The Kommandant's Mistress

by Alexandria Constantinova Szeman

  The story which preceded the poem, however, was absolutely dreadful. It was my first attempt at fiction since the age of 12, and was probably worse in quality than the stories I wrote when I was in seventh grade (which I attempted to sell, for 25¢ each, by designing my own covers & stapling the stories into "books"; unfortunately, there were no buyers. Fortunately for my artistic ego, I didn't let these early rejections stop me from my intended writing career).

  Therefore, bear in mind that the story and poem are included here because so many readers of the first 2 editions of The Kommandant's Mistress have asked to see them. Having changed computers a few years ago, I actually did not have the original story: one of my friends discovered it over 20 years after it was written when she was doing spring-cleaning, and kindly sent me a copy. In an attempt to prevent blackmail should I ever become remotely famous, I am publishing it here myself.

  Caveat Reader: it is terrible.

  I shuddered when I re-read it. But I laughed, too, realizing how much I'd improved since then. I hope you are kind enough to laugh when you read it, too. (By the way, the paragraphing in the story, though gruesomely incorrect at times, is how I originally wrote it, so I forced myself to leave it as is/was.)

  The original poem, which won a prize after it was published, follows the story, and (I hope) won't make you laugh quite as heartily. (Then again, maybe it will.)

  The Kommandant

  (the original story)

  For who can make straight

  that which He hath made crooked?

  He saw her for the first time after several years in the general store just beyond the village. Immediately he jumped back, his shoulder knocking a box of cornflakes from the shelf. He replaced it, glanced around the edge of the aisle toward her. His hand went, out of habit, to his hip, seeking the weight of his gun.

  There she stood, even frailer than she had seemed in the yard, the large faded dress hanging loosely from thinned shoulders, more colour in the bandana on her head than in her cheeks. Though she was tall for a woman, her head only came to below his chin. He waved his adjutant outside and strode over to her.

  He spoke.

  She did not look up.

  "Hmmm?" He raised her chin with his baton, looked into eyes bluer than his own.

  She did not look away.

  His arm dropped, brushing the gun on his hip.

  He took off his holster, laid it on his desk. As was his custom of late, he poured champagne.

  She obediently sipped some.

  He drank more.

  The cork on their third bottle exploded; pale liquid foamed down the sides. He urged her to drain her glass, refilled his own, hauled his chair to the side of the desk where she sat, moving until their knees collided, his monologue more earnest than usual.

  She drank sparingly, her eyes tracing the design on the silver oval badge pinned over his left breast: two swords crossed behind an army steel helmet.

  Leather hissed as he slipped his pistol from the holster. He leaned forward, displaying the gun.

  She stared at his badge.

  "Freiheit."

  She never gave any sign that she understood what he was saying.

  Snap!

  He pulled the two small circles on the gun up and back.

  She looked at the cool dark of the weapon.

  "Freiheit."

  The glass in her hand shuddered.

  He held out the gun to her.

  She did not move.

  He took the champagne from her, set the glass on the desk. She let her hand fall to her lap.

  "Nein, nein," urging the butt toward her hand.

  She stared.

  He gripped her wrist, stood, tugging her to her feet along with him. He slammed the warm metal into her hand, crushed her limp fingers around its form, fixing her hand with both his rough palms. "Du, Freiheit," yanking gun and hands until the barrel butted his chest, her elbow rigid. "Feuer."

  Hard steel. His hands hot on hers.

  "Feuer."

  Her eyes turned less opaque.

  "Ja."

  She looked up into his eyes, at the colour of the weapon.

  He swallowed, squared his wide shoulders, lifted his chin, took his hands from hers.

  Her arm dropped to her side.

  "Nein. Feuer."

  The piece thudded to her feet.

  He stared down at her.

  Her eyes turned inward, leaving him there.

  The gun lay on the floor between them.

  He had forgotten that he no longer wore it; his empty hand slid down his hip and leg as he watched her pay the shopkeeper for her items, her long pale braid down the center of her back. Morning sun glowed on her hair as she opened the door and stepped out, calling a goodbye to the store owner.

  The German gazed after her.

  "Help you wi' somethin'?" the old man was asking him.

  "Cigarettes," he fumbled for the change.

  "I knowed you wasn't from 'round here," the clerk grinned triumphantly. "Where you from?"

  "Europe," he answered, trying to see her car's path.

  "Always wanted to go there. Couldn't 'cause o' the war 'n all. Still, maybe the missus 'n I'll get there…"

  "Does she live around here?" he interrupted, indicating with a nod of his head the woman who had left.

  The older man turned suspicious. "You a fan o' hers?"

  "I greatly admire her writing."

  From the bookstore window, her face lashed out at him. He leaned, gasping, against the glass. Fuller cheeks, hair, bright eyes — but her. He dragged himself into the shop, forced the slim volume into his hands.

  Survivor: One Who Survives. Poems by Esther Rebekah Levi.

  Esther.

  The publisher supplied him an address. She had moved by the time he reached the place, though it was easy enough to discover her new destination.

  So it went.

  This time, she was here.

