The One Man (15 page)

“I do not know, ma'am.”

“Yes, I'm sure you're a bit nervous to agree to anything. Please relax. It's just chess. It is just the two of us. Well, three.” She eyed the young guard with the tiniest of smiles.

“Yes, ma'am.” Leo was too afraid to say anything else.

A housemaid stepped into the room.

“Coffee?” Frau Ackermann asked. “Maybe a cake? Or some fruit?”

Coffee?
Fruit? A cake? Leo was sure she could see the lump travel down his throat. These were delicacies here, available only in the imagination of someone keen on torturing himself. Or maybe paid for by only the largest of bribes. And then, only scraps, stolen from the kitchen trash. Whatever the Germans left behind.

Leo licked his lips but still shook his head. He was too unsettled to even speak. He just moved his piece. Bishop to queen four. “Later then, Hedda,” Frau Ackermann said to the maid. “You may leave the basket.”

“Yes, Frau Ackermann,” the housemaid said, and left. She had seemed as nervous as Leo.

They continued on. He watched her thinking out his moves, a finger pressed to her lips, and then quickly replying. It was clear her father had taught her well. She saw through a few of his early ruses, meant to lure her into an unfavorable exchange. And when she did spot his intent, she met his eyes with the faintest of pleased smiles.

“I am happy to have already lasted this long with a player of your skill.”

Queen to king's bishop five. Leo cleared his throat and barely got the word out of his throat. “Check.”

“I see.” She was beautiful. Even in the modest way she covered herself up. Early thirties, he thought. Her eyes were almond-shaped and a soft blue. When she thought she sometimes bit her lower lip, which had a soft covering of red lipstick on it. When Leo looked at her, he glanced at her only for a split second, and when she looked at him, he quickly averted his gaze.

In truth, he had never been alone with a woman before.

“Let's see now…” She advanced a pawn, blocking her king from the danger.

They continued deeper into the game. A dilemma began to develop for him. How was he expected to play this? This was the Lagerkommandant's wife. She held the power of life and death over him. Like any of the guards, if she snapped her fingers, she could just have him sent and killed. Should he let her win? Clearly she knew what she was doing, so it would take only a single careless move and would not be so hard. If this were her husband, or any one of the guards, he could see them disposing of any Jew with the audacity to insult one of them. Even a perceived insult. And this was the camp boss's wife? His head went into a spin, and everything he knew about the game seemed to spiral away as if caught up in a swirling wind. He decided to give her a test. He moved up his bishop to attack her queen but left it open to her rook.

“Herr Wolciek,” she said, pausing after his move. “Your bishop…?”

Their eyes met. For the first time really. Leo's heart was galloping three times its normal rate. He was afraid she would hear it above the silence, pounding like mad in his chest. He was afraid she would detect what was going through his head.

“But of course you saw that,” she said, letting him off the hook. Her eyes narrowed just a bit, both apologetic and in their own way, reproving, as if to say,
Not again. Please.

“Thank you, ma'am.”

The rest of the game they did not converse. They just played; the time between her moves grew longer. Once or twice, Leo let his eyes linger on the tempting shape of her dress. He could not help imagining what she looked like underneath. He let his mind wander, to her undergarments—he had never seen a woman's undergarments, save his mother's. The fluid curve beneath her sweater as she leaned to move. Her breasts …

“Herr Wolciek … I believe it is your move.”

“Sorry, ma'am.” He cleared his throat. Rook to queen five. With a blush.

They were set up for a multipiece exchange, which Leo saw would not be to his advantage. Nonetheless, he decided to take the plunge. It would leave him down a rook. They moved the five moves of the exchange in rapid succession. It left his castled king weakly protected. When she saw her position at the end of the exchange, she looked at him again, her eyes suspect, glistening a little, not quite sure.

“I should never have taken the bait,” Leo admitted with a shrug. “I fear there is not much point in letting this continue on.”

He could see, she didn't know whether to be pleased or angry with him.

