Playing for the Commandant

by Suzy Zail

  “I don’t hate you,” I said.

  “I know.” He stared at the box. “You hate Birkenau. I hate it, too. I thought I could hide here, that if I didn’t leave the house and go over there”— he looked in the direction of the camp —“I could pretend it didn’t exist.” He looked down at his feet. “And then you arrived.” He stood up and brushed the tinsel from his trousers. A strand of silver ribbon clung to his shirt. He pulled his sketch pad from the side table, opened it to the last page, and walked toward me. I stopped dusting. When he reached the piano, he pulled the stool out and placed the sketch pad on it.

  “I did this a while ago.” Patches of red spread over his cheeks. I looked down at the open book. On the last page was a drawing, done in charcoal, of a girl with large pale eyes. She was half hidden in shadow, so you couldn’t see her hair or her clothes, but you could tell she was beautiful. Her skin was infused with light, her lips parted in a secret smile.

  “She’s beautiful,” I whispered, turning to Karl.

  He looked down at the drawing. “Of course she’s beautiful.” He brought his face close to mine. “She’s you.”

  “Sorry to interrupt.” Rosa stepped from the shadow of the doorway. Karl reached for the sketchbook and flipped it shut. “I just wanted to see if Master Jager wanted a fresh pot of tea?” She didn’t look sorry. And when she said it, she wasn’t looking at Karl; she was staring at me.

  “No, thank you.” Karl put the sketch pad into a cupboard and reached for the box of ornaments. Rosa frowned at me and walked back to the kitchen. I ran my rag over the piano. Karl pulled a silver angel from the cardboard box and brushed his fingers along its glinting wings. Neither of us spoke, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t invisible. I’d never been invisible. Karl had been watching me from the start, enough to memorize the slant of my nose, the slope of my eyes, the way the light fell on my skin.

  “Karl!” the commandant’s footsteps echoed down the hall. I ran to my corner. “Ah, you’re here!” he said, stepping into the music room. “Decorating the tree? Good. You’ll be busy. I’m going out.” Karl didn’t answer. “Don’t sulk,” the commandant said. “I haven’t forgotten it’s Christmas. You’ll get your present.”

  “So you won’t be back till late?” Karl asked.

  “No. I have a meeting and then a function in town. I’ve given Klaus and the others the night off, too. It’s Christmas Eve, after all.” His eyes landed on me. “You!” he waved a finger in my direction. “Find something useful to do.”

  I ran to the music cupboard.

  When I could no longer hear the commandant’s heavy footfall, I turned to Karl. He sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by silver-foil snowflakes and hand-painted baubles. He looked wretched. I opened my mouth to speak, but he shook his head and dug deeper into the box. I tried not to look hurt.

  “He might not have left yet.” He craned his neck to look through the window. “It’s —” Outside, a car rumbled to life, gravel spitting from its wheels.

  “I know,” I interrupted. “It’s dangerous.” I knew what his father was capable of; I didn’t need reminding.

  “You don’t know the half of it.” He planted the angel at the top of the tree. “Here, take these to the kitchen.” He pulled three plates from the side table, stacked them one on top of another, and handed them to me. On the plates was a smear of a cream, half a square of marzipan, and three glazed cherries. He lifted the teapot from the table and poured the leftover tea into a cup. “Wash this, too,” he said balancing the cup on the plates. I winced.

  He looked down at the plates.

  “The food,” he whispered. “Eat it in the kitchen.”

  I put the plates on the piano stool and showed him my hand. “It’s my thumb. It’s sore.”

  “Have you had it seen to?” He touched the swollen skin. “It looks infected.” His forehead creased. “Father is having guests over tomorrow. He’ll expect you to play.”

  He was right, of course. I had to get the splinter out. The commandant was out for the rest of the day. If I slipped away now and went to the infirmary, no one would know.

  “I’ll go to the infirmary,” I said.

  “No.” Karl shook his head. “Not the infirmary. You have to get it seen to, but not there. Maybe I’ll try —”

  “It’s too deep,” I said. “And I’ll need something for the infection.”

  “Then find someone in the camp.”