  "…lives up the mountain a ways in th'old McCormick place. Bought it couple o' years after old widder McCormick died. Didn't have no kin to speak of, so Sheriff Willoughby said we oughter auction…"

  "Does she live alone?" reaching for the cigarettes still tight in the clerk's hand.

  "You a friend o' hers?" he eyed him nervously.

  "Esther and I have known each other many years."

  The old clerk visibly relaxed at his use of her first name, releasing the cigarettes. "Jus' take that path to the left…"

  The engine started almost too eagerly, jerking the car up onto the narrow road. After countless German, French, Italian villages, he found her in this mountain town in West Virginia. He wished he were wearing his uniform. He shook his head: He must go to her without ornaments.

  The road twisted through the summer trees; an already-warm breeze whispered in his just-greying hair. He decided he would park far from the house and approach on foot. He didn't want her to have too much warning; she might call someone or, worse, she might disappear again.

  All the lines he had been practicing for years scrambled away. He worried if he should address her in English or in his own language. He was still so uncomfortable in English, and his thick accent made him, he knew, difficult to understand.

  "Verdammt nochmal!" He slammed the car to a stop, jerking the wheel to the side toward the trees. The house was in view, in a clearing. He turned off the engine, gripped the wheel.

  His knees were weak when he closed the car-door. He leaned against the hood. Never had he been in this position. Why, during the war… the war was over. Now he was merely a man, as any other.

  She wouldn't want to see him again. Maybe she had her own gun by now. His fingers touched the door handle. He should forget he had found her.

  But the look in her eyes, the taste of her, the smell of her: there was no escape.

  He made a great show of examining the numbers on her forearm: S-61856. She tried to slow her breathing, glanced down, her dark lashes long on her cheeks. He kneaded her sho
ulder and ribs through the threadbare material. Her hipbones jutted awkwardly beneath the skin.

  He rubbed her cheek with the back of his long fingers, murmured something, pushed the scarf from her head, ran his hand across the light stubble. He circled her several times, nodding his head. "Ja."

  Marta guessed almost from the beginning. At first, she said nothing, assuming it would pass as quickly as all the others. Then she began making snide remarks, which he ignored. In the spring, she confronted him with it.

  "Stop with this girl!"

  He looked at her over his paper.

  "There's only so much I can be expected to ignore!"

  He sipped his coffee.

  "I have my position to think of!"

  He went back to reading his newspaper.

  Marta pushed the paper down onto the table. "I'll complain to someone if this doesn't stop!"

  He pulled the paper from under her hand.

  "My uncle! He still has some power!"

  He turned the page.

  Marta locked herself in their room the rest of the day.

  He had this things moved into the guest bedroom across the hall. Marta occupied herself with the children.

  His civilian clothes pinched in all sorts of places — his uniform had always been so comfortable. He went to the trunk of the car, dug something out of the luggage. Thousands of miles of searching behind, her house less than an eighth of a mile ahead. He pushed his hair from his forehead, hoped she wouldn't see him walking up to the porch.

  In the summer, Marta left for two weeks to visit her sister in Hamburg. He brought the girl to his room: he wanted to be with her in a bed.

  He fussed about with things, chattering, as she undressed. His fingers trembled on his shirt buttons. He took her in his arms, his skin against hers. He whispered her all sorts of things, though he had tried to teach her German in the past without success. He loved her.

  He told her.

  Afterward, he fell asleep. He still shuddered to think what he would have done to the Kommandant had he been her, with his service dagger and pistol by the bowl of fruit on the bureau.

  She did nothing.

  "In the Bedroom of the Kommandant." The first poem in her book. His throat tightened. He began to read.

  "Verdammte Scheisse!" She understood German!

  He bellowed to see himself on the page: she was well-fed — had Cognac, champagne, caviare; well-dressed — wore one of Marta's old gowns; warm — slept with blankets in the corner of his office. Except for the time he was inspecting the camp and Marta bashed the girl with the wooden back of her hairbrush, the girl was not beaten after he took her in.

  "Schmutzige Hure!" The first blow smashed into the girl's cheekbone; others landed on her arms, shoulders, neck. That night after dinner, he found her huddled in the corner: swelling and bruises.

  He roared into the kitchen, the abandoned brush clenched in his fist. Marta jumped, clutching the dishtowel to her breast. He hurled the wood through the window over the sink, the falling glass soundless beneath his rage. Then he stalked outside. Marta collapsed at the table, her white knuckles twisting, untwisting, twisting the towel. The booming of his gun lasted almost an hour.

  He posted a guard at his office door, permitted no one entrance unless he were in: not his adjutant, not his children, not ever his wife.

  He protected the girl, fed her, clothed her. And he never forced himself on her: she did not resist. True, he did things with her he did not do with Marta; his wife did not enjoy being touched or kissed there. But his girlfriends before the war had told him he was gentle, and good; some had fallen in love with him. Toward the end, he did not touch the girl at all, except sometimes to caress her face with calloused fingers, or to kiss her scarred palm and hold it against his lined face.

  Howling, he shredded her book, burned the pages in the middle of the hotel room floor, stamped the flames and ashes.

  Six months later, he purchased another copy, but turned cold when he tried to open it.

