The Kommandant's Girl

by Pam Jenoff

  Suddenly an image flashes through my mind of the Kommandant’s face above me in the darkness, his weight pressed down on mine. As though watching a film, I see myself reaching up to embrace him, meeting his movements with my own. I stop, sickened by the memory. A wave of nausea overwhelms me. Ducking behind a tall bush, I manage to muffle the involuntary retching sounds I make as I bring up the brandy and what little else was in my stomach. Even on the deserted road in the middle of the night, I know better than to attract attention. When my stomach has calmed, I stand up, wiping my mouth and breathing deeply. The street is empty, except for a single rat that pops up from the gutter and glares at me disdainfully. I had to do it, I explain silently. I had to make it look as though I really liked him and was enjoying the moment. The rat turns and runs away from me, not convinced. I smooth my hair and begin the long walk home.

  When I have gone about a quarter of a mile, I stop again. The documents, I think. I left the Kommandant’s apartment in such a hurry that I forgot to look for the documents and information Alek sent me to find in the first place. Never mind, a calm voice inside me says. It would not do to be rummaging about the Kommandant’s apartment on your first visit. You must learn his sleep habits in order to make sure he doesn’t wake. First visit. I shudder. That means there will have to be others. My stomach turns menacingly once more.

  It takes me more than an hour to walk back to Krysia’s. When I reach the front gate, the house is dark. Krysia and Lukasz are long asleep, I think. I wonder if Krysia had worried about me when I had not come home. Though I had mentioned to Krysia that morning that I might have to work late, I had not been able to bring myself to tell her about my new “mission.” It is possible, I realize, that she may have known, anyway. She seemed to have a great deal of information about the resistance that did not come from me. In any event, I am grateful that she is not awake. I could not face her questions right now.

  Upstairs, I fall to the bed, drained. My body aches from head to toe. More than anything, I want to soak in a hot bath to scrub away my filth and shame, but I do not dare to run one and wake the others. Instead, I slip under the covers. Though exhausted, I lie awake, imagining the dreaded moment when I will have to face the Kommandant at work, to meet his eyes, both of us knowing what has happened. To act like I want it to happen again. Perhaps…I try to picture the calendar that sits on my desk, the one that keeps all of his appointments. Tomorrow is August 12th. The Kommandant will be at Pomorskie all day for meetings, I realize. I will not have to face him. A wave of relief washes over me and I exhale.

  Suddenly, I stop mid-breath. August 12th is the anniversary of my marriage to Jacob. How could I have forgotten? It was one year ago tomorrow that we stood together underneath the marriage canopy in his parents’ parlor. After the ceremony and a small lunch, we had traveled by train to Zakopane, a small town sixty kilometers south of Kraków, nestled in the High Tatra mountains on the border between Poland and Czechoslovakia, for our honeymoon. For three days, we stayed in a tiny guesthouse nestled at the foot of the mountains, taking long walks outdoors and wandering through the town. I had bought Jacob a sweater, knitted by the mountain peasants and still smelling faintly of sheep, and he gave me a necklace of round amber stones.

  I remember now how we lay together those first few nights. I had known little about sex, but the smoothness of Jacob’s touch made me wonder if I was his first. He was gentle and patient with my inexperience, introducing me to this strange, newfound joy that brought a perpetual glow to my cheeks.

  On the last day of our honeymoon, we took a cable car up the mountainside. Looking over the border into Czechoslovakia, I stared at the jagged, snowcapped peaks, gasping in wonder at enormous vistas I had seen before only in paintings. Jacob squeezed my hand. “We’ll come back in the winter and I’ll teach you to ski,” he promised.

  It is hard to believe that was only one year ago. It seems like another lifetime. I wonder what our anniversary would be like if he was still here: another trip to Zakopane, perhaps, or even just a picnic by the river. I sigh. He has been gone longer than we had been together. I still love him as much as I had on the day we were married, but sometimes I have trouble seeing his face clearly in my mind. And now I’ve betrayed our marriage and slept with another man, I think, tears rolling down my cheeks. It was for Jacob that you did it, I try to tell myself, for him and the cause he believes in. The thought is of no comfort. I roll over and cry myself to sleep.

