The Kommandant's Girl

by Pam Jenoff

  “Go now,” she orders as the sirens grow closer.

  “God bless you, Marta,” I say, bending to kiss her cheek. I release her hand and start running, making my way across the bridge. When I reach the end, I look back. Marta sits motionless by the Kommandant’s body, gun still clutched tightly in her hand, looking off into the distance.

  I climb down the steps of the bridge, then freeze. There is a large black sedan parked at the base of the bridge. The Kommandant’s car. So he had not been in the truck after all. Through the tinted glass windows, I can make out Stanislaw’s bald head. I consider running back up the steps of the bridge, but before I can react, the driver’s door opens and Stanislaw emerges. We eye each other uncertainly, neither of us speaking. A long moment of silence passes between us. “Dobry wieczor,” he says at last, bidding me good evening as though it were entirely usual for us to meet under these circumstances.

  “Dobry wieczor, Stanislaw,” I reply, my mind racing. Did he hear the shots? Is he wondering what became of the Kommandant? I keep my hands crossed to hide the bloodstains on my dress, praying that he does not notice. There is another awkward silence. The sirens are getting louder now. It is a matter of minutes before he realizes that the police are coming here. For a moment, I consider running. Then I remember the day I had encountered Stanislaw when taking the papers from the Kommandant’s apartment. Even after catching me in the act, he let me go without question. Maybe he really is sympathetic to the resistance. Then again, he is, or was, the Kommandant’s driver and probably a loyalist like Malgorzata. I cannot risk it.

  “Perhaps you would like a ride?” Stanislaw asks, breaking me from my thoughts. I look up. His face is impassive but there is a glint in his eye that makes me think that he knows what has happened and understands.

  So maybe Stanislaw really is on our side. Or perhaps it is a trap and he will deliver me to the Gestapo. Either way, I need to get back to Krysia’s right away and walking will take an hour that I do not have. I have to take a chance. “Yes, please, Stanislaw. To Krysia’s house as fast as you can.” Stanislaw nods and, moving more swiftly than I knew he could, opens the back door of the car. I slide in and he shuts the door behind me. The sirens are deafening now, the police almost upon the bridge. Stanislaw slams on the gas and the car takes off. He drives wildly through the streets, not stopping at the intersections and taking corners nearly on two wheels. He is going to attract attention, I worry as I grasp the seat in front of me tightly. We will be stopped by the police. Then I remember we are driving in the car of a high-ranking Nazi official; no one will dare to stop us.

  I sink back in the seat, suddenly overwhelmed by all that has happened. The Kommandant’s face appears suddenly in my mind. Don’t, I think, but it is too late: suddenly I am back on the bridge. I see the Kommandant, his gun trained upon me, his face racked with pain. His eyes were so desperate when he realized he was in love with a Jew, that fate had played the same cruel joke on him not once, but twice. Finding out the truth about me was like losing Margot all over again. He simply could not bear reliving that pain.

  I hear the shots in my mind and flinch as though they are real. Would he have actually been able to go through with shooting me? I wanted to believe that he could not, that he loved me too much. But he had loved Margot too, so how could I ever know for sure what might have happened if Marta had not arrived?

  Marta. I should not have left her, I think, a wave of guilt washing over me. She saved my life and I abandoned her to die. But she was right: the resistance, everything we have done, has been about survival. I had to go on because I could.

  My mind turns from all that has happened to the present situation. It will be a matter of minutes before the Gestapo realizes what has happened to the Kommandant and begins to investigate and will surely learn of our affair. I need to get out of Kraków as soon as possible. For a moment, I consider going directly to the forest to make my way to Czernichow and find Jacob, without stopping back at Krysia’s. But I need to go there one last time, to pick up the clothes and food she packed for my journey and to tell her all that has happened. To say goodbye to her and Lukasz.

  I look out the car window. We are almost at the roundabout at the top of Krysia’s street now. I lean forward to the front seat. “Stanislaw, stop here, please.” He obliges and looks back, puzzled. “The engine will attract attention on the street this time of night. Let me get out here.” He nods, then turns to open his door to get out and help me from the car. “No, it’s all right,” I say. “I can do this on my own.”

