Playing for the Commandant

by Suzy Zail

  Our convoy wound its way through the narrow streets of the ghetto and out the front gate, past the town hall and my school, the library and the park. It had been two weeks since I’d seen the fountains and domes and stained-glass windows of Debrecen Square, and I longed to jump from the truck and run through the streets. I wondered how the ducks in Debrecen Gardens were faring. No one had bread to spare.

  Hatvan Street was unusually quiet for a weekday. The few people who sat at the sidewalk cafés studied their menus in silence or scurried indoors as we passed. We rumbled past a familiar cream building.

  “Leo!” Father gasped.

  Leo Bauer stood on his second-floor balcony, his eyes fixed on our truck, his face drained of color. The old watchmaker had worked for Father for fifteen years, until Mendel’s Watch Emporium was shut down, and Leo and the rest of Father’s non-Jewish employees were forced to leave their benches. The government had promised to find Leo work elsewhere, but the old man had refused.

  “I know that man!” Leo pointed at my father, but the guards ignored him. “I know his family. They’re good people. They’ve done nothing wrong.” His voice echoed across the street. Behind half-drawn curtains and slanted shutters, his neighbors looked out at us, but no one stepped onto their balconies to join his protest. Leo’s face crumpled. He raised his hand and waved good-bye.

  A group of boys playing ball on the street moved to the curb as our convoy rumbled past. They didn’t duck into doorways or turn away. They raised their right arms.

  “Heil Hitler!” they chanted, running after the trucks. “Heil Hitler.”

  Erika grabbed the rails of the truck and leaned out as far as she could. Her eyes were wild, her cheeks flushed. She opened her mouth.

  “Don’t!” I grabbed her arm. “You’ll get us shot.” Erika clenched the rails; her knuckles were white. She turned back to the boys.

  “Screw Hitler!” she whispered under her breath. “Screw all of you!” She let go of the rails and slumped to the floor.

  We arrived at the Serly brickyards, on the outskirts of town, in the early afternoon. I clambered off the truck after my father and followed him through the gates. We weren’t the first to arrive. Swarms of people from the surrounding villages and hamlets had already made their beds on the dusty dry ground. Their faces were grimy and their clothes dirty. They looked like they’d been there for days. Last year I’d camped under the stars in the Puszta Forest with Father and three friends. I could sleep outdoors again, for a few days. I looked at my father uncertainly.

  “I know it seems bad,” he said, “but if we stick together, we’ll be okay.”

  Erika opened her mouth to say something. I shot her a look, and she held her tongue. Papa was trying to convince himself.

  I scanned the yard. There must have been more than a thousand people crammed into the brickyard, with more pouring in. I looked at the families camped outdoors, the contents of their suitcases scattered about them. Underwear flapped in the warm wind, strung out along the barbed-wire fence. An old man, stripped to his waist, was bent over a steaming pot of water, washing himself, soaping his soft belly and the sagging skin under his arms, and all I could think was, I want to go home; I need to go home. He pulled a dripping rag from the bowl, loosened his belt, and reached for his zipper. I looked down at my feet. I didn’t want the first naked body I saw to be old, pale, and shriveled.

  We picked our way around bundles, bags, and bedrolls, looking for an empty patch of earth. I recognized a few faces — my sixth-grade teacher, the woman who worked in the post office, the Rabbi’s wife — but I didn’t wave or say hello.

  I stepped over an elderly woman curled up on the ground and followed Father past a boy brushing his teeth over a metal bowl and a man sobbing into his prayer book.

  “Let’s make camp here,” Father said. “At least we’ll have some shelter.” He set our bags down beside a disused brick kiln.

  I peered inside. The ground was littered with bricks where the roof and the walls had collapsed, but there was enough room for the four of us to stretch out to sleep.

  Father rolled up his pant legs, dropped to his knees, and began clearing the rubble. When the floor had been cleaned, he pulled a quilt from his bag and smoothed it over the hard concrete.