  The next morning, I awake and depart for work early, leaving a note for Krysia so she will not worry. I cannot face her yet. As I walk to the bus stop, my thoughts turn to the Kommandant. Walking home the previous night, my humiliation still fresh on my skin, I had not been able to imagine going to work and seeing him ever again. But in the calm light of morning, I know that I have no choice. I hope to be first in the office so as not to be forced to walk past Malgorzata—I am certain that to her, my shame would be apparent. Fortunately, my plan works, and the office is empty. I look at the Kommandant’s schedule and am pleased to discover that he is out of the office all day for meetings. Though I am too exhausted to actually get much work done, I am able to sit at my desk in the anteroom uninterrupted until it is time to go home.

  When I arrive at Krysia’s that night, the garden is quiet and empty. I am surprised; usually on summer evenings, Krysia and Lukasz are playing there, waiting for me to come home. I wonder for a moment if their absence was some sort of rebuke for my returning home late the night before and leaving early that day.

  I open the front door. “Hello?” There is no answer. Something has happened, I think, racing up the stairs. In the parlor, I find Krysia holding Lukasz, wrapped in a blanket, pacing the floor. “He’s sick,” she informs me, her eyes wide.

  “Here, let me.” I try to take him from her but she moves away.

  “We don’t need you getting sick and missing work,” she replies coldly.

  “Krysia, please,” I insist, at last wresting the child from her. Lukasz’s face is pale and his half-closed eyes are glassy. His forehead, plastered with damp blond curls, is burning. But the most alarming part are his sobs. Lukasz, usually so quiet and complacent, wails openly now, and I can tell from his swollen, red-rimmed eyes that he has been crying all day.

  “He has been sick to his stomach several times, and he can’t hold anything down,” Krysia says, hovering over my shoulder. It is her lack of composure that frightens me most. Her hair, usually immaculate, is loose and wild, and her dress is soiled. I have never seen fear in her eyes before.

  “Perhaps a cool bath?” I suggest, but Krysia shakes her head impatiently.

  “He’s had two already.”

  “Well, then, another.” I begin to strip the blanket and clothes from the child, unsure of what else to do. Krysia walks wordlessly upstairs, and a moment later I can hear the water running.

  As I carry Lukasz past the kitchen toward the stairs, a flash of something bright red catches my eye. I pause. A bouquet of red roses, still wrapped in paper, sits on the table. I know who they are from without asking.

  “I tried all of my home remedies,” Krysia says a few minutes later, as I cradle the child in the tub and trickle water on his head. He has stopped crying and is still now, but he does not feel any cooler.

  “Children get ill. It is normal,” I reply without conviction. In truth, Lukasz has not been sick at all in the time he’s been with us. I cannot help but feel that his sudden illness immediately following my interlude with the Kommandant is not a coincidence. Surely I am being punished for my sins.

  The problem, of course, is not just that Lukasz is sick—it is that we cannot take him to the doctor. Jewish boys are circumcised, Polish boys are not, and a doctor inspecting the undressed child would immediately know his true identity. There are no Jewish doctors to call and no Polish doctors who can be relied upon not to turn us in for hiding the child. It seems to me a great shame that, with all of Krysia’s underground contacts and all of the people she
knows, there is not a trustworthy physician among them. Even Pankiewicz, the ghetto pharmacist, can no longer help us—Krysia had mentioned a few weeks ago that he’d been deported from the ghetto to one of the camps as punishment for caring for Jews.

  Finally, when the child’s fingertips are wrinkled like raisins and the water is turning from cool to cold, I draw Lukasz from the bath and wrap him in fresh towels. As I dry him, he seems to drift off into a fitful sleep, his eyes dancing beneath their lids. What does a child his age dream about? I wonder. I cradle him to my breast. In another lifetime, he would have nothing but safe and warm experiences to fill his dreams. Instead, Lukasz has nightmarish visions of his mother being shot and his father taken away, of being hidden and taken through the woods at night to strangers. No matter how warm and safe a world Krysia and I might try to provide, nothing could take away the haunting experiences the child has suffered in his young life.

