The Kommandant's Girl

by Pam Jenoff

  “Your name,” Krysia began when I had finished eating, “is Anna Lipowski. You were raised in the northern city of Gdańsk but your parents died in the early days of the war and you have come to live with me, your aunt Krysia.”

  I stared at her in astonishment. “I don’t understand…”

  “You are to live as a gentile, outwardly and openly,” she replied matter-of-factly. “It is the only way. It is impossible to hide Jews in the city, and the countryside is even worse. You are fair-skinned and can easily pass for a Pole. And with the exception of your former coworkers at the university, whom you will avoid, anyone who would have known you as a Jew is gone from the city.” Her last words rang in my ears. Kraków had so changed, I could pass as a stranger in the place I had lived all my life.

  “Here are your papers.” She pushed a brown folder across the table to me. Inside were an identity card and two birth certificates.

  “Lukasz Lipowski,” I read aloud from the second one. “A three-year-old?”

  “Yes, I understand you’ve been eager to help in Jacob’s work.” She paused. “Now is your chance. There is a child who has been hidden in the ghetto for months. He has no parents. He will be brought here to live with us and…to the outside world, he will be your little brother. He arrives tonight.” I nodded slightly, my head spinning. Twenty-four hours ago, I was living in the ghetto with my parents. Now I was free, living with Krysia as a gentile and caring for a child.

  “One other thing.” She pushed a smaller envelope across the table. I opened the clasp, and a gold chain with a small gold cross slithered out onto the table. My hand recoiled. “I understand,” she said. “But it is a necessary precaution. There is no other way.” She picked up the necklace and stepped behind me to fasten the clasp. And with that, my life as a non-Jew began.

  After breakfast, I followed Krysia upstairs to her bedroom. She opened her closet and pushed back the dresses to reveal a set of stairs leading to the attic. She climbed the stairs and handed down to me several pieces of metal and a small mattress. We carried the parts to the guest room that was to be the child’s. “This was Jacob’s,” she said as we assembled the crib. “I kept it here for his parents after he’d outgrown it, thinking perhaps I might use it for a child of my own.” Her eyes had a hollow look, and I knew then that her childlessness was not by choice. When it was assembled, I stroked the chipped wooden rail of the bed, imagining my husband lying there as an infant.

  At lunch, Krysia set out plates heaped with cold cuts, bread and cheese. I hesitated momentarily. Surely the meat was not kosher, and eating meat and cheese together was forbidden. “Oh,” she said, noticing my hesitation and realizing. “I’m so sorry. I would have tried to get kosher meat, but…”

  “There are no more kosher butchers,” I finished for her. She nodded. “It’s okay, really.” The food had not been strictly kosher when I lived at the Baus’, and in the ghetto, we ate whatever we could get when we could get it. I knew my parents would understand, and be glad I had good food to eat. As if on cue, my stomach rumbled then. A look of relief crossed over Krysia’s face as I took generous helpings of the meat and cheese.

  “You know, I’ve never cared for a child,” Krysia confessed later that afternoon. We were standing on the balcony just off the parlor, hanging freshly washed children’s clothing, which Krysia said had been given to her by a friend.

  “Me, neither, until I worked at the ghetto orphanage.” I looked at Krysia. She was staring at the damp blue children’s shirt in her hand, a helpless expression on her face. I could tell that she was really worried. “But, Krysia, you have cared for a child. Jacob told me he was often here as a boy.”

  She shook her head. “Being an aunt for a few hours isn’t the same.”

  I took the shirt from her, hung it on the line. “We’ll figure it out. It will be okay. I promise.”

  The child, Krysia told me, would arrive late that night as I had done the night before. By early evening, Krysia looked exhausted. “Why don’t you rest a bit?” I offered, but she shook her head. As the hands on the walnut grandfather clock in the hallway climbed well past midnight, she continued moving around the cottage without resting, cleaning and organizing dozens of little things. Krysia had turned the lights down low so that only the faintest glow remained in the kitchen and our shadows grew long in the corridors. Every few minutes she would lift the heavy drapes of the rear parlor window slightly to look out at the back garden for the new arrival.

