Playing for the Commandant

by Suzy Zail

  I took a deep breath and returned to the sonata. Piri had always said, if you’re nervous, find one person in the audience and play for them. I didn’t know who Piri played for when she performed for the SS, but I chose Karl.

  “I’d rather listen to music.” Karl’s eyes flickered toward me. Marthe’s mouth sagged. I bit my lip so I wouldn’t smile and played Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, hoping Karl would understand. I played it softly, daring him to listen.

  “Karl sings, you know.” The commandant’s voice cut through the closing bars. He turned to his son. “Sing for our guests.”

  He had me play “Ave Maria.” I played Schubert’s notes, and Karl sang the words. A pitch-perfect baritone, just as I’d remembered. But there was something else in his singing, something new, a shimmering in the top register, a dark power in the lower notes. An urgency I hadn’t noticed before.

  I didn’t look up from the keyboard until the last refrain. The commandant was sitting in the front row, the Lagerführerin behind him. He was leaning forward in his seat, muttering into the carpet, his fingers at his temple, his face glazed with sweat. I’d kept my head down. I’d been careful. He couldn’t have guessed I was playing the song for Karl. The commandant rose from his chair.

  “I have a headache,” he said, lurching toward the piano. “No more music.” He pointed his baton at me, then laid it down on the lid. “Go home.”

  The commandant stumbled from the room.

  Karl turned to Lagerführerin Holzman. “I’m sorry, but I have to arrange for the girl’s escort.”

  I slipped from the piano, bowed to the Lagerführerin, and followed Karl from the room. We walked down the hallway, through the kitchen, and out the back door into the still, muddied light, the two of us standing there under the same square of sky.

  “How did you know?” Karl stopped under the snowy branches of the weeping willow.

  “Know what?” The guard at the front gate had his back to us and his scarf wrapped around his ears, but I whispered anyway.

  “The Moonlight Sonata — it’s my favorite.” His cheeks flushed, and then he looked at me — not past me, or through me, but at me. It was like stepping into the spotlight from a darkened stage.

  “I’m sorry I can’t walk you home.” He shifted from one foot to the other, and then the guard turned around and Karl’s smile fell away.

  I walked back to camp, pulling Karl’s words apart and putting them back together, trying to piece together the puzzle of his affection. After a time, I couldn’t remember what he’d said, only what I wanted him to say — that I was more to him than a Jew in need of saving.

  It was dark by the time I reached Birkenau. The cold gnawed at my fingers and clung to my skin. I saw Michael Wollner in a column of boys heading back to camp. He saw me and smiled, but I couldn’t smile back. I turned away, but everywhere I looked there were more Michael Wollners — stick-thin boys in blue-and-white rags with heads like peeled onions and limbs like twigs. Boys who might never fall in love or be kissed. I’d left the villa thinking about Karl, imagining what it might feel like to touch and be touched by him. I watched the dark, skeletal boys disappear into the steel-gray dusk, and I felt like a traitor.

  “They’re losing the war,” I told Erika as I huddled against her for warmth. The wind whistled through the cracks in the barrack walls, and the cold crept into our beds. An airplane roared overhead. “It’s the Russians. They’re coming. Everyone’s talking about it.” Erika didn’t raise her head from the mattress. “The commandant’s miserable,” I persisted. “He must know it’s over.”

  The commandant had asked me to play only twice in the last week, and when he did, he had me play military marches with rousing crescendos in strict 4/4 time. Karl stayed away from the music room. He hated the music his father had me play. I hated it, too, mostly for the transformation it wrought on the commandant. He’d enter the room sullen and exhausted and leave an hour later, galvanized for battle. Karl and I spoke less; the house was too quiet. The officers who assisted the commandant moved soundlessly through the rooms, and the soldiers who guarded the villa patrolled the grounds like bloodhounds. People skulked around with dour expressions. No one made small talk.