  We redress Lukasz in fresh pajamas and put him to bed. “We should take turns staying with him,” Krysia says, and I nod in agreement, although in fact neither of us can bring ourselves to leave the child to sleep first. So we both sit, Krysia in the small chair by his crib and I on a pillow on the ground, watching him and touching his head every few minutes.

  “The flowers, they’re from the Kommandant,” Krysia whispers when at last Lukasz’s eyes have stopped moving and his breath has evened.

  “I know,” I reply flatly.

  “Are you all right?” I shrug, unable to speak. “It will be okay, darling. I promise.”

  Neither of us speak further. When I look over a few minutes later, Krysia is dozing lightly in her chair, head back against the wall, mouth slightly open. So the grande dame of Kraków snores, I cannot help but think. Once it might have surprised me, but these days I know that nothing is as it appears.

  I sit on the pillow on the floor and watch them sleep, these two people I have come to call my family. I don’t think either Krysia or I realized until tonight what Lukasz has come to mean to us. Once caring for him had been a task, a way to help with the resistance and defy the Nazis. Now he is our child, the son I someday hope to have with Jacob and the grandchild Krysia knows she will never see.

  For the first time, I stop to think about what will happen after the war: will the rabbi, by some miracle, survive the camps and come to reclaim his child? If he doesn’t, will Lukasz stay with Krysia or with me? To envision the answer means trying to picture what my life will be like after the war. In my dreams, I am always reunited with Jacob and my family. I cannot bear to imagine otherwise. But the backdrop is clouded and obscured. I have no idea where we will be. I doubt we will be able to stay in Kraków. The Jewish quarter has been shattered and will never be whole again. Indeed, judging from the comments I occasionally overhear on the street, and the way the Poles seem to carry on unperturbed with their daily lives, Kraków is more glad to be rid of its Jews than I would care to admit. It is unlikely that Jacob and I would return to a big apartment in the city center and to our jobs at the university. And would the rest of the world be so much better for us? I’ve heard of the magical kingdoms before: New York, London, even Jerusalem. I cannot imagine these fairy-tale places I have never seen. These thoughts overwhelm me then and I fall into a light sleep of my own.

  I awaken, sore and stiff, on the floor at first light. Krysia still sleeps in the chair, and I stand to place a small blanket around her shoulders. I peer into the crib. Lukasz is awake, not crying but holding his feet and talking softly to himself. “Lukaszku,” I coo softly. I reach for him and he extends his arms toward me as though it were any other morning. He wraps his arms around my neck. I place my lips to his forehead and it is cool.

  “Thank you,” I whisper, my eyes wet. God, it seems, has not chosen to punish me in this way. “Thank you.”

  Lukasz looks up at me and smiles, perhaps the first real smile I have seen since he has come to us. “Na,” he says. “Na.”

  “Anna?” I ask, emphasizing the second syllable.

  “Na,” he repeats, reaching out to pat my nose. Now it is my turn to smile. He is trying to say my name. It hardly matters that the name isn’t really mine. Lukasz is healthy, and happier than I have ever seen him. The scare last night made me aware of how precious he is and how, in this world, even the very little we had could be taken in an instant. Tiptoeing so as not to wake Krysia, I carry the child downstairs for breakfast.

  CHAPTER 14

  That morning, I am reluctant to go to work. “I should stay home,” I say for what seems like the hundredth time. “My leaving will upset the child too much.”

  Krysia shakes her head. “You need to go to work.” Her eyes drift to the bouquet of roses, now sitting in a white ceramic vase, and I realize then she is worried that my missing work now might set off some sort of alarm with the Kommandant.

  “Okay,” I concede at last. But I linger in the doorway carrying my coat and basket, not wanting to leave.

  “He’s okay,” she reassures me, bending to ruffle Lukasz’s hair. Looking at his bright eyes and pink cheeks, I know that she is right. He appears as though he was never sick. Still, I am haunted by the memory of his illness the night before, the prospect of losing him. I fight the urge to pick him up and kiss him goodbye, not wanting to draw attention to the fact that I am leaving.

