The Kommandant's Girl (25 page)

“No!” I cry, picking up the child. “He’s only just gotten used to us. We can’t uproot him again.”

“We may have no choice, Anna. Our first priority has got to be his safety, keeping him alive.”

I stand up, still holding Lukasz. “But…”

“I know you’ve gotten attached to him. We both have. But he’s not our child. He may not be with us forever. You understand that, don’t you?” I do not answer, but bury my head in Lukasz’s curls.

“Where would he go?” I ask at last.

Krysia pauses. “I don’t know,” she concedes. “I can’t imagine there is anywhere safer for him right now. So I will hold off on saying anything to the resistance about it. But you need to accept that it may happen.”

“Maybe I could…” I start to suggest that I could speak to the Kommandant, get him to ask the Gestapo to leave us alone. Then I stop. He is not our friend in this. Asking his help would only draw his attention to the fact that Krysia has ties to the resistance. “Never mind.”

“Here.” Krysia sets down her glass of vodka and stands unsteadily. I can tell that she has not fully recovered from our runin with the Gestapo. She holds out her arms. “I’ll put him to bed.”

“No.” I turn away from her, not wanting to let go. Even though I know it is irrational, I am afraid that if I let go, she will take him away and I will not see him again.

“Anna, please.” She tries to pull him gently from my arms, but I pull back, holding on. As I do, Krysia’s foot hits the cup of milk that is still sitting on the ground. The liquid shoots in all directions. I see Krysia fall backward, as if in slow motion. “Oh!” she cries, landing on her backside on the hardwood floor with a yelp.

I rush to her side, still holding the child. “Krysia, are you okay?”

She does not answer and I can tell that she is shaken. “I’m fine,” she says, though I know that her pride, at least, has been wounded. I hold out my hand to help her up, but she ignores it, slowly standing on her own.

“I’m sorry,” I apologize, embarrassed. Krysia has been our protector and I am treating her as if she is the enemy.

“It’s this war,” she says, taking Lukasz from me. “No one is herself anymore.”

Suddenly I remember my conversation with Jacob, my sense that he had come because something terrible was about to happen. Something that might hurt Jacob, keep him from ever coming back to me again. My stomach tightens. “I need to see Alek.” I am surprised by the cold, forceful voice that comes from within me.

Krysia stares at me, surprised. “That may be impossible. You know the resistance has gone dark.”

“I know that there are ways,” I reply insistently. “I’ll go out and find him myself if I have to.”

She hesitates. “Fine. I’ll try to send word that you need to see him this Tuesday.”

I start to say that this is not soon enough, that I needed to see him now. Then I stop; there are even limits to what Krysia can do. “Thank you. Only Alek,” I add. “It must be him personally.”

“Anna, I know you are worried,” Krysia says. “But you can’t stop the resistance. They will do what they need to do.” I do not answer her. Krysia is like Marta in the way that they both treat the resistance leadership with so much deference. A year earlier I might have, too. But I have seen too much these past few months to stand by and watch. Attacking the Nazis is suicide. I have to try to stop them.

Time seems to crawl for the next few days. Tuesday after work, I race to the market square and enter the café where I have met Alek and the others previously. Inside, it is nearly deserted, except for a lone couple smoking at a table in the corner. Alek is not there and I wonder if I am just early or if he is not going to show. Trying to remain calm, I sit down at an unoccupied table and order a glass of tea.

Several minutes later, Alek appears. His cheeks are icy from the cold as he kisses me hello. “It’s been a long time,” he says, gesturing to the waitress for coffee. He sits down.

“Yes. Did you receive what I gave to Marek?”

He nods. “It was tremendously helpful. Exactly what we were looking for.” He does not speak until after the waitress has brought his coffee and left again. “You have something else for me?” he asks eagerly, turning to me.

I hesitate. I knew that the urgency of my message would mislead Alek into thinking I had obtained some additional information for him. I hated tricking him, but it was the only way. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”

Alek looks puzzled. “Then why did you summon me? Is something wrong? Did someone find out about you?”

I shake my head. “No one has found out. But there is something wrong…Alek, this is madness!”