  “There’s room for your bags,” he said, standing up and dusting himself off. I tried to smile, but it was all too sad, the crumbling shelter, my mother’s awful silence, my father’s forced smile. I pulled the C-sharp from my bag and hid it under my blanket. I wanted to change into clothes that didn’t smell, but there was a boy on a blanket just a few feet away. He was reading a book, and his eyes kept wandering from the page. Erika smiled at him.

  “He’s got good taste,” she whispered in my ear. She pulled the ribbon from her braid and loosened her hair so that it tumbled over her shoulders. “Let’s look for a shower. My hair’s filthy.”

  We didn’t find a shower, just a dozen toilets at the far end of the brickyard, and a line that wound its way around the latrine building three times. We waited to use the toilet while others left the line in search of a tree or stone wall. Inside the block, the floors were wet with urine and the toilets jammed with soiled tissues. The place reeked. Still, it was better than squatting outside. I held my nose and crouched over the bowl.

  By nightfall I was starving. Mother emptied a jar of chicken fat into a pot, and Father carried it to the fire that burned in the middle of the yard. When he returned, we dipped our bread into the melted fat and pretended we were eating fried chicken. The boy on the blanket eyed us enviously. He was drinking the watery soup the guards had doled out.

  “He hasn’t eaten since breakfast,” Erika said, but Mother just shrugged. “His parents are dead.” Erika waited for a reaction, but Mother’s face stayed slack, her eyes glassy. Erika threw up her hands and walked away.

  “Mother’s getting worse,” I whispered. My father turned away and pretended not to hear. He lifted the empty pot from the ground and busied himself cleaning it. She was losing her mind. My mother was going mad. It had started subtly. She forgot to turn off the stove; she had trouble falling asleep; she cleaned obsessively. Then she forgot street names, the names of her friends. Some days she forgot to talk at all. Father said she was tired, but it was more than that. She looked dazed. She fought it, resurfacing from the darkness from time to time to smile at us or ask about school, but the current was too strong; it kept pulling her under.

  “It’s late,” Father said. He unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it off. “We should get some sleep.” He pulled his wire-rimmed glasses from the bridge of his nose. My father had never undressed in front of me before. At home, he would loosen his tie and disappear into the bedroom to undress, reappearing the next morning for breakfast in a silk robe with a belt knotted at his waist. I hadn’t seen my father in his underwear since I was six. I didn’t want to see him undress. Not because I’d be embarrassed by his nakedness, but because stripped to his underwear, he’d look like everybody else. His fine linen shirt spoke of his success in business; his spectacles hinted at his love of books. In his black pants and leather belt, he was still Samuel Mendel of Mendel’s Watch Emporium. Stripped to his underwear, he was just another Jew. I turned away.

  Around the brickworks, fires were being put out and children put to bed. Guards prowled the perimeter fence. Father went to the toilet and Mother lay down. Erika slipped into the kiln, curled up on the floor, and closed her eyes. I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t escape the smells and sounds of so many bodies so close to mine. I crawled out of bed. Father was sitting in front of the kiln cross-legged, looking up at the ink-black sky. I sat down next to him.

  “Why do they hate us, Papa?”

  He looked at me for a long time before answering. “It’s because we’re different, Hanna, and people are scared of different.”

  “Different?” I kept my voice low. “I have blue eyes, like them, and blond hair. I’m as smart as they are — probably smarter.”

/>   Father’s voice was sad. “Your mother lights the Sabbath candles, Hanna. You walk to synagogue. To them you are a Jew and you’ll always be a Jew. Be proud of that difference.”

  It was hard to be proud when your hair was filthy and your clothes smelled. I didn’t like being different, and right at that moment, I didn’t much like being a Jew.

  The days passed slowly. It grew hotter and more crowded. Convoys arrived daily, and the line for the toilets grew longer. By the fifth day, all we had left was a jar of preserved plums, a piece of cheese, four pickles, and a handful of crackers. Father traded the jar of plums for a pitcher of water, and I drank from it greedily, my enjoyment tempered by the knowledge I would soon need the toilet. Erika took a sip of water and used the rest of her share to wash the dirt from her face. I was still wearing my soiled sundress. Looking down at my bare legs, at my knees crusted with mud and my toes blackened by dust, I thought of Daniel Gruber, a weedy boy fond of picking his scabs, and the first of my classmates to call me a dirty Jew. I couldn’t argue with Daniel Gruber now.