  At last I turn and head for the stairs. “I will be home on time,” I say as I go.

  “Don’t worry,” Krysia calls after me. “We will be fine.”

  Once out the door, I hurry to the bus stop. A bus appears momentarily and twenty minutes later, I am at the foot of Wawel. Still, my dawdling has made me late; Malgorzata is already in the office, wearing a smug expression as I arrive. I have barely set down my belongings behind my desk when Colonel Diedrichson steps out of the Kommandant’s office into the anteroom. “The Kommandant has been calling for you,” he says. Is he looking at me strangely? I wonder. Perhaps he knows something. But there is no time to worry about it. Grabbing my writing pad and smoothing my hair, I brace myself and step into the Kommandant’s office for our first meeting since our night together.

  The Kommandant is pacing behind his desk, reading a report. I wipe my hands on my skirt, take a deep breath. “G-good morning, Herr Kommandant,” I say, trying unsuccessfully not to let my voice shake.

  He freezes midstep, lifts his head. An expression flashes across his face that I do not recognize. Anger, or perhaps relief? “You’re late,” he replies, though his voice does not sound accusing.

  I walk toward him. “I’m sorry,” I offer. “I…”

  He raises his hand. “There’s no need to apologize. It’s just that it’s not like you. I was worried that…” He falters and looks away. I hesitate. Though he did not finish the sentence, I understand what he is trying to say. He is afraid that I did not want to come to work because of what happened between us. The Kommandant is nervous, too, I realize, astonished.

  “It’s not that, Herr Kommandant,” I say quickly. I am standing beside the desk now, his face inches above me. I can smell his aftershave and it takes all of my strength to block the memories of two nights earlier. “It’s just that Lukasz was ill.” I regret my words immediately. I have said too much. The Kommandant sets down his report, takes my hand.

  “Is he okay? Is it serious?” The expression on his face is one of genuine concern.

  I swallow; it is hard to speak with his warm fingers squeezing mine. “Yes, thank you, he’s fine now. It was one of those fevers that children get.”

  “You should have called me. I would have had my personal physician look at him.”

  Which is exactly why I did not say anything. “That is very kind,” I reply, praying that he will not insist that the doctor still look at the child. “But it isn’t necessary. Everything is fine now.” I pull my hand away and gesture toward the coffee table. “Shall we go over the day’s agenda?” He nods, following me over to the sofa and sitting in the armchair beside it. I review the schedule and all of the
correspondence that came in during his absence the prior day. When we have finished, I look up. He is staring at me intently. “If that is all…?” I ask, lowering my eyes.

  “Yes, thank you,” he says. I stand and start for the door. “No, Anna, wait a moment, please.” I turn back toward him. He does not speak for several seconds and I can tell from the way his Adam’s apple moves up and down that he is struggling to find the right words. I know then that he is trying to ask me out again. “There is one other thing…” He hesitates. “I was wondering if you are free tonight. I thought we might have dinner together.”

  I am never free. If I were free I would not be here. “I would love to, Herr Kommandant, but with Lukasz just recovering, I really should be at home this evening.” This is not a lie, but I also decline knowing that it would not be proper to accept a last-minute invitation so readily.

  He nods. His face is expressionless as though trying to mask disappointment or surprise. “I understand. Perhaps Saturday night instead.”

  I pause. There is part of me that wants to say no, to write off two nights ago as something that only happened once, a mistake, while I still can. But that will not help the resistance and my parents. “That should be fine, Herr Kommandant,” I reply at last. “Assuming Lukasz continues to be healthy.”

  “Very well. I will send a messenger to Krysia’s early Saturday afternoon to confirm.” I turn and walk out the door into the anteroom, shaken and torn. Part of me had hoped that the Kommandant would regard the other night as just a one-time occurrence and not pursue me further. In reality, though, I had known that was not the case—the flowers, and the way he continued to look at me, said otherwise. And though I did not like to admit it, I was relieved that he wanted to see me again. It’s not because you care what he thinks of you, I lie to myself as I sit down behind the desk. You simply have to get back into his apartment to look for papers.