool. Every time I taught, graded papers, prepared lessons, attended committee meetings, and spent any significant time away from the novel, I found myself standing on the shore of that murky pool, having to dive in and start at the beginning again, i.e., re-read everything I'd already written, review the outline, which kept changing so often when my characters did something unexpected that I eventually abandoned the outline, writing it as a scene index afterward for purposes of revision). The hardest part was always finding Max's voice again. I soon came to believe that I simply couldn't write the novel and work at the same time. I had to find a way to write full-time.

  My Brilliant Plan to Write Full-Time

  I came up with what I believed was a brilliant plan: I'd take out a loan from the bank and ask for a year off work to write the novel (after all, I was a well-established, award-winning, published writer, with a Ph.D. in Creative Writing as well as a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literatures; I was a tenured University Professor who'd taught for about 12 years). So, gathering my list of what I thought were pretty impressive publications, I headed to the bank.

  Under "Reason for Loan", I wrote "novel".

  To my surprise, an hour later, the bank manager invited me into his office. With my résumé in one hand and the loan application in the other, he looked up at me across his desk.

  "So," he said, "let's hear your 'novel' reason for the loan."

  "Oh, not 'novel' like that," I said. "I want to write a novel."

  "You want to write a novel?"

  "I've got it outlined and a good part of it written, but I simply can't do it while working full-time. I'd like to take a year off work and write full-time."

  He stared at me for so long, I was convinced a third eye had sprouted in the middle of my forehead. He glanced down at the loan application. He turned the pages Vita, which listed all my publications. He looked at me again.

  "Could you get me a letter from your employer stating that you'll have a job to return to at the end of the year?"

  "I have tenure, but I'm sure they'd write that letter for you."

  "Get me the letter," he said, with an actual smile, "and I'll get you the loan."

  The smile on my face was in rigor mortis as I shook his hand, left his office, drove home, went into the house, and promptly threw up. Then I started crying, asking myself what in God's name I'd just done. Had I actually asked to borrow $18,000 (my annual salary at the time) at 17 & 7/8% in order to take a year off work to write a novel when I'd never written one before? Had the bank manager just tentatively said "Yes"?

  I calmed myself down by convincing myself that the University would never write me such a letter, that the Administration would think it ludicrous for anyone to borrow money to take a year off work (without pay, of course) to write a novel. There, my problems were solved. Without the letter, I couldn't get the loan. Without the loan, it would take me years and years and years to complete the novel.

  My chairman told me I had to ask the Dean of the College for the letter, but that he himself would write a memo recommending it. The Dean told me I had to ask the Vice-President of the Faculty for the letter, but that he would write a second memo asking that I be permitted to take the year off to write the novel and be guaranteed to have my job back, forwarding his memo with my Chairman's memo and my Vita of publications. The Vice-President of the Faculty advised me that he'd have to ask the Provost of the University for such a letter, but that he'd write his own memo and send it on with all the other paperwork.

  The Provost, whom I'd actually never met, wrote the letter.

  With one proviso: that after my novel got published, she receive a signed copy of it.

  Letter in hand, I returned to the bank. Two hours later, with the monies deposited in my account, and the current school quarter ending in three days, I was ready to begin my year's "sabbatical" to write my novel.

  I went home and promptly threw up again.

  My Year of Writing Full-Time

  After a week of crying, an entire month of "thinking" about writing the entire book, I realized that it had just cost me $2,000 at 17 & 7/8% to "think" for a month. My best friend suggested that I consider "thinking" with a pen in my hand, poised over a sheet of paper at the desk in my home office. (I did not, even for a second, regard her advice as sarcastic.)

  "Act like it's your job," she said, "because for the next eleven months, it is. Be at your desk every day by a certain time. Showered, dressed, and with your hair and make-up done. Just as if you were going to the University. Sit down at your desk and work. Take a break. Work. Eat lunch. Work some more. Just like when you teach. Only now your full-time job is writing your novel."

  I forever bless her for that advice.

  The very next morning, I got up and did what she'd suggested.

  For the first few weeks, I could only write 2-3 hours a day, though I spent all day at my desk: doing the outline, reading research, making notes. But, no matter how long I actually wrote on the novel, I was at that desk five days a week, at least 8 hours a day.

  By the six-month-point, I was writing 8-10 hours a day; by the start of the ninth month, I was working 12-14 hours a day, and forgetting to eat. I had to set alarms to remind myself to take breaks for lunch or dinner. By the tenth month, I was writing almost 18 hours a day, seven days a week.

  It was the hardest work I'd ever done in my life.

  I was the happiest I'd ever been.

  At the end of the year, after 39 typed revisions (the computer kept track, and I hadn't typed in the first draft until I'd revised the written one at least a dozen times), I felt I had something to give to my readers, all of whom were anxiously awaiting it.

  Of course, I was terrified to show it to anyone, and remember being nauseous the entire time I was waiting for them to get back to me. After they finished reading it, they told me they loved it. Their comments on the manuscript copies were eerily identical: virtually all my readers got confused at the same minor things; all of them praised the exact same sections. That had never happened before, not even with my poems. I dismissed their unanimous cries of "success", however, telling myself that they were my friends and they loved me: of course, they loved the novel, too. I'd love their novels if any of them had written one. That's what I told myself, despite my success with my poetry, simply not believing that I'd written a novel that could be considered "good" by anyone except me and my closest friends.

  Publishing the Novel

  Getting an Agent

  Next came the part of a writing career that I hate as much as most writers because it always involves rejection: selling the book. I was used to queries and rejections (and acceptances) for my poems, but it's a lot harder to get rejections (photocopied rejections, at that) for something you've spent an entire year writing, up to 12-14 hours/day, and borrowed money to take time off from work to do it. The greater the emotional, psychological, and time investment, the greater the disappointment and psychic pain with the rejections, I suppose.

  However, four months and 39 queries later (all sent out at the same time, to targeted agents who were accepting new clients and, more important, who represented literary fiction), seven New York agents called me (I'm not counting the ones who sent me letters saying I could send the entire novel). Seven real New York-based agents actually called me and asked to read the whole novel (I'd sent the first 3 chapters with the query, in which I pretended I was writing the back-copy of the novel, "selling" it to potential readers). One agent asked if I c
ould "over-night the manuscript". I agreed, dreading the horrendous cost involved ($39.50, twenty years ago). She received it on a Friday by 10 a.m. On Monday, I got home from school to a message from her, asking me to return the call, and giving me both her office and home phone numbers. She wasn't at the office. I called her at home, flattered that she'd trusted me enough to give me her home number.

  She wanted to represent me.

  I was wary. I'd read a book called How to Be Your Own Literary Agent, and decided that I didn't want to represent myself. Fortunately, the book had provided a list of questions for an author to ask a potential agent. I asked. She answered them all correctly. (Had she also read the book? I wondered.) I asked her if I could think about her offer and call her back in an hour. With a slight laugh, she agreed.

  I immediately called all my friends, who were shouting congratulations until I told them that I'd said I'd call the agent back with my answer.

  "When?" they said. "In five minutes?"

  "In an hour."

  "Are you crazy?" they all said. "Get off the phone with us and call her back right now, you idiot."

  Idiot. You can always count on your friends to keep your feet securely on the ground.

  I called the agent back in less than fifteen minutes. As soon as she answered, before I'd even said anything, she said my name and that she was so glad I'd returned her call. She told me she was very, very happy. I was so happy, I was probably incoherent. I don't remember a single thing I said.