Free Playing for the Commandant by Suzy Zail

with a yellow star. Her right eye was swollen shut, and her feet were bare. I’d spent the day entertaining her jailer — I didn’t deserve her smile.
    I was almost glad when they herded us to block 11 to change back into our old clothes. I pulled my dirty underwear on, slid my C-sharp under the fraying waistband, and slipped my dress over my head, the tin cup dangling at my waist. Erika was already in bed when I returned to the barrack.
    “I hear you got the job.” The block leader stepped between me and the bunk. “I hope you can keep the boss happy. You
do
know how to keep men happy?” Her breath smelled of vodka. I stepped around her and fell onto the bunk beside Erika. My sister’s eyes were puffy. Her mouth sagged. I hated seeing my sister so wretched. She’d stepped off the train at Birkenau so angry, but her anger had disappeared and with it, her strength.
    I handed her the yellow flower. Half the petals had fallen off and the stem was bent, but she took the flower gratefully. She lay her head on my shoulder and wrapped her arms around my waist. She didn’t ask about the audition.
    “What’s wrong?” I lifted her face from my neck and saw that she was crying. “Where’s Mother?”
    Erika buried her head in her hands.
    “Where’s Anyu?” I pulled away from her.
    “Anyu’s gone.” Her face caved in. “The guards at selection made us hop up and down. They took her away.” Erika’s face was wet from crying. “It’s just us now.”
    “Don’t talk like that!” I shook my head. “She was too sick to work in the quarry. They’ve probably taken her to the infirmary.”
    “I don’t know.” Erika’s shoulders slumped. “I’ve heard things —”
    I cut her off. I didn’t want to know what she’d heard. “They want us scared, not dead. They need us alive so we can work.” I buried my face in her dress.
What if I was wrong?
I pulled the blanket around us and closed my eyes. “We’ll see Anyu again,” I said, and then we were both sobbing, our grief muffled by the scratchy wool.
    We stayed like that, our bodies heaving, crying soundlessly under our blanket, until the block leader called lights out and the barrack grew still. Outside, it was dark, the cold silver moon strung up in the sky. I lay in bed but I couldn’t sleep. There was so much I wanted to tell my mother. I’d been so angry at her, so hateful. I wanted to tell her that I finally understood. She hadn’t chosen to ignore what was going on in the camp — she hadn’t chosen to ignore us — it was just all too hard: losing her home, then her husband. I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t angry with her anymore. I wanted to tell her that we’d be okay, that I had a job and a plan and a way to get food. That I’d find her and feed her, and feed Erika, too. I wasn’t losing her. Not yet. Not till she’d seen me graduate from the Budapest Conservatory and watched me perform at the Budapest Concert Hall and taught me to cook and watched me walk down the aisle.
    I comforted myself with Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor, rehearsing the music in my head, picturing the notes on the page, trying to lose myself in the melody. I thought of the perilous situations Clara had survived. In 1849, during the Dresden uprising, she’d walked through the city’s front lines, defying a mob of armed men, to rescue her children. Anyu and Erika had looked out for me my whole life. It was my turn to take care of them. It was my turn to be strong.
    I was back in block 11 the next morning. I pulled off my dress and shoved it into the bag on the bench opposite the shower stall. Erika had bitten into the stitching of my dress to make a hole for my piano key. She thought it would be safer hidden in a bag in block 11, given our block leader’s fondness for stripping our beds to search for food.
    I hoped so.
    When I emerged from the shower, the guard on duty directed me to the other side of the room. There was a row of metal lockers against