“You play very well, Frau Ackermann.” Leo turned over his king. “Your father has taught you well.”

“Thank you. Perhaps we will play again.” She met his eyes. “If you are lucky.”

Lucky.
The word ran through him. Leo knew precisely what she meant. And it was nothing to do with the chess. “I hope that will be the case,” he said.

“And maybe the next time I will beat you for real,” she said with a tone of admonishment. Her sharp eyes contained the hint of a sage smile.

“Please get the Rottenführer,” she called to the young guard. “Our guest is set to leave. But you will take these, of course.” She wrapped two sugar cakes and an apple in a napkin. “With my compliments. Here they will only go to my husband's waistline.”

“Thank you, Frau Ackermann.” Leo stood up and took the offering. The hair on his arms raised as their hands slightly touched.

“May I?” Leo asked. He pointed warily toward a large plum. It had a private significance to him. He had not even seen one since that fateful day at the fruit stand.

“Of course. See he gets back safely, Corporal,” she said to Langer, who had come in from the outside. “And
with
my gifts, if you please.”

“Of course, Frau Ackermann.” Leo could see Langer gritting his teeth with held-in anger at having to escort Leo back to the block with his cache of treasures.

She got up.

“And next time,” she looked back at Leo, the slightest smile in her eyes, “you will have to earn your treats, Herr Wolciek. Not be given them. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Leo bowed his head and smiled back. “I do understand.”

Next time …
Leo said to himself on the walk back to camp. Those words were about the happiest he had heard since he first arrived in this godforsaken place.

The place didn't look quite as bad as he came back to it. Even with Langer prodding him.

He had someone watching out for him now.

 

TWENTY

She sent for him again the following week. And then again, a few days after that.

The next week as well.

Each time Rottenführer Langer came around to the block to escort Leo late in the afternoon while her husband was still at work. And each time they stopped at the shower and he had Leo scrub himself clean. Though with each new visit the guard seemed to grow more and more displeased with the task.

And each time he marched Leo past the black wall and through the front gate, past the train ramp where he had arrived that first night, to the row of brick houses whose flowers were now starting to bloom. By the third visit the guards at the front gate merely shook their heads in amusement and rolled their eyes at Langer as he and Leo went by. And each time the same young SS private watched by the parlor door while Leo and the Lagerkommandant's wife played their game. And no longer did Leo let her win unchallenged.

And each time he returned to camp he carried back with him a napkin wrapped with treats: cakes, fruit, even chocolates, worth a hundred cigarettes in there. Prizes he willingly shared with his block mates, some of whom laughed at him for his well-placed protectress.
The Queen of Mercy,
they named her, for as long as Leo remained under her protection, maybe his good fortune would spill over onto them. He was their Scheherazade. Just keep her amused, they all begged. “The longer you play, we will all be safe.”

Others scowled that Leo was no better than the lowest form of collaborator. How could he spend time sucking up to such filth? She was as guilty as any of them. “She shares the bed of the very bastard who makes sure the daily death quotas are met!”

“I am perfectly happy doing what I have to do,” Leo defended himself, “if it buys me one more day here. And you should as well, Drabik, if you had any brains in your head.”

Their second match, Leo played much more relaxed. Frau Ackermann tried a more conventional opening, which Leo easily handled. In truth, he could have put her away within twenty moves, but he enjoyed the time he spent there—in the spell of a beautiful woman, and the fact that no Jew had ever had this privilege. He didn't want it to end so quickly. So he prolonged things by swapping a few pieces that made it a fight for territory in the end game, which he easily won.

Each new match, Frau Ackermann grew more relaxed as well. She actually dropped the formal “Herr” and called him by his given name now and then, and between moves, she even asked where he was from and how he learned to play. She volunteered that she was from Bremen, in the North, where all the big breweries were. “You like beer, Leo?” she asked. He felt sure she was toying with him a bit. “You're probably not old enough. You've probably never had a good beer.”