  Finally, around two o’clock in the morning, we settled in the kitchen with mugs of strong coffee. I hesitated for several minutes before speaking. There was so much I wanted to ask Krysia that I didn’t know where to begin. “How did you…?” I began at last.

  “Become involved with the resistance?” She stirred her coffee once more, then placed the spoon in the cradle of the saucer. “I always knew about Jacob’s causes. He spoke to me about it because his mother was not that interested, and his father worried too much for his safety. I was concerned, too, of course,” she added, taking a sip from her cup. “But I knew he was un-stoppable.” So did I, I thought. “He came here late one night shortly after the occupation,” she continued. I realized she must have been talking about the night before his disappearance, when Jacob had not returned home for many hours. “He didn’t exactly tell me what was going on, but he asked me to keep an eye on you, in case anything should happen to him. I asked what else I could do, and we realized together that my home and my position might be useful somehow. He put me in contact with people…the specifics did not come until after he was gone.”

  “But this is terribly dangerous for you! Aren’t you at all afraid?”

  “Of course I am, darling.” The corners of her mouth pressed wryly upward. “Even an old widow with no children wishes to live. But this war…” Her expression turned serious. “This war is the shame of my people. Having you and the child live here with me is the least I can do.”

  “The Poles didn’t start this war,” I protested.

  “No, but…” Her thought was interrupted by a light scratching sound at the back door. “Wait here.”

  Krysia tiptoed downstairs. I heard whispers, some movement, then a tiny click as the door shut. Krysia came back up the stairs, her footsteps slower and heavier now. When she reached the landing, her arms overflowed with a large cloth bundle. I stood to help her and together we carried the sleeping child to the third floor.

  We set the child on the crib and Krysia unwrapped the blankets in which he had been swaddled. At the sight of the child’s face, I gasped loudly. It was the blond child whose mother had been shot in the alleyway.

  “What is it?” But before I could answer, the child, awakened by my gasp and Krysia’s voice, began to whimper. “Shh,” she soothed, rubbing the child’s back. He settled into sleep once more.

  Silently, we backed out of the room. “That child,” I whispered. “That’s…”

  “The descendant of Rabbi Izakowicz, the great rabbi of Lublin. His mother was shot…”

  “I know! I saw it happen from our apartment.”

  “Oh, you poor dear,” Krysia said, patting my shoulder.

  “You said he has no parents. What about his father?”

  “We don’t know. He was either shot in the woods near Chernichow or taken to a camp. Either way, it doesn’t look good.”

  I squeezed my eyes tight then, remembering the scene in the alleyway. Surely they wouldn’t kill the rabbi, I had said to my parents that night. “She was with child when she was killed,” I added, my eyes beginning to burn. “His mother, I mean.”

  Krysia nodded. “I had heard that. It makes what we are doing that much more important. The child is the last of a great rabbinic dynasty. He must be kept alive.”

  Krysia and I took turns sleeping that night in case the child should awaken and be confused or upset by the strange surroundings, but he slept through the night and did not stir. The next morning, I went to his crib and lifted him, still in his
street clothes. He was damp with sweat, his blond curls darkened and pressed against his forehead. He blinked but did not make a sound as I placed him on my hip. Instead, he wrapped his hands around my neck and rested his head on my shoulder as though he had done this every day of his young life. Together we headed down the stairs to the kitchen, where Krysia was once again preparing breakfast. At the sight of us in the doorway, her eyes warmed and her face broke into a wide smile.

  A week later, Lukasz and I would walk into town for our debut appearance as gentiles at market. His eyes would light up at the sight of an ice-cream cart and I, unable to resist, would take a few pennies from our food money to buy him a vanilla cone. And this is how Lukasz, the son of the great rabbi of Lublin, and Emma, the daughter of a poor Kazimierz baker, came to live with the elegant Krysia Smok in a cottage that seemed like a palace in Chelmska.