  Every day he vowed he would see her one more time, for that time.

  "It's her, isn't it?" Marta demanded.

  He said nothing.

  "You'll never see the children again!"

  Nothing.

  "I'll make them hate you!"

  "Yes."

  "She hates you!"

  He knew that.

  He looked back at the car in the shadows. His right hand tightened on its object. The porch resounded hollowly under his boots. He cleared his throat, knocked on the wood of the screen-door: and if I perish, I perish.

  Silence.

  He knocked again.

  "Just a minute," floated from somewhere inside. Cold sweat dampened his shirt. He pressed his arms against his body, bent his right arm so that his hand was behind.

  She came from the kitchen, drying her hands on a white dishtowel, talking to two grey kittens who bounded after her, racing her to the door. She smiled at them, laughed. It was the first time he had seen her smile.

  Then she saw him.

  Morning sunlight from the windows in the office haloed his head and shoulders. He was writing furiously and did not look up until his adjutant coughed politely. The Kommandant snapped his head up, frowning, pushed back the dark hair that had fallen over his forehead. The scowl faded.

  He strode over to her, dismissing the other. He paced around and around, nodding. "Ja." Taking her arm, he led her to a door beyond his desk: a small bathroom. He pointed at the towels and washcloths, unwrapped a sweet-smelling soap.

  She did not move.

  He guided her toward the basin, turned on the water.

  She was still.

  He began to pull the shift from her.

  She turned her face away.

  He closed the door, left her alone there.

  She stood a long time without moving. The water gurgled in the sink. She folded a warm, wet cloth over her closed eyes, then began to wash. She left the water running while she blotted the moisture from her skin. She did not look at herself in the small mirror over the sink.

  He knocked and opened the door simultaneously.

  She jumped, holding the towel to her.

  He stared.

  The buttons of his jacket were undone.

  He turned off the water.

  Kicked the door closed.

  She swallowed.

  He stood before her, smelling of smoke, took the towel.

  She vowed to make no sound.

  He knelt before her, wrapped his arms around, pulled her rigid form to him.

  Her eyelids clamped down, black cloth smooth on her buttocks and thighs.

  The kittens meowed solemnly and rubbed their thin backs against her ankles. The bright in her cheeks drained down her long throat and his behind her blue-grey dress.

  "May I come in?"

  She recognized his voice even in English. A slight snort escaped her flaring nostrils, a hiss from beneath the towel.

  He knew then that she had seen him in the store, had expected that he would follow.

  She drew the heavy German pistol from beneath the cloth.

  His left eyelid began to twitch. He nodded his head slightly, clicked his heels together. Her eyes were bluer than anything he had ever seen. He stood straight.

  Snap!

  She readied the gun.

  He would not close his eyes.

  She emptied the chambers into his chest without opening the screen door.

  He felt himself pounded, flung, in slowed motion, backward; he heard the cats snarl, felt the acrid powder sting his nostrils. His head cracked on the bottom step. He hoped he hadn't cried out.

  The kittens mewed, wrapping themselves around her ankles.

  "Esth…" he cleared his throat. "Esther, may I come in?"

  She almost didn't recognize his voice in English. He was slighter without the uniform, greying, craggier — but him. Her hands shook; her heart thudded behind her small breasts. She felt hot. Cold. She flinched as he m
oved his right hand to the front.

  He opened the slim volume to the first selection.

  Her brow furrowed.

  He put on his reading glasses and in a wavering voice read "In the Bedroom of the Kommandant." Though the poem covered two pages, all the stanzas poured from him without his turning the page.

  Her fingers pressed against her lips.

  His hand faltered slightly as he held out the book to her, looked over the rim of his spectacles at her.

  She did not move.

  He removed his glasses, slid them behind his lapel into his shirt pocket, looked down.

  Silence.

  His arm lowered. "Ja." He bowed his head, making a great effort not to click his heels together. He turned, stepped down.

  Something creaked behind him.

  He looked back at her.

  She stepped out onto the porch, holding open the screen door. The kittens peered warily from her feet. The white towel fluttered in the early breeze.

  To imitate the great actor Christopher Walken when he's doing comedy, saying, "Wowie-wow-wow-wow," let me say, about this story, "Owie-ow-ow-ow!" All the exclamation points! Marta uses them every time she speaks! Okay, we get it! She's yelling!

  And all the single-sentence paragraphs!

  What's that all about?

  I've no idea!

  Are you done laughing yet?

  It's obvious that I probably knew as much about writing fiction when I first wrote "The Kommandant" as I did when I was 12. Fortunately, my dissertation advisor, Michael Atkinson, was kind enough to tell me the truth ("You'd probably better stick to poetry").

  Months afterward, I dreamt that I saw "The Kommandant", arranged in stanzas, like a poem, rising out of a deep pool of water. I awoke, went to my office, and immediately began changing the story into a poem.

  I present it here for you, so those of you who've asked to read it don't have to keep looking up my dissertation in the University of Cincinnati library, or searching for the journals in which it was published, in order to see it. Except for capitalizing things where appropriate (I used to write everything in lower-case, though I didn't even like e.e. cummings' work), I've forced myself to leave everything else as it was in the original.