The Kommandant's Mistress

by Alexandria Constantinova Szeman

  "Oh, no," I thought. "It's happened again."

  I raced through the dining room, through the living room, and back to the kitchen. I scrambled halfway down the basement stairs, leaned over the railing, and called out. I ran upstairs, to the second floor. By the time I'd gone from Roger's room to Mother Grace's room and back again, I knew it was true: it had happened again. I went halfway down the stairs and sat, trying to think of a plan. That's when they pulled into the driveway. After Mother Grace got out of her car, I saw the two of them in the car behind. Mother Grace stood in the brown grass at the edge of the driveway while the two of them got their briefcases and paperwork out of the car. She kept turning around, looking toward the house, her hand shading her eyes since all the leaves had fallen from the trees.

  I grabbed hold of the banister and pulled myself up to my feet as they came up the walk. I knew that when they got to the porch and the front door opened, my life would be over — again.

  So when that front door opened, I ran.

  At least open your mind to the possibility that you're not responsible for everything that happened, says Dr. Daniels during one of our sessions. I must have done something, I tell her, shaking my head. What makes you say that? I shrug my shoulders. I feel so guilty, I say. Because of something you've done or because other people say you're guilty? It's all my fault, I tell her, pulling my bare feet up onto the couch and hugging my legs against my chest. It's my fault for thinking I could be happy. She goes over to the window and adjusts the heat. When the fan comes on, a fabric butterfly hanging from the ceiling twists slowly. If only I had a chance to do everything over, I say as she sits back down. What would you do differently? Being with Sam in the first place, I tell her. That's the first thing I'd change.

  After that first night, after everything had happened, we lay in each other's arms, without talking, our clothes scattered on the apartment floor. The countertop, stove, and table were covered with saucers and cups, each filled with a candle, but all the candles had gone out. Though the early morning sun came through the icy windows, the apartment was still mostly in shadows. I raised myself up and leaned on my elbow. Hannah was on the other side of Sam, on her back, her paws sticking up in the air. When I reached over to pet her stomach, her purring vibrated her body.

  I untangled the blanket and sheets so I could lie next to Sam again, our skin touching. His chest rose and fell slowly under my cheek, his heartbeat under my ear. Lying there with him like that, I felt things I'd never felt before, and suddenly I was afraid it had all been a dream. I held my breath, closed my eyes as tight as I could, then slowly opened them. Yes, everything was just the same as before. I was still there, and he was still there with me. So it wasn't a dream after all. Sam shifted his position, hugging Hannah closer and kissing her before he opened his eyes and looked at me.

  "Claudia," he said as I touched his face with the back of my hand.

  He took my wrist and kissed it.

  "Where'd you get that bruise?" he said.

  I didn't care about the bruise. I didn't care about anything in the world but his mouth on mine, his arms around me, his heart beating in the same rhythm as mine. When he moved under the covers, Hannah jumped off the sofa bed, went over to the pile of cushions, and curled up on top of them. The sun slanted through the windows over the sink, shining on Sam's dark hair and eyes. He held my face in his hands as he kissed me, and my heart pounded as I stretched my body against his. I kept my eyes open the whole time, saying his name over and over. Everything about him excited me: his unshaved cheek, the weight of his body, the pressure of his thighs. When I tangled my fingers in his thinning hair, when he lifted my hips so my body fit his, when he moved deep in me, I knew I belonged with him, no matter what, for the rest of my life. God, I was so happy. I was so unbelievably happy.

  Aren't you allowed to be happy? says Dr. Daniels. Every single time I've ever been happy, something terrible has happened. And you think there's a connection? There has to be, I tell her. It's just like when I was a child. She takes a sip of her coffee before setting the mug back onto her desk. If it makes you feel better to believe it started in your childhood, she says, then go all the way back. To my memories of Mother Esther? You tell me, she says. You're the one who says it all started in your childhood. I don't think it started with Mother Esther, I tell her, though I suppose it could have.

  "There, isn't this nice?" said Mother Esther as we settled ourselves in the living room in front of the television. "Here we are, just the two of us. My, Claudia, you're getting to be such a big girl. I remember when you used to go down for your nap right after lunch."

  But not that day. I climbed into Father Jacob's chair as she sat on the couch. When I stretched out my legs, my feet almost reached over the edge of the chair seat. I put my hands on the armrests, on top of the crocheted doilies, just like Father Jacob did. My half-glass of soda, surrounded by porcelain figurines, was on the table beside the chair. As Mother Esther drank her soda from the bottle, I turned to her.

  "You're my mommy, right?"

  "Not your real mommy, Honey," she said, putting her bottle down on the coaster on the floor at her feet. "Remember? We told you. We're like Mother Ruth and her husband. Daddy Jacob and I couldn't have any babies of our own, so we're your mommy and daddy till…"

  "Till I'm all growed up."

  "No, honey, till the judge finds you a new mommy and daddy. Don't, Claudia," she said, frowning as she got up from the couch. "You don't want to hurt yourself again."