  CHAPTER 6

  “We will be having a dinner party on Saturday,” Krysia announces as routinely as though she is discussing the weather. The damp white towel I am holding falls from my hands to the dirt.

  We are working in the garden, Krysia pulling weeds from around the spry green plants that are just beginning to bud, me hanging the linens we washed in a large basin an hour earlier. A few feet away, Lukasz digs silently in the dirt with a stick. It has been more than a month since Lukasz and I came to live with Krysia. I can tell that she is overwhelmed at times. Since arriving here, I have tried to take on as much of the housework as I can, but the labor has still taken its toll on her. Her delicate hands seem to grow more callused by the day, and her work dresses have become soiled and tattered. Yet despite her sacrifices, Krysia seems to like having us around. We are the first real companions she’s had since Marcin died. She and I make easy company for each other, sometimes chatting as we work around the house, other times falling into deep silence. There is, after all, much to think about for both of us. I know she worries, as I do, about Jacob, and about us, how we must never be discovered, what would happen if we were.

  The child’s presence, however, keeps us from wallowing too deeply. Lukasz is a beautiful boy, calm and undemanding. In the weeks he has been with us, though, he has not spoken a word. We try desperately to make him laugh. Sometimes I invent childish games, and often in the evenings, Krysia plays lively tunes on the piano as I whirl him around in my arms to the music. But so far it has not helped. Lukasz watches patiently, as though the revelry is for our benefit, not his, and he is only humoring us. When the music and games stop, he picks up the tattered blue blanket in which he arrived and retreats to a corner.

  “A dinner party?” I repeat, picking up the towel from the dirt.

  “Yes, I used to throw them quite often before the war. I still do, from time to time. I don’t enjoy it so much anymore. The guest list—” her mouth twists “—is a little different these days. But it is important to keep up appearances.” I nod, understanding. Before the war, Krysia’s guests would have been artists, intellectuals and socialites. Most of the artists and intellectuals were gone now—they had either fled abroad or been imprisoned, because of their religion or political views, or both. They had been replaced at Krysia’s dinner table, I suspect, by guests of a far different sort.

  Wiping her hands on her apron, she ticks off the guest list on her fingers. “Deputy Mayor Baran,” she pronounces the word mayor with irony. Wladislaw Baran was a known collaborator who, along with much of the present city administration, had been installed in office by the Nazis as a puppet of their regime. “The new vice director and his wife…”

  “Nazis.” I turn away, fighting the urge to spit.

  “The party in power,” she replies evenly. “We must keep them on our good side.”

  “I suppose.” My stomach twists at the thought of being under the same roof as those people.

  “You arrived several weeks ago. It would not do to have my niece living with me and not be properly introduced about town.”

  “B-but…” I stammer. I had not realized Krysia expected me to be at the dinner. I had envisioned hiding upstairs for the duration of the party, or at most helping in the kitchen.

  “Your presence is essential.” And I know from her tone that there will be no further discussion on the subject.

  No sooner has Krysia spoken of the dinner party than the preparations begin, and they continue nonstop all week. For the occasion, Krysia brings back Elzbieta, the ruddy-cheeked housekeeper she had dismissed before my arrival. She returns without hard feelings, all energy and smiles, and immediately sets about scrubbing the house from top to bottom, putting my and Krysia’s housekeeping efforts to shame.

  Krysia is glad to have Elzbieta back again, I can tell, and not just for her cooking and cleaning skills: Elzbieta’s boyfriend, Miroslaw, has a particular gift for procuring items that can no longer be found in the shops, delicacies we will need for the party. Within two days, he magically produces smoked salmon, fine cheeses and dark chocolate. “I haven’t seen such items since before the war!” Krysia exclaims upon receiving the bounty. I can only nod; I have seldom seen such things in my life. To round out the meal, we pillage the garden, pulling up the few heads of lettuce that have already sprouted, bring up the remaining winter potatoes and cabbage from the root cellar, and buy from our neighbors what other vegetables we lack.