  He opens his mouth to start to argue. I realize that even after all that has happened tonight, it is this, not being allowed to do the simple duties of his job like opening the car door, that seems to trouble him most. Then his expression changes. “As you wish,” he says.

  “Thank you.” I open the car door, then turn to him again. “Stanislaw, after tonight, there will be questions. It may not be safe for you here.”

  He shakes his head, a determined look in his eyes. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

  He would have made a good resistance fighter, I think. Suddenly, I remember Alek saying something about the resistance having other spies around Wawel. Surely Stanislaw is not…I open my mouth to ask, but he reaches back and extends his hand. “Good luck.”

  He is right, of course; some things are best left unspoken. I take his hand, then lean forward awkwardly into the front seat to kiss his smooth, full cheek. “God bless you.” I open the door and leap out, then close it softly behind me.

  Taking quick, silent steps, I round the corner onto the deserted street, then stop, eyeing Krysia’s house with surprise. All of the lights in the house burn brightly through the windows, as though we had never gone to bed the night before. Even if Krysia had already awoken, she would have kept the house as dark as possible since I am supposed to be leaving in secret. Something is wrong. I race toward the house.

  A few meters farther, I halt once more. There is a military car parked in front of the house. Someone is here, I realize, my blood running cold. The Gestapo has come again.

  I hesitate, uncertain what to do. I have to help Krysia and Lukasz, but how? I cannot just walk into the house in the middle of the night with bloodstains on my dress; it will raise too many questions. For a moment I consider running away again. Those who can survive, must, Marta had said. But I cannot abandon Krysia and Lukasz. I have to do something. Desperately, I turn and duck behind the hedge on the side of the house.

  Crouching low, I make my way around to the back garden, as I had the night Jozef had brought me here. I peek in the window at the foyer, but it is deserted. They must be upstairs. Stepping back, I crane my neck to look up at the second-floor window. I can make out the heads of at least two men through the parlor curtains, but I cannot see what they are saying or doing. I sink back into the bushes, my mind racing. Why are they here? For a moment, I wonder if they know about the Kommandant and have come for me? Impossible, I realize. There is no way they could have figured it out already and gotten here before me, not with the way Stanislaw was driving. Perhaps it is the two Gestapo officers who came last time, making good on their threat to return with more questions. I look over at the cottage that the one officer had wanted to inspect last time, but the door remains closed. Maybe someone in the resistance leaked the plan of my escape and they are here to stop me.

  I should go for help, I think, then laugh inwardly at the notion. There is no help anymore. The resistance is all but gone. The one person who could have called the Gestapo off, Kommandant Richwalder, is dead. I picture Marta holding the gun on the bridge, ready to go down fighting. She would have known what to do.

  The gun, I remember suddenly, my hand dropping to my waist. I had nearly forgotten about the Kommandant’s pistol, still tucked neatly in my skirt. I pull it out. I have never fired a gun in my life. Would I even be able to do it properly? The Kommandant fired twice, which I imagine should mean that there are four bullets left. I turn the gun ove
r in my hand, considering. Suddenly, a loud, crashing noise comes through the second-floor window. I leap up. Something has happened. I have to go in. I pull the lever back on the gun and start around the corner of the house, my finger on the trigger. Just before I reach the door, I hear footsteps. Someone is coming down. I leap back around the side of the house, out of sight.

  Through the window, I can see three Gestapo policemen in the foyer. They are not the same ones that were here before. The front door opens. “The old woman was lying,” I hear one of the men say as they walk out into the garden. Oh, God, I think; they were interrogating Krysia. I wonder if they saw Lukasz.

  “I don’t think she knew anything more,” another replies. His voice is fainter and I can tell they are walking away from me toward the front gate.

  The first voice speaks again. “It doesn’t matter now.” Panic shoots through me. What have they done? I fight the urge to leap up before they have gone. A moment later, when the car doors have slammed and the car has sped away, I race into the house.

  “Krysia,” I call, sprinting up the first flight of stairs. There is no response. “Krysia!”

  I reach the first-floor landing. The house is in complete disarray. Broken glass and porcelain dishes litter the kitchen floor. In the parlor, the sofa pillows have been ripped open, scattering down feathers everywhere. I cross the room to the fireplace. A picture frame lies broken on the floor, the glass shattered. I bend down. It is my framed wedding photograph, the one Krysia hid on the night that I first arrived. The Gestapo must have found it somehow. So my secret will not die with the Kommandant. After more than a year of concealment, it has been revealed twice in one day.

