Kommandant's Girl. Pam Jenoff

She opened her closet and pushed back the dresses to reveal a set of stairs leading to the attic. She climbed the stairs and handed down to me several pieces of metal and a small mattress. We carried the parts to the guest room that was to be the child’s. “This was Jacob’s,” she said as we assembled the crib. “I kept it here for his parents after he’d outgrown it, thinking perhaps I might use it for a child of my own.” Her eyes had a hollow look, and I knew then that her childlessness was not by choice. When it was assembled, I stroked the chipped wooden rail of the bed, imagining my husband lying there as an infant.

      At lunch, Krysia set out plates heaped with cold cuts, bread and cheese. I hesitated momentarily. Surely the meat was not kosher, and eating meat and cheese together was forbidden. “Oh,” she said, noticing my hesitation and realizing. “I’m so sorry. I would have tried to get kosher meat, but …”

      “There are no more kosher butchers,” I finished for her. She nodded. “It’s okay, really.” The food had not been strictly kosher when I lived at the Baus’, and in the ghetto, we ate whatever we could get when we could get it. I knew my parents would understand, and be glad I had good food to eat. As if on cue, my stomach rumbled then. A look of relief crossed over Krysia’s face as I took generous helpings of the meat and cheese.

      “You know, I’ve never cared for a child,” Krysia confessed later that afternoon. We were standing on the balcony just off the parlor, hanging freshly washed children’s clothing, which Krysia said had been given to her by a friend.

      “Me, neither, until I worked at the ghetto orphanage.” I looked at Krysia. She was staring at the damp blue children’s shirt in her hand, a helpless expression on her face. I could tell that she was really worried. “But, Krysia, you have cared for a child. Jacob told me he was often here as a boy.”

      She shook her head. “Being an aunt for a few hours isn’t the same.”

      I took the shirt from her, hung it on the line. “We’ll figure it out. It will be okay. I promise.”

      The child, Krysia told me, would arrive late that night as I had done the night before. By early evening, Krysia looked exhausted. “Why don’t you rest a bit?” I offered, but she shook her head. As the hands on the walnut grandfather clock in the hallway climbed well past midnight, she continued moving around the cottage without resting, cleaning and organizing dozens of little things. Krysia had turned the lights down low so that only the faintest glow remained in the kitchen and our shadows grew long in the corridors. Every few minutes she would lift the heavy drapes of the rear parlor window slightly to look out at the back garden for the new arrival.

      Finally, around two o’clock in the morning, we settled in the kitchen with mugs of strong coffee. I hesitated for several minutes before speaking. There was so much I wanted to ask Krysia that I didn’t know where to begin. “How did you …?” I began at last.

      “Become involved with the resistance?” She stirred her coffee once more, then placed the spoon in the cradle of the saucer. “I always knew about Jacob’s causes. He spoke to me about it because his mother was not that interested, and his father worried too much for his safety. I was concerned, too, of course,” she added, taking a sip from her cup. “But I knew he was unstoppable.” So did I, I thought. “He came here late one night shortly after the occupation,” she continued. I realized she must have been talking about the night before his disappearance, when Jacob had not returned home for many hours. “He didn’t exactly tell me what was going on, but he asked me to keep an eye on you, in case anything should happen to him. I asked what else I could do, and we realized together that my home and my position might be useful somehow. He put me in contact with people … the specifics did not come until after he was gone.”

      “But this is terribly dangerous for you! Aren’t you at all afraid?”

      “Of course I am, darling.” The corners of her mouth pressed wryly upward. “Even an old widow with no children wishes to live. But this war …” Her expression turned serious. “This war is the shame of my people. Having you and the child live here with me is the least I can do.”

      “The Poles didn’t start this war,” I protested.

      “No, but …” Her thought was interrupted by a light scratching sound at the back door. “Wait here.”

      Krysia tiptoed downstairs. I heard whispers, some movement, then a tiny click as the door shut. Krysia came back up the stairs, her footsteps slower and heavier now. When she reached the landing, her arms overflowed with a large cloth bundle. I stood to help her and together we carried the sleeping child to the third floor.

      We set the child on the crib and Krysia unwrapped the blankets in which he had been swaddled. At the sight of the child’s face, I gasped loudly. It was the blond child whose mother had been shot in the alleyway.

      “What is it?” But before I could answer, the child, awakened by my gasp and Krysia’s voice, began to whimper. “Shh,” she soothed, rubbing the child’s back. He settled into sleep once more.

      Silently, we backed out of the room. “That child,” I whispered. “That’s …”

      “The descendant of Rabbi Izakowicz, the great rabbi of Lublin. His mother was shot …”

      “I know! I saw it happen from our apartment.”

      “Oh, you poor dear,” Krysia said, patting my shoulder.

      “You said he has no parents. What about his father?”

      “We don’t know. He was either shot in the woods near Chernichow or taken to a camp. Either way, it doesn’t look good.”

      I squeezed my eyes tight then, remembering the scene in the alleyway. Surely they wouldn’t kill the rabbi, I had said to my parents that night. “She was with child when she was killed,” I added, my eyes beginning to burn. “His mother, I mean.”

      Krysia nodded. “I had heard that. It makes what we are doing that much more important. The child is the last of a great rabbinic dynasty. He must be kept alive.”

      Krysia and I took turns sleeping that night in case the child should awaken and be confused or upset by the strange surroundings, but he slept through the night and did not stir. The next morning, I went to his crib and lifted him, still in his street clothes. He was damp with sweat, his blond curls darkened and pressed against his forehead. He blinked but did not make a sound as I placed him on my hip. Instead, he wrapped his hands around my neck and rested his head on my shoulder as though he had done this every day of his young life. Together we headed down the stairs to the kitchen, where Krysia was once again preparing breakfast. At the sight of us in the doorway, her eyes warmed and her face broke into a wide smile.

      A week later, Lukasz and I would walk into town for our debut appearance as gentiles at market. His eyes would light up at the sight of an ice-cream cart and I, unable to resist, would take a few pennies from our food money to buy him a vanilla cone. And this is how Lukasz, the son of the great rabbi of Lublin, and Emma, the daughter of a poor Kazimierz baker, came to live with the elegant Krysia Smok in a cottage that seemed like a palace in Chelmska.

      CHAPTER 6

      “We will be having a dinner party on Saturday,” Krysia announces as routinely as though she is discussing the weather. The damp white towel I am holding falls from my hands to the dirt.

      We are working in the garden, Krysia pulling weeds from around the spry green plants that are just beginning to bud, me hanging the linens we washed in a large basin an hour earlier. A few feet away, Lukasz digs silently in the dirt with a stick. It has been more than a month since Lukasz and I came to live with Krysia. I can tell that she is overwhelmed at times. Since arriving here, I have tried to take on as much of the housework as I can, but the labor has still taken its toll on her. Her delicate hands seem to grow more callused by the day, and her work dresses have become soiled and tattered. Yet despite her sacrifices, Krysia seems to like having us around. We are the first real companions she’s had since Marcin died. She and I make easy company for each other, sometimes chatting as we work