  She hurried over to the chair and held me tight, trapping my hands and arms against my body. I twisted and turned, but she wouldn't let me go. I couldn't speak, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't get away from her voice in my ears.

  What was she saying to you? says Dr. Daniels, but I don't want to remember. I get up from the couch and go to the window. The sun is finally shining, and it glints off the heaps of icy snow. It's so bright it hurts my eyes, so I go back to the couch and sit down. That's one of your gifts, your memory, says Dr. Daniels. You should be grateful for it. Why don't I just be grateful for all the suffering and the deceit and the persecution? I say, yanking some tissues out of the box sitting next to me on the couch. Why don't I just be grateful for all the people who've betrayed me? After I've emptied the box and crumpled the last tissue and added it to the pile beside me, she gets another box out of her file cabinet drawer. She sits down in her rocking chair and waits until I'm quiet. Do you want to tell me about all this anger? she says.

  "If there were ever anything you wanted to tell me," said Roger, standing behind me, "you could."

  "Are you cold?" I said, turning around to look at him. "You don't think it's cold in here?"

  He shook his head. Sam was outside shoveling again, heaping the snow into waist-high piles along either side of the driveway. All around him, the snow continued to fall, dense and thick, swirling around in great gusts each time the wind rattled the windows. When I went down the hall, Roger followed me. I turned the thermostat up another few degrees. On the way back to the living room, I took one of Sam's wool sweaters off the coat tree and pulled it on over my own.

  "I'd never tell anyone," said Roger.

  I went to the window, putting my hands around all the edges, checking for cold air, but I didn't feel any. The shovel scraped loudly against the driveway. When he finished, Sam leaned on the upright shovel and looked out across the deserted street, snow whirling around his head, ice crystals clinging to the scarf over his mouth and nose. Before he'd made it back to the house, the driveway was covered with white again.

  "You can trust me," said Roger, touching me on the back. "No matter what."

  "What about Eve?" I said.

  "I wouldn't tell her."

  "And Sam?"

  "Not him either. Especially not him."

  Sam came up onto the porch, stamping his boots to free them of snow, leaning the shovel against the house. When he opened the front door, Roger moved away from me fast.

  "No
matter what," he said. "Remember that."

  Why does that memory make you angry? says Dr. Daniels. Why does it make me angry? Don't you realize what he meant? What do you think he meant, Claudia? He thought I was guilty. Did he? He thought I was going to confess to him, for Christ's sake. And that makes you angry? How could he think that? Roger, of all people? Are you sure that's what he meant? Did you ask him? I know what he meant. God, I'm so sick of all this. Why can't I just forget it all? Repressing memories isn't the way to be happy, says Dr. Daniels, but I'm not repressing anything. Sam says none of it matters anyway. He says it didn't all start on the day I found the body or in my childhood — not on my thirteenth birthday or on that day with Mother Esther. He says everything started the day I became his fiancée.

  The night we were going to tell his parents about our engagement, we left for the restaurant forty-five minutes early. I was so nervous, my hands were cold on my wineglass. I was nothing but the kid-sister of Sam's best friend. His parents didn't even know we'd moved in together, so every time the restaurant door opened, my mouth went completely dry. Then Sam stood up, straightening his tie, and his parents were there. Sam shook Harold's hand. Eleanor kissed me on the cheek and sat beside me, moving her chair closer to mine. She took my hand and held it tightly. She was so close that I breathed in her perfume.

  "At last," she said, "I'm going to have a daughter."

  When she said that, the noise of the other diners was pushed into the background. Sam's laughter and Harold's chatter became a blur. Everything in the world faded — all those years making Mother's Day cards in school then shoving them into my bureau drawers, all those nights staring into mirrors looking for my real mother, all those days following happy children around school-yards wishing I could trade places with them — all of it, in that one single moment, disappeared. Everything disappeared. Except Eleanor. "At last," she said, "I'm going to have a daughter," and something in me stirred.

  That night, if you'd told me everything I know now, I don't think it would've change things. "At last," said Eleanor, "I'm going to have a daughter." From that very moment, I loved her.

  Eleanor loved you, too, says Dr. Daniels, but I'm not sure it was love that Eleanor felt for me all those years ago. I sit in Dr. Daniels' office, with its pastel walls and its butterfly mobile, and it's hard to sort out what I know now from what I knew then. It doesn't matter, Claudia, she says, because it's time to let go. She makes it sound so easy. Like closing your eyes and opening them up to a new life. I want to do that, but I keep wondering if I'm responsible for what happened. Everyone said I was. Everyone? That's what they said after I found the body, and even if that's not when things started, that's when things got worse. After you found it? Not before? No, it was only after I found the body that my life really deteriorated.