  “Who?” I fought to keep my voice low. “Unless your Dr. Huber makes house calls, there is no one else.”

  Karl was silent. I turned for the door.

  “The infirmary’s not safe, Hanna.” Karl blocked the doorway. “It’s not like a regular —”

  I cut him off.

  “My mother’s in the infirmary.”

  We stood there awkwardly. Neither of us spoke. “See the doctor, then leave.” Karl stepped away from the door to let me pass.

  Outside, the sky was the color of snow, and the ground was glazed with ice. I hurried back to camp with a guard at my back, careful not to trip on the frozen ground. The guard left me standing outside a barrack, and a nurse let me in. The infirmary was cold — a long narrow ward lit by open skylights and crammed with bunks. A rough wooden counter ran between the bunks, its surface littered with buckets of dirty water, excrement, and medicine. Half-naked women lay shivering on the straw mattresses, bones wrapped in skin. I scanned their faces, looking for my mother, but she wasn’t among them. Neither was Vera.

  I walked toward a door at the far end of the barrack where a line of women gathered, waiting to be seen. A nurse shaved my head. She didn’t take my temperature or ask me what hurt. I slipped my silk scarf back over my head.

  “The doctor will see you now.” The girl at the front of the line limped through the door. Her leg was wrapped in a bloodied rag. I took a step forward. The woman in front of me turned and looked at me, at my silk scarf and my warm winter coat. She had a growth on her neck the size of a tennis ball.

  “What are you in for?” She spoke Hungarian.

  “My thumb,” I answered. “I have a splinter.”

  “A splinter?” She laughed. “You’re here about a splinter! I can barely swallow.” She pointed to the lump on her neck.

  “I play piano for the commandant,” I mumbled. “I have to look after my fingers.”

  “The commandant?” She grabbed me by the collar and pulled me to her. Her breath smelled rotten. “She plays piano for the commandant,” she called out to the women next to her. “I hope they cut both her hands off.” She pushed me to the floor. Someone spat at my head. Another woman shoved me; hands reached for my scarf. I scrambled to the back of the line, where they couldn’t see me. A girl whose head was too big for her body asked how I’d come by my coat. I told her I stole it.

  There was yelling from the other side of the door. I clasped my hands over my ears to dull the sound and tried not to think about losing a finger. Robert Schumann had his piano career cut short after he’d injured his hand. He’d taken up composing. If I couldn’t play, my alternative was the quarry.

  The line limped along. We moved forward slowly.

  “See you on the other side.” The girl in front of me smiled nervously. She was ushered into a room. The door closed behind her. I pressed my ear to the wood. I heard mumbling, footsteps, a muffled cry, then nothing. The minutes wore on.

  “Come in.” A nurse opened the door and ushered me into a white tiled room. In the center of the room was a hardwood table, and under it, on the floor, four pieces of rope.

  “What are you here for?” she asked. I showed her my hand.

  “Get undressed and climb onto the table.”

  I did as I was told. I lay down and waited, the wood cold against my skin. I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. I’d never been to a doctor without my mother. Where are you, Anyu? I squeezed my eyes shut. Papa, I need you. My father had told me to brave. I forced my eyes open. He’d told me to remember every detail of the c
amp and tell the world what I’d seen. I looked at the nurse, watched as she wound a length of rope around my right arm and fixed it to the table, then my right leg, and my left. A man entered the room. He was holding a kitchen knife, the type Anyu used for slicing beef. There was a sink in the corner of the room, but he didn’t stop to wash his hands. He stepped toward me, holding the knife, its sharpened edge glinting in the fluorescent light. I tried to lift my head to speak, but there was a hand pressing down on my skull and then the doctor leaned over me and the room started spinning.

  I woke up in a bed in another white-walled room. I tried to move my thumb, but I couldn’t feel anything. My whole hand, from my wrist to the tips of my fingers, was wrapped in gauze. My thumb. I needed to see my thumb. I tore at the bloodstained bandage, struggling to unravel the wet cotton with one hand. I looked around frantically for someone to help.

  “Please,” I said to the girl lying next to me. I held out my hand.