  Erika wanted to go for a walk. She scooped a pickled cucumber from Mother’s jar, slung her camera over her shoulder, and grabbed my hand, then stepped from the kiln, dropping the cucumber into the lap of the boy on the blanket. I didn’t call out or turn to tell Mother; the boy’s grin was too wide. I didn’t want to go with Erika — it was safer to stay out of sight — but she was going with or without me, and I couldn’t let her wander the yard alone. She was bound to get into trouble. I made her promise not to photograph the guards, and we set off, picking our way through the crowd, careful not to step on a sleeping child or overturn a pot of food. We walked past toddlers playing in the dirt and mothers reading stories to their children. We saw men praying and women crying, children begging for food and people too sick to get up off the dusty ground. Those who were too tired to stand in line for soup picked through piles of rotting garbage.

  Along a stretch of barbed wire, a market of sorts had been set up. Men and women trying to sell the remnants of their previous life: porcelain figurines, linen tablecloths, candelabras, schoolbooks. They didn’t ask for money in return for their goods, just food. I watched an elderly man trade a crystal vase for a piece of bread, and a pregnant woman exchange a silver candlestick for a slice of beef. She nibbled at the meat and pulled a second candlestick from her bag.

  “I knew Father was lying,” I said, pulling the camera from Erika’s face, “and you’re lying, too. Those people, back there, selling their candlesticks and vases . . . Father said the war’s almost over. He said we’d be home soon. So why are they selling everything?”

  “Fathers lie.” Erika shrugged. “It’s part of the job.” Erika put her hand on my arm. “He wants to protect you.”

  “From what?” My head was pounding. I could feel the tears welling up inside.

  “Nothing.” Erika smiled her big-sister smile, the one she used when she wanted to cheer me up. “Forget I said anything. I’m just tired and crabby. No one’s lying. Papa told you the war’s almost over because he thinks it is.”

  “And what about you? What do you think?” I looked up at my sister.

  “I don’t know, Hanna. All I know is that I’ll do whatever it takes to get home. And you’re coming with me.”

  I wanted to go with her. I wanted to be back in our apartment, in my own room, my own bed. But Erika couldn’t get us there — not on her own. I couldn’t help her if Papa continued to keep the truth from me. I walked back to the brick kiln, bubbling with anger.

  I wasn’t a child. I was fifteen, and I needed to know what was going on. I needed a plan. That’s how I’d won my place at the conservatorium. I wasn’t as gifted as Magda Malek or as charming as Ilonka Bardos. I’d won my place because I worked harder and practiced more than anyone else. Magda skipped practice for parties, and Ilonka took risks, adding her own interpretation to her pieces. I played by the rules, and so far, it had worked for me. If I was going to make it back home with Erika, I needed to know where we were going and what was expected of us.

  It wasn’t dark when we arrived back at the kiln from our walk, but Father was already asleep. He was still wearing his black pants, but he’d taken off his shirt and was sleeping on the ground in his undershirt. My mother slept beside him, her head on his bundled shirt. They were holding hands. I didn’t wake him, and later, when he slipped from the kiln and unzipped his pants to pee, I pretended I was asleep.

  “We’re leaving tomorrow,” Father said the next morning, but he didn’t sound glad. “We have to be packed and ready to go at six o’clock.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know,” Father said quietly. “I’ve heard mention of camps in Poland. . . .”

  “Poland, Austria, Italy. What does it matter?” Mother had barely spoken the last five days. Now she spoke hurriedly, nervously, her words rushing after each other. “If they take us to a camp, at least we’ll live like humans. We’ll have beds and clean sheets and the floors will be swept, and if we work, they’ll feed us.” She rummaged through the food bag and pulled out a broken cracker, then she held the bag upside down. When nothing fell from it, she turned it inside out and shook it again. “I hear the camps in Austria are like vacation resorts. Much nicer than the ones in Poland.”

  I glanced at Erika. She was staring at Mother and biting her lip. She wasn’t angry with her, just sad. Mother tossed the empty bag aside. “I’m sure we’ll find a piano there for you, Hanna.” She smiled, but she wasn’t looking at me when she spoke. She was gazing out across the yard at no one in particular.