  After I found it, I went to the phone upstairs to call for help. While they were on their way, I went back into the bedroom, but I didn't go near the bed: I stood by the window. After the police and the paramedics got there, after they tried to force life back into the body, after the older paramedic finally took the stethoscope out of his ears and rolled up the blood pressure cuff, all of them turned toward me, but no one said anything. The emergency lights kept flashing their red against the walls. While the younger paramedic left the room and went downstairs, one of the policemen bent closer to the nightstand to look at the prescription bottles. Then he got down on one knee to look at the bottles on the floor. I swear I don't remember seeing them at all till he knelt down.

  All I saw was the body.

  End Excerpt of

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  Back to Table of Contents

  Short Stories

  About

  Naked, with Glasses

  (award-winning short stories)

  Szeman began writing short stories at 12. A voracious reader who'd wanted to be an author since the age of 6, she knew all about books. She promptly began designing covers for her stories, stapling them into book format, and trying to sell them for the unbelievably incredible bargain-basement price of only 25¢. Though there were no buyers for these limited edition stories — now, unfortunately, all lost — Szeman was not discouraged. Only months later, she was writing love poetry, after having memorized Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, and passing them out to anyone who'd accept them. Sort of like a street-vendor hawking a show in New York.

  Eventually, her poetry became more sophisticated and she began getting acceptances and awards from literary journals. Though she published her first novel before she wrote her first successful short story, she'd mastered the craft. Her very first story (as an adult) was the title story of this collection, "Naked, with Glasses," which was awarded Third Prize in Story Magazine's "Seven Deadly Sins Contest," and begins with the crowd-pleasing line: "This is how the plan to kill your husband could begin."

  After her initial success, Szeman turned more often to short stories: whenever the subject matter was too long or inappropriate for poetry, or far too short for a novel-length treatment. Entertaining crowds at bookstore readings and writing conferences with her stories, she eventually had enough for a collection. Naming the volume after her first story, Naked, with Glasses, it was awarded UKA Press' Grand Prize in its Annual International Writing Competition (2007).

  The same dark humor, morally ambiguous subject matter, and sophisticated treatment found in her novels and poetry collections are present in her stories. Quirky characters abound. "BusMan," in the story of the same name, re-invents himself as a superhero after an unexpectedly frightening incident on his daily route.

  Vincent, "Hunchback of the Midwest" and member of a traveling freak-show, regales his audience with tales of conquests over beautiful women, all the while longing for the one beauty he fears he will never possess.

  Thirty years after the end of the violently protested 1960-70's "conflict," the Vietnam War comes to a small town's Convenience Store in the surprisingly affecting and disturbing "VC in the USA."

  Biblical characters populate many of the tales. Wandering in the Wilderness after escaping Pharaoh's enslavement in Egypt, the Hebrews begin to doubt their leaders, Moses and Aaron, as well as God Himself, in "Rebellion in the Promised Land."

  Jesus, his followers, and the Romans who occupied Judaea during Jesus' lifetime frequently appear, involved in encounters not mentioned in biblical stories. "Passion Play" recounts Judas' and Mary Magdalene's attraction to and avoidance of each other, as they struggle with their mutual love for Jesus.

  Sleepless and agitated, Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate is plagued by nightmares, doubts, and crumbling self-confidence after his unsettling encounter with Jesus in "Slaying the Dragon."

  As in Szeman's other work, the universal themes of family, love, loss, loyalty, and betrayal are visited in this collection as well. The narrator of "Me and Mom and JFK," now a grown man, recalls his childhood, when he competed with President Kennedy, before and after his assassination, for his own mother's love.

  The spunky, unforgettable narrator of "St. Jerome Emiliani Comes to the Church Picnic" is reluctantly thrust into adulthood by a staggering "initiation."

  Equally mournful and outraged, the mother of a suspected serial killer makes the rounds of TV talk-shows in "Midwestern Madonna and Child," trying to explain why she's not to blame for whatever crimes her son's accused of, despite the media's incessant questions and insinuations.

  Edgy, memorable, and engagingly written, these award-winning stories display another aspect of Szem
an's talent — that for short fiction. Filled with distinct voices, unique characters, surprising plot-twists, and successful experimental writing innovations (such as "Sorry, Wrong Number, Redux," which is entirely in dialogue), this prize-winning collection secures the author's critically acclaimed reputation in this genre as well, adding to the accolades she has already garnered for her novels, poetry, and non-fiction.

  Read an Excerpt from

  Naked, with Glasses

  (award-winning short stories)

  (begins on next page)

  Naked, with Glasses

  award-winning

  short stories

  Alexandria Constantinova Szeman

  RockWay Press, LLC · New Mexico

  Copyright © 1995-2012

  by Alexandria Constantinova Szeman

  Contents

  Part One

  Naked, with Glasses

  Me and Mom and JFK

  Helena, of the Sange de Christo Mountains

  Saint Jerome Emiliani Comes to the Church Picnic

  Part Two

  Midwestern Madonna and Child

  BusMan

  Heart of a Lonely Hunter

  Song of New Jersey

  Workin' the Room

  Fame

  Part Three

  Rebellion in the Promised Land

  Madonna, with Child

  The Gardens in Her Eyes

  Golgotha, Mon Amour