  “So the Russians are coming. When? Tomorrow? Next week?” Erika shrugged. “I can’t wait another month.” She pulled herself up to rest on an elbow. She looked pale and worn. Her eyes were glassy, and she was hot to the touch. I wanted to stroke her forehead, but I kept my hands by my sides. She was still angry about Karl.

  She lay back on the bed, and her eyes drifted shut. When her breathing slowed and I was certain she’d fallen asleep, I lay down next to her and closed my eyes.

  I dragged my sister out of bed the next morning, washed her face, and helped her dress. I made her promise she’d march to the quarry and march back again. I promised her green beans and turnips for dinner. I asked her to be brave.

  “I’m tired of being brave. I’m tired of being hungry.” She clawed at her scalp and stepped into the breakfast line. “We lug rocks from one side of the quarry to the other. Then they march us to the same spot and make us drag the rocks back again.”

  “So, drag them back. You’ve lasted this long,” I whispered.

  “Drag them back?” Erika grabbed my arm. The women around us turned and stared. “What would you know about lugging rocks? You sit at the piano all day in front of a goddamn fire.”

  “Not you, too,” I said, but in truth I’d been waiting for this moment, expecting it. “I didn’t ask to audition. You told me to. You told me to do it to feed Anyu.” I dragged Erika away from the food line. “I didn’t know things would turn out like this.”

  Erika peeled my fingers from her arm and stepped back into line. I looked at my sister. She was the only other person who’d heard the same bedtime stories as me, camped in the same forests, eaten the same meals. I couldn’t do this without her. What I’d wanted to say to her was that we were meant to survive. That prisoner at the station — the one with the weeping eye — he had told me to say I was sixteen. Then Mengele had pointed us both to the left and we got to share a barrack. I won the commandant’s audition even though I wasn’t the best pianist. We had extra food. We were meant to survive.

  The SS closed the quarry the next day. When I told Karl our barrack was to be deployed to a nearby factory, his face crumpled. He fled from the music room and returned a few hours later looking relieved and exhausted. He’d persuaded his father that he needed piano accompaniment to practice for an upcoming performance.

  “You’re not going with them. I’ve arranged everything.”

  “But I have to go. I want to go.” I fought to keep my voice low.

  Karl look confused.

  “It’s already done. Father’s contacting the camp authorities as we speak.”

  I should have been flattered. Karl had intervened on my behalf. He’d lied to his father to keep me close. He didn’t want me gone, even for a day. And part of me was flattered; part of me was thrilled. But I was also angry. My sister needed my help. I wanted to be with Karl, but I needed to be with Erika, especially now, when things were so fragile between us.

  “Tell him your plans changed. Tell him I don’t want to accompany you. He’ll send me back to camp and then I can be with Erika.”

  “No.” Karl shook his head. “He won’t send you back. He’ll . . .” His eyes jerked up to the window. His father was outside, calling to his driver. Karl looked at me.

  “You don’t know my father. You don’t know what he’ll do.”

  “So tell me.”

  Karl exhaled. “I had a nanny,” he began slowly. “Father hired her to care for me after my mother died. He was never around.” He walked to the window and stared out at the bare branches of the plum tree. “Liesl raised me. She took me to the park and to concerts. She taught me to read and draw and sing. I loved her. He knew that.” His breath fogged up the pane. “He joined the SS when I was six, and a few weeks later, he sent me to stay w
ith my grandparents. When I got back, she was gone. Her room was empty.” He turned to face me, the words spilling out of him. “When I asked my father where she was, he said that she’d lied to us. That she was a Jew, as if that explained everything.” His face flushed with anger. “I’ve never forgiven him.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “I don’t want your pity.” His anger drained away. “I just need you to understand what kind of man he is. He sent Liesl away. Think what he’d do to you if . . .” He shook his head. “She was the closest thing I had to a mother.” He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he looked lost.

  “What happened to your mother?”