A look of understanding crosses his face. He slams his hand down on the table so hard the dishes rattle. The couple at the table across the room looks over at us. “I knew I never should have let Jacob go to see you,” he whispers harshly. I am stunned. I have never seen Alek angry before.

“He didn’t tell me anything. I guessed.”

“You guessed what?” he demands.

I falter. “Th-that you are about to do something dangerous.”

“Dangerous? Emma, this whole war has been dangerous. Sending you to work for the Kommandant was dangerous. Hiding Lukasz is dangerous. Sending our fighters into the forests is dangerous. And for all of these dangers, these risks, our people continue to suffer and die.” His eyes burn with anger, not at me, but at the evil the resistance is fighting. I recognize it as the same expression I saw in Jacob’s eyes three days earlier. They are united in their determination to go through with whatever it is they have planned.

“But…” I start to protest.

Alek raises his hand. “This is none of your concern.”

“None of my concern?” Now it is my voice that rises. The woman at the other table looks over again, raising her eyebrows in our direction. “None of my concern?” I repeat, lowering my voice. “Alek, I have risked my life for this movement. I have abandoned my parents, shamed my marriage. It is more than my business.” I meet his eyes squarely. “It is my right.”

We glare at each other without speaking for several moments. “You have gained great strength these last few months,” he says at last, his face softening. I detect a note of surprise in his voice. “Very well, what do you want to know?”

“Why now?”

He lowers his voice. “There is great danger afoot for our people, Emma.”

“The ghetto…”

“I am not talking about the ghetto. I’m talking about the camps!” I blink, not comprehending. “You’ve heard about Auschwitz, haven’t you?”

“Yes, it’s a labor camp.” My stomach turns. I can still picture the haunted look in the Kommandant’s eyes the night after he visited Auschwitz with the delegation.

“That is what the Nazis have told the people, what they would like the people to believe. It’s a death camp, Emma. The Nazis have begun gassing our people to death, and burning their bodies in ovens. Thousands of Jews every day. Soon there will be no ghetto, no labor camps. Only Auschwitz, and Belzec and the other death camps. The Nazis will not stop until every Jew has gone up the pipes in smoke!”

“No…” I turn away, sickened. Surely it cannot be true. Yet I trust Alek, and the sincerity of his words makes them impossible to ignore. I did not realize until this very moment that the Nazis mean not merely to enslave us, but to exterminate every single Jew.

“We believe this is a critical time,” he continues. “The Germans are entering their second winter in Poland. The war is not going well for them. They are getting desperate. The information you provided to us demonstrates that they are planning to liquidate the Kraków ghetto and send the Jews to the death camps very soon. So you see why it is essential that we act now.”

“Yes,” I reply weakly. Alek is right. Despite my love for Jacob and all of my concern, there is nothing more that I can say.

“Good. Emma, there is one other thing.” I look at him quizzically. “It’s about Richwalder. I know you have wondered about his past, his wife.” I nod; Krysia must have told him this. “I have long thought the less you knew, the easier it would be to work for him. But now…” Alek pauses. “Well, I don’t know for how much longer our meetings will be able to continue. It is essential that you know everything.

“Richwalder’s wife was named Margot,” he begins.

“I know that,” I reply.

“But what you do not know is that her maiden name was Rosenthal. You see, Emma, her father was a Jew.” My jaw drops. Alek continues, “When the war first broke out, Richwalder thought that his wife’s heritage, the fact that she was half-Jewish, might be kept a secret. But shortly after Richwalder was appointed to a senior position in the Ministry of Defense, Margot’s father, who had been a prominent political activist in the Communist Party, was arrested and sent to a camp, Bergen-Belsen. Margot pleaded for her husband to intervene to save her father, but Richwalder knew that to do so would only expose his wife’s ancestry. To protect her, or perhaps to protect his precious career, he refused. Friedrich Rosenthal was executed before a firing squad. The next day, Richwalder came home to find his wife dead—she had shot herself in their bed with his own revolver.”

My stomach twists. “Oh, no…”

“She was six months pregnant when she died,” he adds. I can barely hear him over the pounding in my ears. “You can see now why we felt it best you not know the truth. But, Emma, no matter what you think and no matter what happens, you must go on pretending with Richwalder. Many lives depend upon it.”

