The Kommandant's Girl

  He clicks his tongue, holding up the marriage certificate to try to read it in the moonlight. “Such friends you keep, Anna. I knew Krysia was amenable to the Jewish artists before the war, but really…” He freezes midsentence, the realization I dreaded coming to him at last. “Krysia was married to a Jew…” His arm drops, the paper still dangling from his fingers like a wet cloth. “You’re Jewish?”

  “I can…” I begin, but he cuts me off.

  “Are you Jewish, yes or no?”

  I take a deep breath. “Yes.”

  He takes a step back, looking as though someone has punched him. “Herr Kommandant…Georg…please let me explain…”

  “There is nothing to explain. You are a Jew.” He looks away, his eyes burning. Again, I can almost hear him thinking, again, like Margot. I eye the gun, which he holds low by his waist, pointed at the ground. I could try to run for it while he is distracted, I think in that instant, but I do not. He looks at me again. “I don’t understand how…”

  I hesitate. I know that I should say nothing, give nothing away to him, but part of me thinks that perhaps if I explain he will be more sympathetic. “My real name is Emma,” I begin. I consciously avoid using either my married or maiden surnames, hoping he will not connect me to either my parents or Jacob for their safety. “I have been living with Krysia under an assumed name since the beginning of the war.”

  “So your being a schoolteacher from Gdańsk, your parents dying in a fire…all contrived?” he asks. I nod weakly. “What about Lukasz?”

  “He’s not my brother, but he is Krysia’s nephew. From her Catholic side,” I add quickly, desperate to continue at least part of the lie in order to protect the child. I can tell from the Kommandant’s expression that he doesn’t believe this, doesn’t believe anything I say anymore. “That’s it, the whole story,” I conclude, though of course it is not. I have said nothing about Jacob or Alek or the resistance. He does not speak. “So now what?” I say after a few minutes have passed. I look up at him imploringly; my eyes scan his face for some sign that he has some feeling for me.

  “You are a Jew,” he says again, as though that in itself contains all of the answers.

  “Does that have to matter?” I ask desperately. I reach out and touch his arm. “I am the same woman you loved five minutes ago.”

  He pulls his arm away roughly. “No, five minutes ago you were Anna. But she no longer exists. Everything between us was a lie.”

  “No,” I protest. “My feelings for you were real. Are real,” I correct myself. He looks down at me and I can tell there is a part of him that wants to believe me. I touch my stomach. “And our baby…”

  He cuts me off. “The child is a Jew also.” His voice is like ice, his eyes dark, hollow pits. He turns and takes a step away. “You lied to me, Anna. I mean Emma.” He spits my real name bitterly. “You betrayed me. And you have broken more laws of the Reich than I can count.” He pulls his revolver out once more. “I should shoot you here, instead of arresting you and sending you to the camps. Believe me, I would be doing you a favor.”

  “So now you are going to kill me?” I ask in a whisper. I take a deep breath. “Like…like you did with Margot?”

  He looks as though I have slapped him. “I did not kill my wife.” His voice is hoarse, about to crack. “She committed suicide.”

  “Because you would not save her father,” I continue, reckless now about saying too much, not caring if he wonders how I know about Margot. He does not respond. “So what if you did not pull the trigger yourself? You killed her.” I do not recognize this voice that comes from inside me now, forceful and bold. “Just like you killed her father. Just like…” I spin around recklessly, my arms flailing in the directions of the Jewish quarter and the ghetto. “You killed all of these people!”

  “I did not!”

  He lunges at me, but I step away. With his free hand he grips both of my wrists and pins me against the steel column of the bridge. His face is inches above mine, a wild look in his eyes. He shakes me hard. “Who told you about Margot?” he demands, his eyes bulging.

  Alek! Alek Landesberg! I want to shout, the hero whom you murdered. But I do not; I will die before I betray the resistance. “It doesn’t matter,” I reply. “It’s the truth.”

