Playing for the Commandant (12 page)

The commandant, Karl, and I were in the music room. Vera had been sent to the kitchen to make tea.

“What’s taking her so long?” the commandant grumbled. “For heaven’s sake, go see what the hold up is.”

I ran to the kitchen, turned into the doorway, and slumped to my knees. Vera was lying on the kitchen floor on a bed of shattered porcelain.

“Vera, what happened?” She looked like a broken doll. Limp tea leaves clung to her dress, and her scarf was slick with blood. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. I lifted her head from the floor.

“Vera, who did this to you?” Her eyes flickered toward the window. A guard was pacing the driveway, SS standard issue — cropped blond hair, hard blue eyes, crisp gray uniform — one of a dozen faceless guards who patrolled the grounds. I turned back to Vera.

“What happened?”

“He hit me, I fell backward . . .”

“But why?”

“I couldn’t . . .” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Hanna, I need you to do something.”

“Of course, Vera. Anything.” I reached up, pulled a rag from the bench, folded it, and slipped it under her head.

“I need you to . . .” Vera closed her eyes.

“What Vera? What do you need me to do?” I leaned down. I was so close, I could feel her lips brush the tip of my ear.

“I need you to take over the laundry shift. Tell Karl I said it was okay.” She let out a thin cry. “It hurts.”

“You’re going to be okay,” I said. What I wanted to say was,
Please don’t die
. And then Karl walked in. “She needs help. Please. Get some help.”

“What happened?” Karl asked without looking at me.

“Yes. What happened?” the commandant echoed, stepping into the room. I looked through the window at the guard, who was now seated on a bench, his head in his hands. It was safer not to accuse anyone and let the commandant work it out.

“Klaus!” the commandant hollered, stepping outside.

“Please. She needs a doctor.” I turned to Karl. He was watching his father guiding the guard back into the house.

“I’ll put a phone call through to Lagerführerin Holzman.” The commandant stepped over Vera as he spoke to Klaus. “She’ll arrange a replacement. Let’s hope she’s better at making tea.” He looked down at Vera, sprawled on the floor.

“Father, shouldn’t she be seen to? Your physician isn’t far. . . .”

The commandant looked at his son. “Dr. Huber has better things to do,” he began, “but perhaps you’re right.” He stopped to consider his son’s suggestion. “She mustn’t die here. Too messy. Klaus, take her back to Birkenau.” And then he stalked out.

The soldier pulled Vera to her feet and dragged her outside.

“Wait!” I called after Karl as he turned to leave. “I have a message from Vera.” I held my breath. Karl swung around to face me. “She asked me to do the laundry shift. She said to tell you it was okay.”

He looked past me to the window. I felt my cheeks flush.
Of course it was okay. What difference did it make to Karl who did the laundry?

“Okay,” he said. “Meet me here at three o’clock.”

I’d been waiting for ten minutes, trying not to look at the spot where Vera had lain, when Karl walked into the kitchen lugging a wicker basket. He carried it to the back door and motioned for me to follow him. He set the basket down and looked out the window into the garden, his gaze suddenly intent. In the basket were sheets, towels, and tablecloths. The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed three.

“Any minute there’ll be a knock at the door. Take this,” he said, lifting the basket from the floor and handing it to me. It was heavy.

“It’s the laundry,” he explained. “Ivanka collects the dirty linen every day after lunch. She used to leave it for Vera.” He lowered his voice. “From now on she’ll leave it for you.” He looked at me, but I couldn’t read his expression. I only knew that his eyes were even bluer close-up. Blue flecked with green.

“Tibor will knock on the door at three. Give him the basket.”

There was a knock at the back door, and Karl rushed from the room. I reached for the door handle. A scrawny man in a striped jacket poked his head through the door.

“Where’s Vera?”

“Vera’s been hurt. She’s been taken back to camp. I’m Hanna. Are you Tibor?”

He nodded.

“She told me to take over her shift,” I continued, holding up the basket. He opened his drawstring bag, and I tipped the laundry into it.

