The Kommandant's Girl by Pam Jenoff Read Free Book Online Page A

child stood motionless in the doorway, his blue eyes luminous as he stared at the woman’s lifeless form.
    A set of hands shot out of the doorway and snatched the child back inside. The door slammed shut, leaving the dead woman like unwanted refuse on the pavement.
    I sank to the kitchen floor, trembling and weak, the taste of bile still heavy in my mouth. Until now, I realized, it had been easy to stick my head in the sand like an ostrich, to pretend that the ghetto was just another neighborhood and that the violence and killing were isolated incidents far away. Though we had heard rumors, stories of brutal executions in the forests and even in the street, we had wanted to believe these accounts were exaggerated. Now it was no longer just a rumor from Tarnów or Kielce. The killing had come home.
    I spent the rest of the day trying to compose myself, to block out what I had seen. My parents had enough to worry about, and I did not intend to upset them with the news. But others in our apartment block had seen or heard the commotion, and the story spread quickly. When my parents arrived home that night, the shooting in the alleyway was all they could talk about. At dinner, I listened to them describe thirdhand accounts of the events that had taken place next door. Finally, I could hold back no longer. “I saw it!” I burst out, weeping. “I saw everything.” Stunned, my parents looked at me in silence. My father came to my side then. My mother disappeared into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a cup of steaming tea. With shaking hands, I recounted for them exactly what I had seen earlier that day. “And the woman was with child, too,” I added. My father blanched—that was the one detail that had not made it to the ghetto rumor mill. “What had she done to deserve that, Papa?” I asked, sniffling. “Just because she was a Jew?”
    “Her husband, the man they took, was Aaron Izakowicz, a rabbi from Lublin,” my father replied. “He is descended from a very great rabbinic family, dating back centuries. Pan Halkowski told me that he had arrived with his wife and child a few days ago. I had no idea they were staying so close by. The Nazis knew that his presence in the ghetto surely would have buoyed the spirit of our people here. That is probably why he was arrested.” He shook his head. “Such a loss.” My father spoke as though the man was already dead.
    “Surely they would not kill such a respected and famous man.” But even as I said this, I knew that nothing could be further from the truth.
    “They killed his wife.” It was my mother who spoke then, and there was a harshness to her voice that I had never heard before. They killed his wife. His pregnant wife, I added silently. The words echoed in my head as I lay awake that night, seeing the hollow eyes of the blond-haired child before me.
    The next Friday afternoon, Marta did not come for me. “She has a cold,” Pani Nederman had informed me a few hours earlier. As we bathed and fed the children that afternoon, I deliberated whether I would go to Shabbes dinner without her. The thought of walking into the gathering alone terrified me; even though I had been going for months, I still thought of myself largely as Marta’s guest, rather than as someone who belonged. At five o’clock, I put on my coat and stepped out onto the street. Straining my head to the right, I could see the soft lights behind the yellow curtains at Josefinska 13. My heart twisted as I imagined not being there, going home to our cold, quiet apartment instead. Suddenly, my mind was made up. I crossed the street and entered the building. I climbed the steps and, inhaling deeply, knocked timidly on the door. When no one answered, I entered the apartment.
    “ Dobry wieczor, Emma,” Helga greeted me from the kitchen as I entered.
    “ Dobry wieczor, ” I replied. “Do you need help?”
    She shook her head. “No, but it would be great if you could stay afterward and help