  We were allowed one small bag each. I had my backpack, Mother had the empty food bag, and Father unhappily stuffed his velvet prayer bag with a change of clothes. Erika borrowed a bag from the boy on the blanket.

  “How are we supposed to pack when we don’t know where we’re going?” I asked, opening my suitcase and running my fingers over my yellow organza gown. I pulled a clean cotton dress from under the gown and shoved it into my pack.

  Erika crammed a bra, a pair of stockings, and a nightdress into her bag, before placing the camera gently inside.

  Father grabbed her arm. “Not the camera, Erika. You’ll be caught, and I don’t want to think what they’ll do to you.”

  Erika pried Father’s fingers from her arm. “They’re the ones who should be punished, Papa. We can’t let them get away with this.” She dropped his hand and turned back to her bag.

  A tear slid down my father’s cheek. He brushed it away with the back of his hand, but it was too late; I’d seen my father cry — my unflappable, courageous, strong, smart father. I reached out to him, but he didn’t notice; he was looking at Erika.

  “You’re right,” he said. “They shouldn’t get away with it, but you’re not going to stop them and neither will that camera. I’m sorry. It’s too dangerous.”

  Erika brushed her lips against my father’s bristly chin and lifted the camera out of the bag. “Okay, Papa.”

  A voice boomed over a loudspeaker. Father turned toward the noise, and Erika lowered the camera back into her bag.

  I turned to Erika. “You can’t take it,” I began, but Father hushed me.

  We were to line up immediately and take our valuables with us. I looked around, confused. We weren’t meant to leave until tomorrow! Erika pointed at a cluster of tables set up in the middle of the yard. Each was manned by two Hungarian policemen. A banner hung from each table. The first bore the word PAPERS, the second PERSONAL EFFECTS, and the third VALUABLES. People were already standing in line. Those at the front were pushed toward the tables and forced to unzip their cases or tip them up. They poured their passports, family photos, and birth certificates onto the first table. The second table disappeared under cameras, fur stoles, and silk scarves. The third table was cleared every few minutes by an SS guard clutching a leather briefcase into which he piled watches, wedding bands, and coins and bills pulled from wallets and purses.

  We fell in
to line with our bag of valuables: my letter of acceptance from the Budapest Conservatorium, the engraved silver fountain pen Mother had given me on my twelfth birthday for my bat mitzvah, Erika’s final school report, and the cuff links father had worn on his wedding day. Erika said she had nothing of value to hand over, and I wasn’t going to start an argument, not when we were in line. I pulled the photo of Clara Schumann in its silver frame from my suitcase and handed it to my mother along with the leather-bound book of Clara’s early compositions. You couldn’t tell I’d torn two pages from the book. Not unless you looked really closely.

  “Excuse me, but I really must keep these,” Mother said, waving our documents in front of the officers at the PAPERS table. “They’re just bits of paper. They’d be of no value to you, but they’re terribly important for Erika and Hanna.” Mother introduced Erika and me to the officers as if they were suitors coming to tea. She was holding up the line, but the officers didn’t hurry her. They seemed amused by the distraction. They bowed theatrically. Erika scowled at the men. I ignored them.

  “Erika is going to apply to the university. She’s very bright,” Mother said earnestly. “She’ll need her school report for admission.” The officers began to snigger, but Mother didn’t notice. They’re teasing you, I wanted to yell at her. They’re laughing at you. Please. Stop. But she didn’t.

  “And Hanna here.” She put her arm around me. “She’ll be taking up her position as a soloist at the Budapest Conservatorium.”

  Father reached over and took my mother’s elbow in his hand. He looked worried. “Mira,” he whispered gently, “enough.”

  But my mother didn’t seem to hear. She pulled free of my father’s grip, apologized to the smaller of the two officers — a stout man with a sunburned nose — and handed him my letter of acceptance. The officer inspected the notice and handed it to his partner with a wink.

  He turned to my mother. “Most impressive. Unfortunately, we can’t let you keep your papers. We could put them in safekeeping, though.”