  “Bastards!” she said, struggling to pull the sheet from her bed. “Butchers!” she yelled, tossing the soiled sheet to the floor. She looked down at her legs. “I walked in here with a sore foot. Now look at me!”

  I looked down at her legs, one pale and thin, the other a bandaged stump, cut off at the knee.

  I leaped out of bed and ran from the infirmary, tearing at my bandage. By the time I reached our barrack, it was dark. I collapsed on the ground outside the hut, squeezed my eyes shut, and peeled off the last layer of gauze. I lowered my hand to my skirt, looked up at the sky, and let my fifth finger graze the fabric. I still had G. I watched the shivering stars and pressed down with my fourth finger, F, then continued the scale, E, D and finally, C. Five notes. Five fingers. I looked down at my thumb. A small piece of flesh had been gouged from the tip. I ran my finger along the incision, careful not to unpick the neat black seam the doctor had stitched into my skin. My beautiful, lacerated thumb. It was pink and tender, but it would heal.

  I pushed the door open and walked over to where the block leader stood.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t have any food for you tonight.”

  The block leader glared at me.

  “I had to go to the infirmary,” I hurried to explain, showing her my hand. The block leader looked down at my swollen thumb, grabbed it between her leathery fingers, and squeezed.

  “What are you doing?” I cried, sinking to my knees. The block leader loosened her grip, but she didn’t let go.

  “I might ask the same of you.”

  I looked at her blankly.

  “A little birdie tells me you’ve made friends at the villa. One friend in particular. A boy.” She dug her fingernails into my skin. “How could you? After all I’ve done for you.” Spit gathered at the corners of her mouth. “Haven’t I looked after you? When you got that job at the villa, the women here wanted to tear you to shreds.” She turned to the women who had gathered behind her. “I held them back. Made sure you were safe. And this is how you repay me?” She crouched down on one knee and brought her face close to mine. “I confided in you. I told you about my husband and my —” She let go of my hand and stood up. “And then you go and screw one of them.”

  I stared up at her in horror.

  “I haven’t —” I began, but Erika pushed past me. Her bony arms hung by her sides. Her feet were bare.

  “Leave her alone,” she said, stepping between me and the block leader.

  The block leader laughed. “What are you going to do? Make me?” She elbowed Erika aside to stand in front of me. “Get out. There’s no room for traitors or whores in this barrack.”

  I clambered to my feet. Erika put her hand on the block leader’s shoulder. Her eyes shone in the dim light.

  “I’m not going to fight you,” she said, walking around to face her. “I don’t need to. What do you think my sister’s boyfriend will do to you when he finds out you’ve thrown her out?” She brought her face close to the block leader’s. “He’ll come after you. Repeat a word of what you’ve just said or lay a finger on my sister, and he will find out. I’ve made sure of it.”

  Erika took me by the hand and led me back to our bunk. She didn’t let go of my hand, not till a long time later, when her hands had finally stopped shaking.

  I lined up for roll call next to Erika. We stood under the frozen clouds, our heads glistening, our breath making ghostly shapes in the dark. The girl next to us collapsed. She was so light, she hardly made a dent in the snow. The guards dragged her away.

  “I don’t remember what it feels like to be warm.” We walked back to the barrack. Erika’s feet were purple with cold, her fingers frozen. I drew my coat around her.

  “It feels like a standing ovation,” I said, “or breakfast in bed on your birthday.”

  “Or a kiss?” Erika stopped in front of our bunk.

  “I wouldn’t know,” I said, forcing myself to meet her gaze.

  “I knew it wasn’t true,” Erika said, holding her thin arms out.

  The block leader called lights out, and the room went black. I hugged my sister and burrowed my head into her bony neck.

  “That was low, even for her, accusing you of sleeping with the commandant’s son. She had to know how that would make the other women feel.”

  I shivered.

  “It’s okay. They won’t touch you, not after what I said.” Erika eased me from her neck and held my face in her hands. “I hope you didn’t mind . . . me calling him your boyfriend. . . . It was the only way. . . .”

  “I like him,” I said.

  Erika pulled her hands from my face. I could hear her breathing quicken in the dark.

  “Who?”

