Playing for the Commandant (2 page)

Erika pulled a rucksack from the closet and threw a pair of hiking boots into it. She pulled a straw sun hat from a drawer and tossed it onto her bed. I grabbed my backpack from the floor and tipped it upside down, letting the contents spill onto my mattress: a pocket flashlight, bandages, medicine, spare underwear, a packet of crackers, a can of sardines. There had been more food, but we’d eaten our way through the bag a few weeks earlier when we had been trapped in the building’s basement during an air raid. I crammed the food and medicine into a suitcase, burying it under a pile of blouses, a skirt, a pair of sandals, and three pairs of underwear. How did they expect us to pack when we didn’t know where we were going? I tossed in my hairbrush, then scooped it out, added a handkerchief, pulled out a skirt, and threw in a toothbrush. I left my floor-length gowns — the stiff taffetas and gossamer silks I wore when performing at the community hall — on their hangers, and my high-heeled shoes and silk gloves wrapped in their boxes of tissue paper.

“I know we have to be practical,” Erika said, pulling a pale-yellow dress from the closet and draping it over my suitcase, “but you have to take this. It’s your favorite.”

A few weeks earlier, Mother had lugged the bolt of fabric from the attic and cut the pattern herself. She’d finished sewing the organza gown but hadn’t gotten around to stitching a Star of David onto it. I was going to wear the dress Saturday night at our youth group’s summer dance. I knew it was ridiculous — going to a dance in the ghetto — but it was my first dance, and Michael Wollner had asked me to partner him.
You’re not going to let the Nazis stop us dancing, too, are you, Hanna?
Erika had asked. And she was right. They’d put us in the ghetto and sealed the gates; what we did inside its grimy walls was our business. I folded the dress into the suitcase.

There was still a little room left, enough for my framed photo of Clara Schumann at her piano and my leather-bound collection of her early compositions. Ever since I could remember, I’d wanted to follow in Clara’s famous footsteps. When I’d turned eight, I’d convinced my parents to hire out the Debrecen Town Hall for my public debut, because Clara first performed at the age of eight. At the age of eleven, she played Chopin in Paris, so I played Chopin at the Goldmark Hall. By the age of eighteen, Clara was performing to sold-out crowds in Vienna and receiving rave reviews. I’d be turning eighteen in two and a half years.

At two in the morning, while Erika and I were still packing, my father appeared at our bedroom door with a cookie tin tucked under his arm. He reached for my hand and pulled me into the hall. Mother took Erika’s arm and followed us as we went silently down the stairs and through the yard. The moon was pale, the sky gunmetal gray. Father stopped at the door to the basement, but he made no move to open it. Instead, he spun around, took five paces into the yard and stopped. He mouthed the word
five,
held up five fingers, and then stepped three paces to his left. He held his hand up again, extended three fingers and whispered the word
three.
Crouching on his heels, he lowered the battered cookie tin onto the soil and raised his hand again, extending first five fingers, then three. Satisfied that we had understood the code — and committed it to memory — he pulled a small shovel from his pants pocket and began to dig.

Father’s breath was short and the back of his shirt was stained with sweat by the time he finished digging. He laid the shovel down, pried the lid from the tin, and took out a clutch of gold coins, then a wad of paper money, a handful of gems, and finally a velvet bag containing a gold pocket watch.

“There’s enough here to buy you a new piano, Hanna.” He smiled weakly. “And anything else you might need.” He placed the velvet bag, gemstones, coins, and bills back in the tin, then lowered it into the hole. Mother reached into her apron pocket, pulled out a yarmulke and a frayed leather prayer book, and placed them on top of the tin. Finally, with trembling fingers, she pulled off her wedding band and dropped it into the hole.

We crept back to the apartment. I was glad to be inside again, seated at the kitchen table, watching my mother peel potatoes. The familiar smell of simmering cabbage was reassuring. I didn’t want to think about Father outside packing the hole with soil. I didn’t want to think about digging up the ground and dusting off Mother’s wedding ring. I didn’t want to think about tomorrow. Erika couldn’t wait to escape the ghetto. I didn’t want to leave, not when I didn’t know what was waiting for us outside.

Inside the ghetto walls no one called you a
dirty Jew
. There was no
us
and
them
. It was just
us
and we all wore stars, and no one had new clothes, and we all shared our bedrooms with our brothers and sisters. Nothing divided or distinguished us from one another and — like the cabbage simmering on the stove — it was comforting.