  The morning of the party, Krysia helps Elzbieta to steam the fine table linen and polish the silver while I make dinner rolls and pastries. Kneading the dough, I am reminded of baking with my father. As a child, I used to grow frustrated with the resilience of the dough. No matter how hard I tried to make it take shape, long or round or flat, it always resisted, snapping stubbornly back to a nondescript mound. Only a few of my ill-shaped pastries even made it to the shelves, and those were always the last ones remaining late in the day. But now the challenge is a welcome one. I imagine my father working beside me, kneading the bread with his light, almost magical touch. His thick, gentle fingers could cajole the most stubborn dough into intricate shapes: braided challah, or hamantaschen for Purim, or obwarzanki, the crusty pretzels enjoyed by Jewish and non-Jewish Poles alike.

  “Here,” Krysia says, handing me a package wrapped in brown paper later that afternoon. We are in the kitchen, having just completed a final walk-though of the house to make sure everything is in order. I look at her puzzled, then set the package down on the table and open it. It is a new dress, light blue with a delicate flowered pattern.

  “It’s beautiful,” I gasp, lifting it from the paper. Until now, I have made do with old dresses of Krysia’s, pinning up the sleeves and hems to fit me. Growing up, all of my dresses were handed down or homemade. This is the first store-bought dress I have ever owned. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she says, waving her hand as though it were nothing. “Now, go get ready.”

  A few hours later, I walk down the stairs once more. The house has been transformed. Scented candles flicker everywhere. Pots simmer on the stove burners under Elzbieta’s watchful gaze, giving off a delicious aroma. Soft classical music plays on the gramophone; I think I recognize it as one of Marcin’s recordings.

  At fifteen minutes to seven, Krysia descends the steps from the third floor, wearing an ankle-length burgundy satin skirt and white silk blouse, her hair drawn neatly to a knot at the nape of her long neck, which is accentuated by a single strand of pearls. She looks restored and almost untouched by the war, as if all the care and hard work of recent months have been erased from her face. “You look lovely,” Krysia says before I have the chance to compliment her. She brushes a speck of dust from my collar and then steps back to admire my dress.

  “Thank you.” I blush again. I have used a hot iron to curl my hair into ringlets, which cascade down onto my shoulders. The dress is the grandest thing I have ever worn. “I wish…” I begin, then stop. I had started to say I wished Jacob were here to see me, but I hesitate, not wanting to sadden Krysia.

  She smiles, understanding. “He would think you are e
ven more beautiful than he already does.” I cannot help but beam. We walk into the dining room together. “Dinner parties are always so hectic,” she explains, reaching across the table to adjust the orchid centerpiece. “No matter how many I plan and how well I prepare, there are things that cannot be done well in advance, which makes the last few hours chaotic.”

  I nod, as though I have thrown dinner parties all my life and understand. In truth, the few I had attended had been with Jacob, and they had in no way prepared me for this. Tonight is my debut as Anna Lipowski, the gentile orphan girl from Gdańsk. Since leaving the ghetto, I have scarcely spoken with anyone outside of the household, and I am terrified about my first full-fledged interaction in my new role. In my head, I have rehearsed my life story over and over again. Krysia has worked with me over the past several weeks, refining my behavior and mannerisms to fit the part, helping me to adjust the last few inflections and pronunciations to ensure that I speak with the generic accent of northwestern Poland. She has also schooled me intensely in Catholicism and I now know as much about saints and rosaries as any Polish girl outside of a convent. Still, I worry that some flash across my face or look in my eye, some gesture or intangible thing will scream out that I am a Jew.

  But there is little time to be nervous. A few minutes after we enter the dining room, the doorbell rings. “Ready?” Krysia asks me. I gulp once, nod. The guests begin to arrive with a promptness characteristic of both Poles and Germans. Elzbieta meets them at the door and takes their wraps and coats. I wait at the first-floor landing with Krysia, who introduces me, and then I lead the guests into the sitting room and offer them a cocktail. Lukasz is trotted out briefly and admired for his blond hair and good behavior before being shuttled off to bed.