  An acrid whiff of smoke fills my nostrils. This is not the usual smell of neighbors burning leaves and brush that sometimes wafts in through the windows. It is more intense and coming from inside the house. My head snaps around, searching for the source of the fire. It must be upstairs, I realize. “Krysia! Lukasz!” I call desperately, racing out of the parlor.

  I climb the stairs to the second floor two at a time. “Oh, no!” I cry aloud. At the top of the stairs, Krysia lies sprawled on the floor, her eyes closed. Her arms are flung above her head and her legs are tangled in her skirt at strange angles. She does not move. I drop to her side, lifting her head. “Krysia!” I shake her gently but she does not respond. There is a large welt by her temple, as though she had hit it when she had fallen or been knocked down. Her skin is waxy and cool. I lower my face to hers, feeling for some sign of breath, but there is none. Don’t leave me, Krysia, I plead silently. Not now, not when I need you to tell me what I should do. I open her mouth and place my lips over hers, trying to blow air into her lungs. A moment later, I stop, feeling for a pulse in her neck and finding none. It is too late, I realize; she is gone. “Oh, Krysia,” I cry. I hold her close, rocking her back and forth as she had when she’d tried to comfort me.

  Suddenly I hear a crackling sound behind me. The fire, I remember, looking around. I place Krysia’s head back on the ground gently and I stand up. The smoke seems to be coming from several directions and I cannot discern the source of the blaze. For a moment, I consider trying to put out the fire. But even if I could stop it, the smoke will attract attention. I have to find the child and then we must get out of here.

  I race to Lukasz’s bedroom. The smoke here is nearly too thick for me to see. “Lukasz!” I call, covering my mouth and crouching low. He is not in his crib or on the floor. “Lukasz!” I shout again, running to Krysia’s room, and finally my own. Even through the smoke, I can tell that the Gestapo had searched the house thoroughly—every room is in shambles, clothes strewn from the dressers, mirrors smashed. But there is no sign of Lukasz. Did they do something with him? I wonder.

  Perhaps he ran outside, I think, starting back down the stairs. Then I hear a creaking noise coming from overhead. The attic! I remember Krysia telling me how, after Lukasz’s mother had been shot, relatives had hidden him in their attic for several days. He must have been frightened when the Gestapo had come and gone there to hide.

  I race into Krysia’s room and throw open the closet door. Pushing aside Krysia’s clothes, I climb up the ladder. “Lukasz,” I call through the opening. There is silence. I cannot make out anything in the darkness. “Lukasz, it’s Anna. It’s all right, come to me.”

  I hear shuffling in the dark, then a tiny warm hand finds mine. “Na,” I hear him say. I grab his arm and pull his small, trembling body to me. “It’s okay,” I say, holding him close and climbing back down the stairs. The smoke has grown thicker now. We have to get out fast. I grab a rag from Krysia’s dresser and place it over Lukasz’s mouth. As we start to leave the room, I see a flash of blue out of the corner of my eye. It is the sweater Krysia made for Lukasz. I grab it to take with us.

  As we cross the hallway to where Krysia lies, I cover Lukasz’s eyes so he will not see her. He has already seen too much death. I climb over Krysia and start down the stairs, then turn back. Krysia. My heart wrenches. She had been everything to us. Saved us. Cared for us as if we were her own. So you became a mother, after all, I think. I wish that we could take her with us. She deserves a proper burial. A funeral where the hundreds who loved and admired her could come to pay their respects. But there is no time. “Thank you,” I whisper, looking at her one last time. I blow her a kiss, and run out with Lukasz into the cold morning air.

  CHAPTER 26

  Outside, it is nearly dawn and the farmers of Chelmska are just beginning their day. They feed their livestock and sweep their front porches as if it is any other morning. Some look up and nod as we pass, others do not acknowledge us at all as we walk up the road into the forest. If they think it strange that I am walking toward the woods carrying a soot-covered child, instead of to the bus stop at the roundabout for work as I normally would, they give no indication. They have not yet seen the smoke that will surely pour out of Krysia’s house within minutes.