“I've had beer,” Leo said, trying to make himself seem older than he was. In fact, it had only been once, a few sips, on his father's last birthday before he was killed when Leo was eleven.

She had beautiful, large eyes, and when pleased, like when Leo complimented her on a move, or when she saw what he was up to and countered smartly, they were quick to brighten into a sage smile. And yet he saw that there was a sadness to her as well. Like a caged bird that had grown accustomed to her captivity but dreamed of something beyond. Or someone living a life other than what she had envisioned. He imagined that in a different setting, she could be charming and witty and smart, and in his mind he saw her, at a party, with a glass of champagne in her hand, in a free-flowing, red dress. Yet here, by his fourth visit, he began to get the sense that this was the one thing she looked forward to most. That freed her from the horror she was party to here. His fifth game, it was a warm, summery day and she no longer wore her sweater. Her collar was open another button and fell tantalizingly over her breast so that between moves, Leo's mind roamed to what was underneath, the tiniest hint of cleavage showing through. Maybe once she even caught Leo leaning forward just a bit to stare at it.

“It is your move, Herr Wolciek,” she said with a slightly reproving smile.

“Yes. Of course.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry.”

He was embarrassed at the sudden stiffness he felt in his pants. Both under the chess table and in his bunk at night. She was the wife of the Lagerkommandant. To her, he could be only a lowly Jew who would not live long. His only value was that he amused her. For all he knew, she had the maid wipe down the very pieces he touched with a cloth after he left.

Yet, that fifth match, he saw that she was happy to see him. She must have studied up for she played white and tried a new opening. A variation of the Sicilian Defense. It was the kind of passive opening that easily led to a long middle game and went against his standard Ruy Lopez, and Leo resisted a quick exchange of pawns and knights that would have resolved things sooner.

At some point she asked him where he was from.

“Lodz,” he said, looking up. “It's in the center of Poland. We have beer there too.” He smiled and looked down.

“Polish beer, you say? Never heard of it. How could there be such a thing?” They played on a few more moves. “And your father … What does he do?” Leo looked up at her. “If you do not mind me asking.”

“He was a lawyer, Frau Ackermann. He represented people in small business transactions.”

“And he is…?” She hesitated, so that he assumed she either meant dead or even worse,
was he here?

“No, he died, madame, before the war.” Leo moved up his rook to put pressure on her knight. Then he added, “Luckily, I think.”

Her eyes met his this time. It was the first time he had injected his position and fate into their game, and he was angry at himself because he felt it suddenly separate them. She retreated her knight and the game wound on. Leo glanced at the young guard. He was no more than twenty-two or -three. A private only, but surely this was a plum assignment to guard the wife of the assistant camp commander. Still, one that kept him away from all the “fun and games” going on next door. The way he looked at Leo—narrow, impassive, staring right through him—Leo couldn't help but wonder just how many of his buddies on the other side of the fence this young private had killed. Emptied his Luger into the back of someone's head as they kneeled and waited. Or clubbed them senseless with a blow to the head. Or clamped the “shower” door tight and chuckled to his pals at the gagging and cries for mercy coming from within. Maybe put down a few reichsmarks on how long they would last in there. Three minutes? Five?
Eight?

Maybe she saw this in Leo's eyes.

“Private, can you please call in Hedda?” she asked. The maid.

“Of course, Frau Ackermann.” The young private clicked his heels and left.

She picked up her queen and went to play—to king's knight six, Leo assumed, uselessly attacking his queen—when she held onto it without placing it down and waited for him to meet her eyes.

“I know what you must think—what anyone would naturally think, of course. But I am not the monster you may imagine, Leo. I studied economics at the university in Leipzig. When I met Kurt, he was studying for his law degree. He was very dashing,” she said. “Driven. For a young girl, it was…”

It was
what
? Leo wondered what she was about to say.
Impressive? Irresistible?
He looked up and her gaze seemed to lock on his even more strongly now, more resolutely, and this time Leo did not pull his away.