I am frozen, unable to move or speak. “I’m sorry, but I really have to go,” Alek says. He stands and throws a few coins down on the table.

I look up. “How, I mean when, will I see any of you again?”

He places a hand on my shoulder. “Have faith, Emma. As the great American President Lincoln once said, ‘And this, too, shall pass away.’ I look forward to one day sitting openly in an outdoor café with you and our friends, having a beer and looking back and remembering.”

I look up at him. His words are brave, but I know from the troubled look behind his eyes that he suspects in his heart such a day will never come to pass. At the same time, there is a clarity to his eyes that tells me he is unafraid of whatever will come. I stare up at him, awed by his bravery. “God bless you, Alek,” I whisper, squeezing his hand. “And thank you.” He turns without speaking and is gone.

“G
ood night,” I say to Stanislaw as I step out of the car in front of the Kommandant’s apartment onto the snow-covered pavement. As he drives away, I pause to look around. It is late December, and the snow has just stopped falling. Though it is six o’clock in the evening and the sun has set, the sky seems illuminated. The ground is covered in unbroken white, making it impossible to distinguish between sidewalk and street. I pause and scoop up a handful of snow, touching the coldness to my cheek, breathing the wetness in deeply. The city feels empty and silent.

It has been nearly three weeks since my conversation with Alek. At first I thought it would be impossible to continue with my charade, knowing about the Kommandant’s past, the Nazis’ plans for the Jews and the fact that the resistance was about to do something very dangerous. I remember how once, as a young girl, I had read a book in which the protagonist was able to see the future. I had remarked to my father how wonderful a gift that would be, but he had only shaken his head. “Unpredictability is the best part of life,” he had said. “The surprise of who or what might be around the corner, it’s what keeps us going. It is hope. Such foresight of the future, without the ability to change anything…” He shook his head ruefully. “What a curse.”

What a curse is right,
I think now, as I let the snow fall from my gloves and start toward the entranceway of the Kommandant’s apartment. Despite all I’ve learned, I have somehow managed to lift my chin and continue working for the Kommandant—there is no other choice. I look at him differently now, though. My head is no longer buried in the sand about who he is and what he is doing. I have managed to hide my conflicted feelings about him in the office, and fortunately, I have not had to see him in the evenings because he has been so preoccupied with work.

Until now. Earlier today, as I was taking dictation from the Kommandant, he stopped speaking midsentence and reached over and took the stenographic pad from my hands.

I looked up in surprise. “Yes, Herr Kommandant?”

“Anna, is something wrong?” he asked, his brow furrowed.

Yes,
I want to say.
You ran a prison camp for Jews. You keep my parents locked in the ghetto. You let your wife’s father be killed and would kill Jacob, too, if given the chance. Your wretched Gestapo came to our house, and now Lukasz might have to leave us. Let me count the ways
. Of course I did not dare to say any of this. “No, Herr Kommandant,” I replied, managing to keep my voice even. “Everything is fine.”

He reached out and placed his hand over mine. “You seem distracted and it isn’t like you.” As I looked down at his hand and thought about all of the harm it had done, I had to fight the urge to pull away.

“It’s nothing. Everything is fine,” I repeated quickly.

“Are you sure?” he pressed. He stared at me deeply, searching for an answer.

“Yes.” I paused, searching for an explanation. “It must be the nearness of the holiday.”

“Of course,” he replied, not sounding entirely satisfied with my explanation. His hand lingered on mine a moment longer, then retracted. “Well, that will be all for now.” I stood, relieved to escape from his penetrating gaze. But as I turned to leave, he caught my arm. “May I see you tonight?” he asked.

His question caught me by surprise. He has been so busy with work, I assumed an evening with me would be the furthest thing from his mind. I studied his face. The affection is his eyes was genuine and I felt a momentary surge of warmth toward him. In that moment, I wished desperately that we were not who we were. This would have been so simple in another time and place. If I were not married and he were not a Nazi, we might actually have had a chance together. But, as my mother used to say, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. This was exactly who we were.