  “No!” he cries hysterically. “It’s not true. I did it for us. You must believe me, Margot! I did what I had to do to save us.” I look up in surprise. The Kommandant is staring at me, but he thinks he is talking to his dead wife. I have pushed him too far, I realize. He has survived the war on an elaborately constructed world of fantasy and delusion, separating his actions from their consequences. Discovering the truth about me has caused that world, and the Kommandant himself, to crumble.

  “It’s okay,” I say softly, playing along. Perhaps if he thinks I am Margot, he will release me and I may be able to escape. “I understand, my darling. And I forgive you.”

  He does not answer or move, but looks out over my shoulder into the darkness, lost in his memories. An eternity seems to pass with his weight bearing down on me, pressing the rail of the bridge into my back.

  Suddenly the Kommandant releases me and steps back. I straighten, trying to catch my breath. “I didn’t kill my wife,” he says, seeming to realize to whom he is talking once more. His voice is strangely calm. He leans against the steel column of the bridge for support. “I loved Margot. I never would have hurt her.” Now it is him begging me to understand. It is more than that, though; he is trying to make himself believe it, too. “I loved my wife. I even cared for her father. But I had no choice in the matter.”

  Choice. I hear Krysia’s voice, as if in a long-forgotten dream. There’s always a choice, she said after I had become involved with the Kommandant. We have to take responsibility for our actions. It is the only way we can avoid becoming victims and keep our dignity. I consider telling this to the Kommandant. Then, looking over at him, I shake my head inwardly. There’s no point. He appears defeated, wholly unrecognizable as the strong and powerful man I once knew. His cowardice has made him the victim. No, I conclude, he will not understand.

  “I was a good man once, Anna,” he says suddenly. His eyes are looking off across the water, away from the ghetto. His face wears the same faraway expression I have seen so often when he stares out the window of his office, and I know that he is picturing Margot and himself in happier days before the war. “The change in me came about over time, so slowly I didn’t notice.” It is the first time I have heard him admit to wrongdoing.

  “You still are a good man,” I offer, moving closer to him and taking his hand in mine. Perhaps, now while he is vulnerable, there is still a chance for me to save myself. “You still can be.”

  He shakes his head, pulls his hand from mine. “It’s too late for that.”

  “It’s not too late. Georg, please,” I implore, reaching out again and placing my hand on his arm. Get close, I tell myself. Close enough so that he can smell the scent of your hair. Close enough so that he can remember. “We can still go away together, you and I and our child.”

  He pulls away. “Our child?” he repeats, his voice bitter. “How do I even know it is mine?” He gestures to the marriage certificate and rings, still clutched in his palm underneath the handle of the gun. “You are married, Anna. The child could be his.”

  Emma is married, not Anna, I think. “I have not seen my husband in more than three years,” I lie. “Not since the beginning of the war. I do not even know if he is alive.” I move closer to him again. “The child is yours, Georg.” I watch his face processing this information, wanting to believe.

  “Perhaps…” He seems to be considering what I have said.

  “You said you wanted a family and children,” I continue, trying to keep the desperation from my voice. “This is our chance. We can leave here and start over. Please.” He does not answer, but I can tell that he is considering the idea. I watch as he paces back and forth, his face twisting, as he wrestles with a torrent o
f conflicting emotions. It is the only time I have ever seen him uncertain of what to do. “No one has to know the truth,” I add.

  Suddenly, something within him seems to change. He pushes me away, steps backward. “I would know,” he replies coldly. “You lied to me, Anna.” Reading his stony eyes, I can tell that his heart is closed to me now. I understand then that it is my betrayal and lies, more so than my faith, with which he cannot live. There is nothing more I can say or do. His hands shaking with anger, the Kommandant lifts his gun.

  For a moment, I consider begging him, pleading for my life. Then I decide against it. If my promises of a child and a new life did not soften his heart, groveling will not, either, and it will make him despise me even more. I look ahead toward the end of the bridge, which seems an eternity away, too far to run. Then I wrap one arm protectively around my stomach. I’m sorry, I apologize inwardly to my child for the life he or she will never have. I close my eyes and think of the bravery of those I love: my parents, Krysia, Lukasz, even Alek flies through my mind. Then there is Jacob. “Do not be afraid,” I hear him whisper, and I can almost feel him squeeze my hand.