  “Karl.” I couldn’t lie to Erika. Not anymore.

  We were both quiet.

  “I know he’s helped you, Hanna,” she said eventually. “I know he’s been kind, but that’s not love. That’s gratitude. You don’t owe him anything.” She sounded angry.

  “I know.”

  “His father is —”

  “I know,” I said, burying my head in my hands. “I know.”

  Erika didn’t say anything for a long time. I didn’t care what the other women thought of me. I didn’t care whether they talked to me or talked about me behind my back. I accepted their contempt. Compared to them, I had it easy. But not Erika. I couldn’t have Erika think badly of me.

  “Please,” I whispered, but she cut me off.

  “Look, I know it’s been hard for you, and maybe Karl can’t stand living at the villa, either. You both needed an escape, but that doesn’t make it —”

  “No. You’re wrong,” I said, feeling bruised. “It’s not about escape. It’s him. . . . He’s sensitive and he’s talented and he understands music. . . .” I touched my hand to my cheek. “I’m blushing just talking about him. I don’t blush in the showers or the latrine, but when I’m near him, I don’t know.” I turned away. “My skin feels hotter, my palms get clammy, and I don’t even know if he feels the same way.” I buried my head in the mattress.

  Erika didn’t reach out to me. She didn’t say anything. She flung my coat from her body and turned the other way.

  “Merry Christmas, Hans.” Lagerführerin Holzman handed the commandant a box wrapped in red and gold crepe paper.

  “How long has it been?” Captain Jager asked.

  “Since my last visit? Five months, maybe six.” The Lagerführerin smiled. “You were looking for a pianist. I brought you some girls.”

  “Yes, of course, the audition.” The commandant put down the gift and poured himself a drink. “There were six girls. Karl picked her.” The commandant glanced at me.

  Lagerführerin Holzman shrugged off her fur coat, sat down, and crossed her silk-stockinged legs. She was wearing a navy-blue suit and pearls. The war had been good to her.

  “It’s nice to hear music in your house again, Hans.” I was playing Schumann’s Widmung, a love letter to Clara that was full of sweetness and despair. My thumb was tender, but I’d get through the day. The comman
dant drained his glass and picked up his baton.

  “We used to do this every Christmas, didn’t we — you and Max, me and Hilde?” He whispered the words, his eyes strangely slack. “She loved to play.” He spoke in a faraway voice, as if the words came from a place deep inside, a place rarely visited.

  Karl stood in the doorway, staring at his father. The commandant refilled his glass and loosened his tie.

  “Ignore him. He’s always lurking around the house, aren’t you, son? Lurking around and looking miserable.” He drained his drink again, and Karl sat down.

  “It’s the war.” The commandant’s face hardened. “My son thinks we’re losing it. I tell him not to listen to rumors, but still he mopes.” He refilled his glass and swilled it around. “Where’s that daughter of yours?”

  “Sorry, Captain Jager. I was just outside, admiring your garden.” A girl, not much older than me, appeared at the door. She was a carbon copy of her mother, tall and lean, with the alabaster skin of a film star. She had painted lips and painted nails, and long, loose curls framing her face.

  I touched my head scarf.

  “Karl, say hello to Frau Holzman’s daughter.” The commandant nudged his son.

  “Hello,” Karl said.

  “Hello.” The girl smiled. “I’m Marthe.” She unbuttoned her coat and slipped her arms from the sleeves. “I’ve heard so much about you.” She extended her hand.

  I leaped into Wagner to drown out the girl’s voice. I missed Karl’s reply — Wagner’s Sonata in B-flat was best played fortissimo — but something shifted in his face, and he shrank back in his chair. When the music dipped and I could hear them again, the commandant was talking about his son’s paintings.

  “Karl, why don’t you take Marthe up to your room and show her your watercolors?”

  Karl looked at Marthe, and I belted the keys.

  The commandant lifted his baton and struck the piano.

  “I can’t hear myself think.” He struck the lid, then the keys. “Your music is to melt into the background. Continue to play as if this were a concert hall and it’ll be your last performance.” He turned to his guests. “Now, where were we? Ah, yes, Karl, you were going to take Marthe to your room.”