  As we climb the road that winds upward into the forest, the houses grow fewer and farther apart. Ahead the trees are dense, their dark cover a promise. Soon the road ends, trickling into a narrow forest path. I pause and turn to look at the neighborhood below. The roofs of the houses look sleepy, unperturbed. Enough, I think. There is no point in dwelling on what must be left behind. I look down at the ground beneath me. There is a thin layer of frost that I had not noticed previously. I am suddenly aware of my circumstances: the cold, the heaviness of the child, how far we have to go. The fact that we have nothing.

  A sense of urgency overtakes me. We must keep going. Shifting Lukasz to my left hip, I begin to walk again. Safely enveloped by the trees and out of the eyesight of the neighbors, I quicken my pace now, nearly running, my gait awkward with the girth of my stomach and the weight of the child. The path grows uneven and steep. My legs begin to ache and my shoes become caked with damp spring mud. Suddenly, my foot catches on a rock and I lurch forward, tripping. As I fall, I cling fiercely to the child, hitting the ground first and rolling to break his fall. A wave of pain shoots through my shoulder.

  I lay dazed for a few seconds, trying to catch my breath. “Lukasz…” I sit up and pull the child onto my lap. Quickly, I check him for injury, but he seems fine, except for some dirt on his already-blackened forehead. “Are you okay?” He nods silently and makes the face that I know means he is hungry. My stomach twists. He should be having breakfast now, safe and warm at Krysia’s table. I wish that I at least had some milk to give him. I should have remembered to take the rations Krysia had prepared for our travels. The rabbi’s reproachful face flashes in my mind. What kind of caretaker will I make without Krysia? Will I be able to care for my own child when he or she is born? I reach into my coat pocket and find an old square of chocolate from a bar the Kommandant had given me once. I pull back the paper and dust it off before handing it to Lukasz. “Here.” He takes it and puts it in his mouth hurriedly, as though afraid it will disappear. A wide smile appears on his face. Chocolate for breakfast
.

  Still trying to catch my breath, I study his face as he eats. Not an hour after the trauma of the Gestapo and the fire and leaving Krysia’s, his eyes are clear and calm. So you are coming with me after all, I think. “Come, darling,” I say, standing up. Remembering the blue sweater, I take it from inside my coat and pull it over his head. It fits snugly, almost too small for him. He has gotten so big in the year that he has been with us. Despite all of the tragedy and tension, he has thrived, growing from a toddler to a child when none of us were looking. My child. I cannot think of him as anything else, though I still wonder if someday the rabbi or some other relative will come looking for him, and claim him for their own. For now, though, he is here. I squeeze his solid fingers in mine, as if to be sure. He looks up and smiles, as if to reassure me that everything will be okay.

  “Safe,” I say aloud. Then I realize that this is far from true. We are hundreds of long, dangerous kilometers from safe. No, not safe, but free. I have no idea where we are going or how, and I don’t know if we will make it. Still, the word has an undeniable ring to it. “Free.” I will not have to be someone else again.

  “Fee?” Lukasz reaches up to me as he tries to repeat the word. I look down at him. There is chocolate on his fingers. I reach into my pocket to find a tissue to wipe them. My hand brushes against something in my pocket. The rings and the certificate, I remember suddenly. Marta had handed them to me on the bridge. Once again I consider whether I should get rid of them, bury them in the ground. Then I realize that, for better or for worse, the charade is over. I take the rings from my pocket and put them on my fingers once more.

  As we make our way through the woods, I think of those we have left behind. Krysia and Alek are gone, my mother, too. I will grieve for them all in time, I know, each in a different way. And then there’s the Kommandant. I see his face before me suddenly, and stop, my breath catching. “Don’t,” I tell myself aloud, but even as I say the word, I know that it is no use. The face I see in my mind is not that of the Nazi who lorded over the city from high atop Wawel, or who held a gun to my chest on the bridge. No, he is gone. Instead, I see the man who walked into Krysia’s the night of the dinner party, who caught my eyes and didn’t let go, who brought me to new places in my body and held me afterward as I slept. The man who asked forgiveness as he lay dying on the railway bridge. I realize then that it was not only he who died in that moment. The Kommandant brought Anna to life, and when he was gone, she was, too. Anna Lipowski, I think. The Kommandant’s girl. I wonder if I will miss her.