Kommandant's Girl. Pam Jenoff

a plaque with Kommandant Richwalder’s name on it. He raps sharply on the door twice, then, without waiting for a response, opens it and gestures for me to enter. The room is a reception area of some sort, windowless and too warm. A large-boned woman with a wide nose and bad skin sits at a small desk in the center of the room. Her head is bowed and her enormous brown coil of hair bobs as she works, filling in spaces on a lined graph with intensity. If she’s here, I wonder, then what am I to do? Hope rises within me. Perhaps some mistake has been made and there is no position available for me. Maybe I can just go home. But even as I think this, I know that it is impossible; Kommandant Richwalder is not the type of man to make that sort of mistake.

      I stand awkwardly by the door for several minutes. The woman does not look up. Helplessly, I turn around, but the guard who escorted me has disappeared into the hallway, leaving me alone. The woman behind the desk does not speak. “Przepraszam …” I finally say, excusing myself.

      “Ja?”she replies, and I can tell from her pronunciation that she does not speak German.

      “I am Anna Lipowski.” There is no reaction or response. “Kommandant Richwalder instructed me to report here….”

      “Oh, yes.” At last she stands, inspecting me from head to toe with a sweeping glance. “You are the Kommandant’s new personal assistant.” There is an inscrutable hint of disdain in the way that she pronounces my job title that makes me uneasy. She gestures for me to follow her through a second door behind her desk. “This is the anteroom.” I look around. The room is smaller than the reception area, but has nicer furnishings and a cool breeze coming from two large open windows on either side. “You will work here. The Kommandant’s office is through that door.” She waves her head in the direction of another door at the back of the room. “The Kommandant had a meeting this morning and apologizes for being unable to welcome you personally.” It is hard to imagine the imposing Kommandant apologizing for anything.

      The woman continues on as though giving a speech. “We are privileged to be working in the governor’s executive offices. Only the most senior officials and their staffs are located in Wawel. The rest of the General Government is located in the administrative building across town on Pomorskie Street.” I nod, trying to reconcile myself to the idea that working for the Nazis could somehow be construed as a privilege. “The Kommandant is the governor’s first deputy. All of the various directorates in southern Poland report to him. He will explain your duties to you in greater detail when he returns. For a start, you will keep his calendar and answer his correspondence.” She pronounces the word correspondence as though it were a matter of national security. “I am Malgorzata Turnau,” she concludes. “If I can help you at all, please let me know.”

      “Thank you.” I realize then that this woman’s position is subordinate to mine, and the strange look I saw cross her face when she said my job title was one of jealousy. She probably hoped to move up to the very position I am to fill. But any sympathy I might have had for her is dampened by the reverence with which she described our work and the fervent look in her eyes. She is obviously one of those Poles whose loyalties have been swayed to the Nazis, and I can tell right away she will do anything to curry favor with the Kommandant. When Krysia had said to trust no one, she clearly had the Malgorzatas of the world in mind. I knew she would be watching me.

      Malgorzata walks over to the desk that sits to the left side of the room under one of the windows. “This is the Kommandant’s mail.” She picks up a clipboard and hands it to me. “Open each piece and log it on this chart by sender, date and subject.” She shows me then how to separate the mail into piles: one for those pieces of correspondence that require the Kommandant’s personal attention, another for those that can be answered with a form response, and a final stack for those that need to be routed to other offices. “And don’t open anything marked confidential,” she instructs before leaving the room, slamming the door behind her.

      Alone, I exhale, sitting down behind the desk. In addition to the letters, there is a small stack of office supplies that has been left on the desk for me, which I organize and place in the drawers. I pause to look around my new quarters. The anteroom is about three by five meters, with a small sofa located across from the desk. The windows, one each over the desk and sofa, are almost too high to see out of, but if I raise myself on my toes, I can just catch a glimpse of the river.

      I reach for the stack of mail and begin opening the envelopes. Remembering what Krysia had said, I try to read as much of it as possible, but it is remarkably mundane, mostly invitations to social functions and dry-looking, official reports comprised of German military terminology that I cannot comprehend. About a third of the way down the stack, there is one envelope emblazoned with the word Confidential in red ink across the seal. I pull it out and hold it up to the light, but it is impossible to see through the thick paper. I examine the seal of the envelope. Perhaps I can open it and then close it again, I think, working at the edge of the seal with my fingernail.

      The door swings open. I look up. The Kommandant strides into the anteroom, cloak flung over one shoulder. My breath catches. He is even more striking than I remembered. A smaller man, also in uniform, follows him, carrying two black leather briefcases. I rise to my feet. “Anna,” the Kommandant says, smiling and walking toward me. He takes my right hand and I half expect him to kiss it as he did the night we met at Krysia’s, but instead he simply shakes it in a businesslike manner. “Welcome.” He gestures to the other man. “This is Colonel Diedrichson, my military attaché.”

      Colonel Diedrichson sets down the briefcases. He is not smiling. “What are you doing with that?” he demands, pointing to my left hand.

      I freeze. I had forgotten that I am still holding the confidential envelope, the seal half open. “M-Malgorzata told me I was to open the mail,” I manage to say.

      “She didn’t tell you that confidential mail is not to be opened?” he demands. I shrug and shake my head slightly, praying that he will not ask her.

      “I’m sure it was just a mistake,” the Kommandant interjects.

      “This—” Colonel Diedrichson snatches the envelope from my hand “—is why I wanted to import the clerical staff from Berlin.”

      “Thank you, Colonel, that will be all,” the Kommandant says.

      Diedrichson raises his right hand. “Heil Hitler.” He picks up the briefcases before turning on one heel and leaving. When he has gone, the Kommandant turns back to me. He does not speak but opens the door at the rear of the anteroom and gestures for me to enter. My hands shaking, I pick up a notepad from my desk and follow him inside.

      The Kommandant’s office is like nothing I have ever seen. It is enormous, bigger than an entire floor of Krysia’s house. The office is like three rooms in one. Immediately by the door are a sofa and a half-dozen chairs arranged around a low table in the manner of a living room. At the far end of the room stands a conference table surrounded by at least fourteen chairs. In the center, between these two areas, is an enormous mahogany desk. A lone framed photograph sits on the corner of the desk. Across from the Kommandant’s desk, there is a towering grandfather clock. The thick red velvet curtains that cover the wall of windows behind the desk have been pulled back with gold ropes, revealing a stunning panoramic view of the river.

      The Kommandant gestures to the sofa by the door. “Please, sit down,” he says, walking toward the desk. I perch in the location he indicated and wait expectantly as he shuffles through a stack of papers. A moment later he looks up. “I’m sure Malgorzata informed you of your basic duties, correspondence and scheduling.” I nod. “If that was all I needed, I could have anyone do it, including Malgorzata. Anna,” he says, crossing the room to where I am seated. As he approaches, I shiver involuntarily.

      “Are you cold?” he asks.

      “N-no, Herr Kommandant,” I stammer, cursing inwardly at my nervousness. I must do a better job of concealing it.

      “Oh, good.” He sits down in the chair beside me. As he draws closer, I suddenly notice a swastika pin fastened to his collar. Had he been wearing it last time? I had not noticed. Then again, last time I had not known what Sachsenhausen