Mother had stopped crying, distracted by the task of preparing food for our journey: cheese, hard-boiled eggs, pickled cucumbers — her pantry emptied into a bag. She had once had a full pantry, its shelves fringed with white lace and bursting with preserved fruits, jams, cookies, a dozen types of tea. Mother had been happy then. Now her eyes were ringed with dark circles, and she had grown thin with worry. She cleaned incessantly. Outside, in the gutters and alleyways and front porches of the ghetto, rubbish piled up. But mother waxed and polished and dusted and swept till our apartment gleamed. I left her slicing potatoes and went back to bed.

I woke the next morning to piercing whistle blasts and the tramping of boots.

“Jews outside! Fast!” Hungarian police officers were at the end of the street, emptying apartments. Angry voices floated up through the window. A dog barked. A child screamed.

Erika was already dressed and placing the last of her belongings into her rucksack.

“You can’t take that,” I said, reaching for her camera. “No photos outside the ghetto — remember what Papa said? Besides, the soldiers won’t let you.”

“The soldiers won’t know.” Erika plunged the camera deep into her pack. I slipped out of my nightgown and pulled on a dress. Mother had prepared eggs for breakfast, but I couldn’t eat. I sat at the piano so I wouldn’t have to listen to my father’s whispered prayers or watch the tears trickle down my mother’s face. I’d been so naive. I’d thought we were lucky when the ghetto walls went up. Our apartment building was in the heart of the ghetto, so we didn’t have to move. I still had my piano, my bed, and my family. I thought if we stayed behind the brick wall, we’d be okay.

I sat at the piano and began to play, and after a while, I forgot about the guards in the street. I forgot about the buried treasure in the backyard and Mother’s bulging bag of food. I forgot about Father’s big, sad eyes. I was playing piano and there was only me, the black and white keys, and Mozart.

“Hanna, grab your suitcase. It’s time to go!” Father stepped into the corridor. The soldiers were outside our building.

I placed the black felt cover over the keys and closed the lid. Two weeks ago, I’d promised Piri, my piano teacher, that I would perfect Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody no. 6 before our next lesson. Then the ghetto had been sealed, and I hadn’t seen Piri since. And now we were leaving the ghetto and I couldn’t practice, and that sour-faced police officer would get his sweaty hands on my piano, and I’d never match Clara Schumann’s concert schedule.

“Hanna, come down at once!” Father’s voice was urgent.

I thought of my piano thief and his fat fingers and his ugly smile.

“Just a minute, Papa,” I called, throwing open the lid and tossing aside the felt. I ran my fingers over the keys, feeling for the one loose black key, the wobbly C-sharp Father hadn’t gotten around to fixing. Pressing down on the keys either side of the C-sharp, I pulled and tugged at the key until it jerked free. Then I shoved it into my pocket and ran downstairs.

We marched through the ghetto in rows of five. I could see Mr. Benedek, the kosher butcher; little Max Spitz, whom I’d babysat on weekends; old Mrs. Eppinger, bent over her walking stick; and the Markovits twins, dragging matching bags. Mother, Father, Erika, and I joined the cobbler, the fishmonger, the tailor, and the dentist.

On either side of our unhappy procession stood SS soldiers and Hungarian guards. “
Mach schnell!
Faster!” The guards raised their truncheons. Father took my suitcase. He was already carrying a rucksack on his back and the bag of food.

Outside the synagogue, a line had formed. My mother reached for my hand and we stepped into line together, snaking our way toward a convoy of open-air trucks. It was hot and my mother’s hand was clammy. The pale blue fabric of her cotton dress was stained blue-black under her arms, and her hair clung to her face in matted strips. We climbed aboard the third truck and waited.

It was a relief when at midday the trucks’ engines finally spluttered to life and the breeze whipped my hair dry. We’d drunk all our water, and I was thirsty and tired. I wanted to sink into sleep but there were no seats in the truck, so I stood, arms draped over the rails, facing out. I watched the wheels of the truck stir up dust clouds, into which the synagogue, and everything I’d known, disappeared.

Erika pulled her camera from her bag and a scarf from her pocket. She draped the scarf over the camera, then pulled the fabric back from the lens.

“Smile,” she whispered.

I glared at her. “Just because they haven’t inspected our bags doesn’t mean they won’t.” I glanced at the camera. “Please get rid of it.” But she didn’t. She took photos of the guards and their guns, the trucks behind us, and the trucks in front.

“Gotcha!” she said, but she wasn’t talking to me. She was talking to the guards. She was talking to Hitler.

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.