I hesitated. Spending a night with the Kommandant was the last thing I wanted to do tonight. It has been hard enough pretending all day in the office setting without having to then mask my distaste when we are alone, just the two of us. But even as I wrestled with his invitation, I knew that I had no choice. Another visit to the apartment meant another chance to find something else useful for the resistance, perhaps even some information that might convince Alek to cancel whatever dangerous mission he was planning. “Yes, that would be lovely,” I said at last to the Kommandant, who was still looking at me expectantly.

His face broke into a wide smile. “Good. We can have a quiet dinner, just the two of us. Here,” the Kommandant said, fishing in his pocket and pulling out a key and some money. “I have some work that needs to be finished this evening, but I won’t be very late. Why don’t you leave now and pick up some food on your way to my apartment? You can make yourself comfortable, have a nap if you’re tired. I’ll be along as soon as I can.”

I nodded and took my leave from his office. Seeing the heavy snow falling outside the windows of Wawel, I had asked Stanislaw to drive me to the store and then the apartment.

The snow has stopped now. Looking down the street, bathed in white, I think of Jacob. He always loved snow. During our one winter together, the months before we were married, he would coax me out to the woods to play every time a fresh snow fell. At first I had looked at him as if he was crazy. Having been raised an only child in the city with not many friends, I had done little more with snow than catch a few flakes on my tongue. Having snowball fights and building snowmen were foreign concepts to me, and I could not believe he actually wanted me to lie down beside him in a patch of snow and wave my arms and legs back and forth to make the shape of an angel. But he had persuaded me, and as I lay in the snow beside him laughing, the freezing wetness seeping through my clothes, I had looked up at the white sky and breathed in the crisp air and felt truly alive for the first time.

Still standing in the street, I bend down and lift another handful of white flakes to my face, inhaling the wetness and remembering. I can see his face so clearly. But snow does not bring only happy thoughts of Jacob now. Is he warm enough wherever he is? I do not even know if he is indoors. We will play in the snow together again one day, I vow silently, touching the snow to my cheek. I brush the snow from my gloves and watch it scatter in the wind.

I wipe my boots on the mat before making my way into the apartment building, a small basket of groceries in my hand. Upstairs, I enter the apartment and look around. I have not been here in almost a month. The apartment is more unkempt than ever, with newspapers and drinking glasses scattered everywhere. How can the Kommandant live like this? He is otherwise so neat and precise. Probably because he has been here so little, I decide, between working late in the office and traveling frequently to Warsaw. I set down my basket on the low table in front of the sofa and begin to clear the mess so I can put out supper there.

As I carry the glasses to the kitchen, I can feel the picture of Margot staring at me from the mantelpiece. I stop and turn to meet her dark eyes. The picture, I know, was taken before her father was killed. But there was still a sadness in her eyes, a foreshadowing of her own tragic end. How much of the horrible truth had she already learned about who the Kommandant really was, or had become? I think then of the earlier photograph of Margot, the one the Kommandant keeps on his desk. She looked so happy and in love in that picture. I study her face for some clue, wishing she could tell me about the man the Kommandant used to be. But her expression remains impassive, her voice muted by time. Poor Margot. The two of us are not so very different. Both Jewish, at least in part. Both of us trapped by love for men kept from us by a sense of duty to a cause. And both of our loves had gotten shipwrecked by this wretched war. I only hope that my story will end differently.

I turn toward the Kommandant’s study. I could go in there now and look around. Perhaps there is something I missed the last time or maybe some new development. I shake my head. Not now. It is too risky. There is no telling how soon he will be home. No, I will have to look later, after he is asleep. A chill runs through me. I have not been intimate with the Kommandant for some time now, not since before I learned of his terrible past. Not since before Jacob’s visit. The idea of being with the Kommandant again after making love to Jacob seems like I am breaking my marriage vows all over again. There is a part of me, though, that welcomes the chance to be held by him. I wish I could ignore that part, or did not know that it exists. I shiver and, forcing these thoughts from my head, carry the dirty glasses into the kitchen.

The Kommandant arrives a short while later as I am setting out our supper, a light meal of bread, delicatessen meats and cheese. “Hello.” He bends and kisses me hello in an absent-minded manner. His face is stormy, and though I do not dare ask, I wonder what happened at the office after I left to change his mood so markedly.