“She trained you well,” he whispered, pulling an apple from the bag. I looked at the apple. Then I looked into the bag. Lying among the sheets and towels and pillowcases were a loaf of bread, a scattering of potatoes, and a jumble of apples.

“I didn’t p-put them there,” I stammered, shaking my head.

“Of course you didn’t.” He winked. “Take the apple.” He held out his hand. “I have to go. They’re waiting for me at the laundry.”

“Who’s waiting?”

“Andor, Vera’s brother. I give him the food, and he distributes it. There are a lot of hungry people in Birkenau.” He threw the bag over his shoulder and walked to the truck idling in the driveway. I scooped up the empty wicker basket and closed the kitchen door.
Tibor. Karl had told me to give the laundry to Tibor
. The basket slipped from my fingers and clattered to the floor. Karl knew the name of the man who collected his laundry. He knew what time it would be collected and the name of the girl who changed the sheets. He’d called Vera by her name, too. He could have used their numbers. He could have called Ivanka “the maid.” He could have called Tibor “the Jew who did the laundry.”

He’d used their names.

I had so much to tell Erika. I swung the barrack door open, handed the block leader my apple, fell onto the bunk beside Erika, and burrowed into her.

“Vera’s been hurt.” I was going to tell Erika about Tibor and the laundry basket and my conversation with Karl, but first I needed to talk about my friend.

“How bad is she?” Erika asked, wiping the tears from my eyes.

“Bad.” I looked up at her. “What’s that?” I pointed to a red gash on her forehead.

“It’s nothing, just a scrape. Tell me about Vera.”

“I’ll tell you everything, once you tell me what happened.”

“I was at the quarry. I was working too slowly. One of the foremen got angry. It looks worse than it feels.” Erika didn’t want to talk about it. She never wanted to talk about it — about the work, her hunger, the guards, the girls. I knew she was just trying to protect me, but it felt like a punishment.

I tore a strip of silk from the lining of my coat and wrapped it around Erika’s forehead. I wished I could do more. I wished I could stop them from hurting her. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a handful of green beans. Then I lifted my skirt and pulled a few small carrots from my underwear. It didn’t matter that Erika hated green beans or that I’d stowed the carrots in my underpants. She thanked me for them, treating me like I was some brave hero, when really I was just a coward who deserted her every day to hide out in the commandant’s villa.

“So will you do it?” Erika asked after I told her about the laundry basket. “Will you get the food to Tibor tomorrow?” Her eyes flashed. I hadn’t seen that look of rebellion on my sister’s face for a long time.

Vera’s words echoed in my ears.
Take over the laundry shift
. She’d meant for me to see the food. And she was relying on me to have a basket ready for Tibor tomorrow. I replayed every scene in my head, every look, every conversation I’d had that day. Karl had whispered his instructions, he’d carried the heavy basket into the kitchen, he’d been expecting a knock at the door at three, and he knew our names. Did he know about the food in the laundry hamper? I thought about the love song he’d sung and the butterfly drawing. Maybe I’d been wrong about Karl. . . .

The block leader ordered us all out of our bunks.

“There’s something I want you to see,” she said, stroking her whip. I forced myself to look as she dragged a woman from her bunk and ordered her to stand in the middle of the hut. If we didn’t look, if we turned our heads or closed our eyes, we’d be next in line. She told the woman to lift her dress and bend over. We watched and counted under our breath — one red welt across the back of the woman’s legs, two, three. The woman’s knees buckled when the block leader reached fifteen, but she didn’t cry out. The block leader put her whip down at forty and went to bed.

“What did you do?” Frightened voices floated up from the bunks. The woman pulled her skirt down and looked at the women huddled on the bunks. Her eyes were dry.

“I stole a carrot from the kitchen.”

It was drizzling when I left the barrack the next morning. I walked past women shivering in their cotton dresses, their egg-white scalps slick with rain, and the band bent over their instruments, wooden smiles on their faces. The guards stood over the work gangs with whips, their hands warm in their woolen mittens. The sky was gunmetal gray.