  I hear a click as the Kommandant cocks the gun. I open my eyes, wanting to see the moment that is to be my last. The Kommandant stands before me, pistol aimed at my heart. “Goodbye, Anna,” he says, tears streaming down his face. I close my eyes again.

  A shot rings out, then another. I must be dead, I think, for I feel nothing. “Emma!” I hear my name being called out by a familiar voice in the darkness. My eyes fly open. I am not hit, I realize. The Kommandant has spun away from me, firing wildly in the darkness. He stands frozen now, his arm jerked high in the air like a marionette’s, a twisted half smile on his face. The front of his uniform is dark and wet. He collapses to the ground.

  “Georg!” I cry out. I run to him, kneeling. Has he shot himself instead of me? He reaches up to clasp my hand. “Don’t move,” I order, looking around desperately. “I’ll get help!” But even as I say it, I know it is impossible. If I call the police, I will be arrested. I cannot risk my own life to save him.

  The Kommandant shakes his head weakly, coughing. “It’s too late for that. Stay with me, Anna,” he says, still using my pseudonym, wanting to believe my charade to the last. “It’s better this way.”

  “Don’t say that!” I put my hand under his neck, lift him to me. His face is white. “You are going to be fine. We just have to get you to a hospital.”

  “No, I don’t want it to go on like this. If we can’t be together…”

  “We can be,” I insist. He is bleeding more heavily now, the dark red seeping into the snow underneath him.

  He squeezes my hand tightly. “I’m so sorry. I love you. I never could have hurt you.”

  “I know,” I whisper, though in truth I do not. He had loved Margot, too, but it hadn’t been enough.

  “I love you, Anna,” he repeats.

  “I love you, too,” I say for the first time. I realize now that, for some part of me at least, it is true. I brush the hair from his sweat-soaked brow.

  “Anna,” he says again. His eyes flutter, then go blank.

  “No!” I cry, bending my forehead to his. I freeze there, hoping to feel some hint of warm breath on my cheek. I press my lips to his eyelids, kissing them closed. His face is calm, relieved of all its intensity and torment, and in that moment I know that the Kommandant is gone.

  CHAPTER 25

  I kneel frozen beside the Kommandant’s lifeless body, too stunned to move. “Emma,” I hear someone call from behind me. The voice I had heard calling my name as the shots rang out had not been imaginary. Someone else is here. The Kommandant was not alone, I think, leaping to my feet and staring in the direction from which he had come, searching for another Nazi. “Emma,” the voice calls again. A Nazi would not know my real name. I spin around. There in the shadows, holding a still-smoking gun, stands Marta.

  “Marta!” I exclaim, walking toward her. “I—I don’t understand…what are you doing here?”

  “I followed you,” she replies. “I was supposed to come for you at dawn to take you to Jacob.” So she is the escort, I think. She continues, “I knew you wouldn’t leave without seeing your parents, and I was afraid that when you found out about your mother…” Her voice trails off and she looks away.

  I look at her in disbelief. “You knew?”

  She nods. “I found out a few weeks ago. I wanted to come and tell you, but Marek forbade it.” Damn him, I think. Damn them all. “I’m sorry,” she adds. I do not answer. “I followed you to the ghetto, then here. When I arrived, I saw him…” she gestures toward the Kommandant’s lifeless body. “He was going to shoot you. So I shot him first.”

  “Thank God! If you hadn’t come…” I shudder. My anger toward her is quickly replaced by gratitude. Had she not been there, it might be me lying dead on the bridge. “Oh, Marta, thank you so much.” I try to hug her, but she pushes me away.

  “There’s no time for that!” She rushes over to where the Kommandant lies. She must have seen me with him after he was shot, I realize as I follow her. I wait for her to reproach me for holding him and crying as he died, but she does not. Instead, she kneels before the Kommandant’s lifeless body and pries the rings and paper from his already-stiffening fingers. “Here.” She reaches up and hands them to me and I put them quickly back in my pocket. “The authorities will be here soon. We have to get rid of the body. Quick, let’s push him over the edge.”