Not speaking further, he sets down a briefcase that I imagine to be full of work and goes to the water closet to wash up. Maybe he will be too busy to be with me that night, I think as I pour two drinks, a glass of brandy for him and a much smaller one for me. If that is the case, I will not be able to get into his study at all. My heart sinks.

I bring the drinks to the table and sit down. A few minutes later, the Kommandant comes back into the room, his jacket off and shirtsleeves rolled up. “Come sit,” I urge, patting the space beside me on the sofa. He nods, but he does not join me. Instead he walks to the mantelpiece. For a moment I wonder if he is thinking of Margot, but he does not seem to be looking at her picture. Rather, he is staring into the fireplace, his mind somewhere far away.

“Christmas is coming,” he says at last. He sounds as if the realization has only just occurred to him, though I had mentioned the holidays in his office earlier in the day.

“Just a few days away,” I reply. I might have forgotten the holiday myself, but for the sprigs of fir and red bows that Krysia has placed around the house in lieu of a tree. The city, usually festive with displays in the window shops and the aroma of holiday treats, was virtually unadorned this year.

“Christmas was such a grand affair in our house,” he says. For a moment, I wonder if he is speaking of his life with Margot, but he continues, “Our father would take us on a midnight sleigh ride through the woods to search for the Weinachtsmann, whom we believed would bring the Christmas gifts.” He walks over to the sofa and sits down beside me. “We never found him, of course, but would come back to the house to find that he had sneaked in while we were gone to leave us wonderful presents. And the next morning, the breakfast table was always piled high with cakes.” He smiles, his expression almost childlike.

“That sounds lovely,” I say. My mind races to come up with a story about my childhood Christmases, in case he asks.

“We should do something special for Christmas,” he says abruptly. “Go away somewhere for a few days, just the two of us.”

I stare at him in disbelief. It is as if he has forgotten the war, his role in the administration. “Herr Kommandant, with all that is going on, I wouldn’t think it possible…”

His smile fades. “No, of course not,” he says quickly. I watch the heaviness return to his eyes, regretful that I have taken his moment of escape from him. “It’s this damn war,” he adds. He touches my cheek. “I’m sorry, Anna. You deserve so much better.”

I do deserve better, I think, but not in the way he means. I deserve to be with my husband. “Not at all,” I reply, my stomach twisting.

“I’ll make it up to you someday,” he insists. “Things will be different for us after the war. I promise.”

I open my mouth, but before I can speak, he reaches for me, his lips pressing down thickly on mine. His embrace is tight, his kiss demanding. Caught off guard, I freeze momentarily. After so many weeks, his touch feels both strange and familiar at the same time. Then I find myself responding, my kisses matching the intensity of his. Despite all that has happened and all that I have learned about him, I feel at once the burn and the chill, the same thrill and disgust brought on as much by my own reaction as the touch that inspires it.

The Kommandant’s hands drop to my torso. His weight begins to press on me, bending me backward against the arm of the sofa. There is an urgency about him that I have not seen before. It is as if he is running, trying to hide from something in my arms. I pull my lips back from his, cradling his face in my hands. “What is it?” I whisper. “What’s wrong?” But he shakes his head and begins kissing me once more.

Suddenly there is a sharp knock at the door. The Kommandant hesitates, a look of concern crossing his face. He is not expecting anyone else, I know, and no one would dare call on him unannounced. He turns back to me, continues kissing me as though he has heard nothing. A moment later, the knock comes again, too loud to be ignored.

He breaks from our kiss and sits up. “Yes?” he calls out, irritated.

“Urgent message, Herr Kommandant,” a thin male voice calls through the door. The Kommandant rises and straightens his collar as he walks to the door and opens it. A young soldier stands in the hallway, sweating and breathing heavily. “M-my apologies for the intrusion…” the soldier stammers.

“What is it?” the Kommandant demands. The messenger hesitates, looking at me over the Kommandant’s shoulder. “Anna is my personal assistant. You may speak freely in front of her.”

The messenger holds his arm out straight, a piece of paper caught in his shaking fingertips. “Warszawa Café,” he gasps as the Kommandant snatches the paper and scans it. “There has been an explosion.”