Playing for the Commandant Read Online Free PDF Page A

like a toilet. I held my nose and fought the urge to throw up. Erika and I pushed through the crush of bodies to get to a small grate at the far end. We took turns at the wall, tilting our heads up toward the little air that filtered through the slats.
    A bucket sat in a corner, its lumpy contents spilling onto the floor. When I couldn’t hold on any longer, Father held his coat up and I squatted behind it, but Mother refused to go. “I don’t have any toilet paper,” she fretted. “I’ll just hold on until we reach the next station.”
    But there was no next station. Through the slats of the grate I saw fragments of sky, scraps of green, and flashes of gray — station platforms with strange-sounding names. We’d passed dozens already. The sky had grown dark and then lightened again, and we still hadn’t stopped.
    I opened my backpack.
    “Anyu, I found some toilet paper. Take it; you’re in pain.”
    Father held up his coat again and Mother crouched behind it, clutching the first page of Clara’s Concerto in A Minor. I didn’t need the sheet music to play Clara’s pieces. I knew all her concertos by heart. I just wanted the crotchets and semiquavers for company, a reminder of the life I’d return to once we were free.
    “Remember when we used to sit in the air-raid shelter?” Erika pulled me close. “It was dark and cramped and we’d sit there for hours, and Papa would tell his corny jokes and Anyu would sing. And when the siren finally sounded and we opened the door, remember how good the sun felt on our faces?”
    I closed my eyes and pictured my sister and me lying on the grass, our faces turned up to the summer sun. When Erika brushed against me, her body wasn’t sticky with sweat; it was slick with suntan oil, and the stifling heat in the wagon was another summer’s day, and the clank of the wheels was a song on the radio.
    I fell asleep. When I woke, Michael Wollner was standing next to me.
    “Sorry — did I wake you? It’s hard to see in here, and you were standing against the wall. I thought you were awake. . . .” His breath smelled like sour milk.
    “It’s okay,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “I’m awake. What time is it?”
    “I don’t know.” He stood on his toes and peered through the grate. “It’s dark outside.”
    “Dark? That means we’ve been traveling for two days.”
    Michael nodded. “Tonight’s the night we were going to have the dance. . . .” Even in the half-light, I could see his face flush. Michael stared at his feet. I picked at my hem. The dance was to have been held in an unheated hall in the ghetto. There would have been no food and no decorations and yet I’d been excited. Nervous, too, to have a boy’s arms around my waist for the first time, and his mouth at my neck. Now we were breathing down each other’s necks and we were all clammy and a school dance sounded wonderful.
    “Mother sent me over to ask if you could spare some water.” He held out a cup. “We’ve run out, and she can’t take her medicine. I wouldn’t ask, but she’s feeling faint.” I opened our flask and poured a few drops into his cup.
    “I hope she feels better,” I said, tucking the flask back into our bag. Michael returned to his mother.
    The car grew quiet. People were too weak and hungry to fight over floor space. Every time the train lurched to a stop, we were thrown against the walls and battered by damp bodies. Whatever bleak thoughts the adults had they kept to themselves. Occasionally, Mother would hum a tune to herself, but her voice didn’t cheer me. I just wanted to get out. Whatever our destination, it had to be better than being imprisoned in this wooden box.
    Someone lit a candle. In the flickering light I saw a woman lying on the floor. Her face was gray. I’d heard bodies slump to the floor, but I’d imagined they were sleeping, at worst unconscious.
    I pulled at my father’s coat. “Please, Papa, cover her up.” But he couldn’t.
    A young girl of