  “She died a long time ago.” He took a seat at the back of the room and pulled a silver chain from his pocket. Dangling at the end of the chain was an antique silver locket. “I have a photo of her.” He held up the locket. “I found it buried under some papers in my father’s desk.” He pressed a catch on the side of the heart-shaped locket, and it sprang open. “My father’s photo was on this side.” He pointed to the left side of the locket. It was empty. On the right was a black-and-white photo of a beautiful woman with pale eyes and glossy hair. “That was my mother, Hilde. It’s the only photo I have of her.” He shut the clasp and slipped the necklace into his pocket.

  His only photo? There were no picture frames in the hallway, and no personal photos in the music room. I’d just assumed the commandant and Karl stockpiled their memories upstairs.

  “The commandant won’t let me go,” I told Erika as we stepped from the barrack. It was the morning of our hike to the factory, and our toes were already numb. She seemed relieved.

  I made her take my coat. I did up the buttons, pulled the collar close around her neck. She was so small and so frail. She used to tower over me, fill a room, turn heads. “About Karl,” I began, but she shook her head. I followed her to the main gate and watched her drag her feet through the snow until she grew smaller and smaller and the fog swallowed her up. I turned toward Osweicim. In an hour, I’d be in front of a roaring fire and she’d still be out here, in the cold, on her own.

  The commandant was already in his study when I arrived at the villa. His door was open, and SS officers were pulling documents from his filing cabinets, running outside with them and setting them alight. Gunfire erupted in the distance. The Russians had to be close. I slipped into the music room, grabbed a rag, and started dusting. The wind howled through the open front door, and snowflakes settled on the polished floors. Erika was out there.

  When Karl walked into the music room, I couldn’t look at him. I rehearsed a Chopin sonata in my head to ease the silence, from the stormy opening to the end of the third movement — the funeral march.

  “I’ll go if you like.” Karl waited for a moment. I walked to the cupboard, threw in the rag, and shut the door. I didn’t answer him. I let him walk out the door. It was easier that way. Better for everyone.

  I spent the rest of the day counting the minutes until I could return to the barrack. The walk home was torturous. I followed the guard into the shower block, changed into my old dress, ran the last steps to our barrack, and flung the door open. The room was empty. I checked the camp square and the latrines. I checked the huts to our left and the barracks on our right. Erika wasn’t in any of them. Neither was the block leader, the green triangles, nor any of the other women with whom we slept. I returned to our barrack and waited. No one called me for roll call, and no one brought dinner. I crawled onto the floor and sat by the door, grinding my teeth. I hummed Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit, but I couldn’t get inside the music. The sky turned black and still no one came. I grabbed a blanket, kicked the door open, and sat on the steps in the moonless cold, looking out. There were no spirals of smoke floating up from the chimneys. No truck tires spitting gravel. No guards with guns. Just the startling cold. I left the door open and waited for Erika, but she never came.

  No one did.

  I don’t know who found me shivering in the doorway, or what time of day it was when I was dragged from the barrack to another hut, three doors down. The new block leader introduced herself and assigned me a bunk. I stood at the window, wrapped in a blanket, and stared out at the charcoal sky.

  “They’re not coming back.”

  I turned from the window to see who had spoken. A girl with jutting-out bones and a pointy nose sat up in her bunk. She was all angles — gangly arms hanging from her narrow shoulders, and a head too large for her pale, thin neck. “We’re all that’s left.” She motioned to the women lying next to her, their eyes empty, their bodies still. My mother wasn’t among them. I turned back to the window. The camp square was deserted, the watchtowers empty. The door of the barrack opposite swung on its hinge. No one was inside. An elderly woman in rags walked between the barracks, her body bent against the wind. An SS officer hurried past.

  “Where is everyone? Where’ve they gone?” I asked the girl.

  “I don’t know. I was in barrack 12. We were told we were hiking to a factory, so I snuck in here.”

  “My sister went with them,” I said. “They were meant to come back last night.” My legs were shaking. I reached for a bunk and sat down.

