Playing for the Commandant Read Online Free

tell Mother; the boy’s grin was too wide. I didn’t want to go with Erika — it was safer to stay out of sight — but she was going with or without me, and I couldn’t let her wander the yard alone. She was bound to get into trouble. I made her promise not to photograph the guards, and we set off, picking our way through the crowd, careful not to step on a sleeping child or overturn a pot of food. We walked past toddlers playing in the dirt and mothers reading stories to their children. We saw men praying and women crying, children begging for food and people too sick to get up off the dusty ground. Those who were too tired to stand in line for soup picked through piles of rotting garbage.
    Along a stretch of barbed wire, a market of sorts had been set up. Men and women trying to sell the remnants of their previous life: porcelain figurines, linen tablecloths, candelabras, schoolbooks. They didn’t ask for money in return for their goods, just food. I watched an elderly man trade a crystal vase for a piece of bread, and a pregnant woman exchange a silver candlestick for a slice of beef. She nibbled at the meat and pulled a second candlestick from her bag.
    “I knew Father was lying,” I said, pulling the camera from Erika’s face, “and you’re lying, too. Those people, back there, selling their candlesticks and vases . . . Father said the war’s almost over. He said we’d be home soon. So why are they selling everything?”
    “Fathers lie.” Erika shrugged. “It’s part of the job.” Erika put her hand on my arm. “He wants to protect you.”
    “From what?” My head was pounding. I could feel the tears welling up inside.
    “Nothing.” Erika smiled her big-sister smile, the one she used when she wanted to cheer me up. “Forget I said anything. I’m just tired and crabby. No one’s lying. Papa told you the war’s almost over because he thinks it is.”
    “And what about you? What do you think?” I looked up at my sister.
    “I don’t know, Hanna. All I know is that I’ll do whatever it takes to get home. And you’re coming with me.”
    I wanted to go with her. I wanted to be back in our apartment, in my own room, my own bed. But Erika couldn’t get us there — not on her own. I couldn’t help her if Papa continued to keep the truth from me. I walked back to the brick kiln, bubbling with anger.
    I wasn’t a child. I was fifteen, and I needed to know what was going on. I needed a plan. That’s how I’d won my place at the conservatorium. I wasn’t as gifted as Magda Malek or as charming as Ilonka Bardos. I’d won my place because I worked harder and practiced more than anyone else. Magda skipped practice for parties, and Ilonka took risks, adding her own interpretation to her pieces. I played by the rules, and so far, it had worked for me. If I was going to make it back home with Erika, I needed to know where we were going and what was expected of us.
    It wasn’t dark when we arrived back at the kiln from our walk, but Father was already asleep. He was still wearing his black pants, but he’d taken off his shirt and was sleeping on the ground in his undershirt. My mother slept beside him, her head on his bundled shirt. They were holding hands. I didn’t wake him, and later, when he slipped from the kiln and unzipped his pants to pee, I pretended I was asleep.
    “We’re leaving tomorrow,” Father said the next morning, but he didn’t sound glad. “We have to be packed and ready to go at six o’clock.”
    “Where are we going?”
    “I don’t know,” Father said quietly. “I’ve heard mention of camps in Poland. . . .”
    “Poland, Austria, Italy. What does it matter?” Mother had barely spoken the last five days. Now she spoke hurriedly, nervously, her words rushing after each other. “If they take us to a camp, at least we’ll live like humans. We’ll have beds and clean sheets and the floors will be swept, and if we work, they’ll feed us.” She rummaged through the