  The Kommandant’s body. I look down at him. My stomach twists. An image flashes through my mind of him hovering above me in the darkness, his torso inches from mine. Fighting the urge to vomit, I look away from him and walk over to the railing of the bridge. “Impossible, the river is frozen. Let’s just leave him, Marta. We need to get out of here. Come on!” I look down to where she kneels, not moving. “Marta?”

  She shakes her head, sinking to the ground. “I can’t.” I rush to her. A red stain seeps across her midsection.

  “Oh, Marta, you’ve been hit!”

  She smiles ruefully. “I was faster than him, but not fast enough.”

  I kneel beside her. “Is it very painful?”

  “It’s not too bad.” But I know she is trying to be strong. Her face is pale and there is a thin layer of sweat on her brow.

  “We have to get you to Krysia’s. She can find a doctor….”

  She shakes her head. “There’s no way. I can’t walk.”

  “Here, I’ll help you.” I place my arm around her waist, trying to lift her to a standing position, but she pushes my hands away, falling to the ground once more.

  “It’s no use,” she says, panting. “You can’t carry me. No, you have to go without me.”

  “I’ll go for help,” I offer, looking around.

  “Not for help. Just go. I will tell you the planned route for your escape.”

  I stare at her in disbelief. “But you can’t stay here. The police will come soon and they’ll find you.”

  “Exactly,” she replies, a light growing in her eyes. “If they have me and think I did it, they won’t be looking for anyone else. You’ll be able to escape.”

  “I won’t leave you here,” I protest.

  “You have to.”

  “No…” But even as I say this, I know there is no changing her mind. I hear in her voice the same courage, the same stubbornness that I had seen in Alek and Jacob. Still I persist. “I can’t leave you like this. Not after all that you’ve done for me.”

  “Listen to me.” Mustering all of her remaining strength, Marta reaches out and grabs my sleeve. “The resistance is about survival, the survival of our people. It always has been. Those who can must go on. Alek knew it and Jacob does, too. Whoever can go on, must, and no sentimental nonsense about it. Do you understand?”

  I take a deep breath. “Yes.”

  “Good.” She releases my hand, then reaches over the Kommandant’s body and grabs his gun. “Here,” she says, holding it up to me.
“Take this.”

  I stare at the weapon that was pointed at my heart just a few minutes earlier. “I—I can’t,” I stammer, recoiling.

  “Just take it,” she insists. “You may need it for your escape.” Reluctantly, I take the gun from her. The cold metal is heavy and unfamiliar in my hand. She falls back to the ground.

  I place the gun in the waistband of my skirt. “Where is Jacob?” I ask, realizing she might be the only one who knows.

  “He is in Czernichow.”

  “But…” I stare at her in disbelief. Czernichow is a small village just on the other side of the forest, not ten kilometers from Krysia’s house. All of this time, I had been led to believe Jacob was recovering far away in the mountains when in fact he was close by.

  “Everyone thought he was in the mountains, Emma,” she gasps. “We had to pretend. The leaks in the resistance have been even worse since Alek was killed. And even among those we trusted, we could not risk that someone might be captured and made to tell where he was.” I nod. So many secrets. She continues, “There is an abandoned hut just behind the livery outside of Czernichow. Jacob is there. He may be hiding in the root cellar underneath. The property is owned by a farmer called Kowalczyk who can be trusted to help you if you need it. Take the forest path from Krysia’s,” she continues with short, labored breaths. “You can tell the Kowalczyk place by its blue roof.” Sirens wail in the distance then. “Get out of here now! Go to Jacob.” She rocks back and forth in a fetal position, nursing her pain.

  I stand to go. She reaches up, grabbing my hand. “Emma, one last thing…about Jacob…” She hesitates. “I’m sorry.” I know she is referring to the thing that had remained unspoken between us, her feelings for my husband. She had always had a crush on him, even before she knew me.

  “It’s okay,” I reply, squeezing her fingers. And it really was. I could not judge her. You loved who you loved. She could no more help her feelings for Jacob than I could mine for the Kommandant.