  “There are no factories.” The block leader stood before us, her thin arms crossed over her drooping chest. “The SS are leaving because they know the Red Army is on its way, and they’ve taken everyone with them — everyone who’s still useful to them, anyway. They didn’t clear out the infirmary.” She looked around the room. “Or take us. Probably didn’t think we’d make it.”

  “Make it?”

  “To the other camps. Word is they’re headed north.”

  “Other camps? How far away?”

  She looked at me with something resembling sympathy.

  “Three days’ walk, maybe four.”

  I ran to the door and pushed it open. I staggered outside, pulled off my boots, and stood in my flimsy dress, barefoot in the ankle-deep snow. I let the wind whip my cheeks and the cold seep into my bones. Erika was out there somewhere. She didn’t have boots, a scarf, or mittens. Four days . . . I took one step, then another. My feet grew numb, but I walked on till I couldn’t feel my fingers or my face or the pain in my chest. I walked past the watchtower to the main gate.

  A guard stopped me. “You’re the commandant’s girl?”

  I nodded dumbly.

  “You want to head left, then, not right. Has the commandant sent for you?” He looked confused.

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, he did.”

  He looked down at my feet and shook his head. “I can’t deliver you like that. Go find some shoes.”

  The villa was deserted. A lone guard stood at the front gate, his eyes on the road, his hand on his gun. There were no cars in the driveway, no guards in the hall. Rosa wasn’t lurking on the stairs, and Ivanka wasn’t at the sink. Mr. Zielinski was gone, too. The house was dark. I crept along the silent corridors and stopped at the open door of the commandant’s study. The desk was empty and the bookshelves bare. I picked up the wastepaper basket.

  “There’s nothing in there. I already checked.”

  I spun around. Karl was standing in the hallway. He grabbed my hand and pulled me to the music room.

  “My father’s gone to Kraków. They’ve all left.” He reached for the drapes and pulled them apart. “Except for him,” he said, pointing to the guard at the gate.

  “You knew, didn’t you?” I stepped toward him.

  “I tried to tell you yesterday.”

  “You should have. I could’ve done something for Erika.” I stood in front of him. “You could’ve done something. . . .” Karl hung his head. “You’re the commandant’s son. You can do whatever you want.” He didn’t answer. “You say you hate the war.” My temper flared. “But I don’t believe you!” I knew that what I said made no sense, but it felt good to fight back. Good to blame someone other than myself.

  “I tried. I’m sorry.” His voice was so low, it was almost a whi
sper.

  “No, you’re not,” I said. “If you were sorry, you’d be out there doing something to get her back.” I grabbed his shirt. “It’s not too late. You could get a car and a driver. You could find out where they are.” I was still holding on to his shirt, the cotton crushed between my fingers, my hands balled against his chest. “She’s all I have left.” I slumped against him. “You have to help. You have to save her.” The sky sparked white, and the windows rattled. Karl looked at me and shook his head.

  “I can’t.”

  “Can’t?” I ran from the room. I flung the front door open and stepped onto the porch. It was bitterly cold, but I couldn’t go back inside, not with Erika out there. I ran onto the road and tramped through the snow, sinking deeper into the drifts with each step. The villa disappeared and then the street signs, too. I stood in the blinding white, tears dripping from my chin, not knowing whether to head left or right. I didn’t see Karl until he was by my side. His hair was speckled with snow, his shirt wet.

  “Come inside,” he begged, pulling me to him.

  I didn’t take his hand, but I followed him home. I sat at the piano without opening the lid, facing away from him, too exhausted to speak. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to do, so I sat there, mute.

  Karl set a cup of tea down on the table beside me and draped a blanket over my legs.

  “I can go.” His words said one thing; his face another. I nodded. I didn’t want to talk. My sister was out there, either walking through a snowstorm or buried under one. I kicked off the blanket and pushed the tea away. Karl’s shoulders slumped. He picked up the blanket and walked out of the room.

  “I’m sorry, I know you don’t want company,” Karl peered in from the hallway. It might have been an hour later. Maybe more. Time had spun away from me. “My father called. He won’t be back for two days.”