I was glad I hadn’t told Erika about Karl. Why would a boy who had everything risk it all for a few Jews? The rest of the world wasn’t interested in saving us. Why would Karl be any different? Handing me a laundry basket and knowing our first names didn’t make him an ally.

By the time I sat down at the piano, I was convinced I’d imagined it all — the whispered words, the look Karl gave me when he handed me the basket.

I touched my fingers to the keys. The commandant drove his fork into a slab of cheesecake and shoveled it into his mouth. He dabbed his lips with a napkin, stood up, and walked toward me.

“What’s that you’re playing? That song, what’s it called?”

My foot froze on the pedal. I’d been so intent on the commandant’s conversation with his guest, a monocled SS colonel, that when Schumann’s
Reverie
ended, I’d drifted into Mendelssohn’s Adagio in F Major, a piece I knew by heart. The commandant had to know it was Mendelssohn and that Mendelssohn was a Jew and his music was forbidden. I thought of the girl who’d auditioned before me, the one who’d played Korngold and had not been seen since.

“Well? Who is it?” The commandant picked up his baton. Was this some kind of test? Should I feign ignorance or admit my error? My hands slipped from the keys. The commandant was growing impatient. The colonel leaned forward in his seat, his monocle glinting in the sun. I cleared my throat.

“It’s . . .” But I couldn’t go on. I hung my head and waited for the blows.

“It’s one of Franz Hirsch’s early compositions.” I looked up. Karl was walking toward the piano. “It’s a piece about the Rhineland.” He looked his father in the eye.

“Franz Hirsch, you say?” The colonel looked at Karl. “Never heard of him.”

“Well, that’s understandable,” Karl said. “He wasn’t popular, except with the critics and those in the know. He was a student of Schubert. You don’t hear the piece much these days. It’s quite beautiful, don’t you think, Father?”

The commandant looked confused.

“Of course. Franz Hirsch. It was on the tip of my tongue. A beautiful piece of music.” The commandant turned to me. “Continue.”

I looked over at Karl. Franz Hirsch? I’d never heard of the composer. And I was pretty sure Karl hadn’t, either.

At the end of the sonata, the commandant and his guest left for a meeting. Karl stayed in the far corner of the music room, reading.

“Thank you,” I whispered, but Karl didn’t look up.

I took a deep breath. “Thank you.” I forced the words out again, louder this time, but he still didn’t look up from his book. Or say anything. He just kept reading. I don’t know what I expected, but I felt cheated somehow.

I stared out the window, at the winter-white sky. Was I really so horrid that it pained him to look at me?

“Hanna.”

I looked up, struck by the sound of my own name. Karl was standing in the doorway.

“You’re welcome.”

“Sorry?” I said, rising from the piano.

“You’re welcome . . . for before. . . .” His face was a deep crimson, his voice so faint I could hardly hear him. He dug his hands into his pockets and looked at his feet.

“Who’s Franz Hirsch?” I asked as casually as I could, as if it were nothing out of the ordinary, the two of us talking.

“Franz Hirsch?” he looked up as he stepped from the room. “He was my fifth-grade geography teacher.”

At a quarter to three, I snuck to the kitchen. The house was quiet. The commandant was out; Rosa, the girl who had replaced Vera, was sweeping the porch; Ivanka was upstairs; and Mr. Zielinski was in the garden doing Stanislaw’s job. The laundry basket was by the back door. I lifted a towel and peered into the mess of soiled linens. No food. I bit my lip and tried to stay calm. I had fifteen minutes to fill the basket, and there was nothing on the stove and no food on the workbench. I swung around to face the pantry. What choice did I have? I’d promised Vera I’d take over her shift. I grabbed the laundry basket and dragged it into the pantry. I had to be smart. There were plenty of potatoes, so I could probably take one or two without them being missed. I lifted a sheet from the basket and tossed the potatoes in. I took three apples, a loaf of stale bread, an onion, a small square of cheese, and a handful of walnuts, tossing them one after the other into the basket, as quickly as I could. A bowl of raisins sat uncovered on a shelf. I dug my hand into the bowl and scooped a handful into my pocket and another into my mouth. Then I pulled the sheet back over the basket and slunk out of the pantry.