The Children's War (119 page)

47

H
EADQUARTERS HAD NO
difficulty with Zosia’s idea, but it took a lot of convincing to get the Szaflary Council to agree to it. Why, Katerina wanted to know, were they going to risk their most highly trained analyst and their best assassin and a member of the Council on such a ridiculous assignment?

Zosia argued that she needed the experience, that she wanted to be based in Berlin, that Joanna needed the education. And finally, at Peter’s suggestion, she argued that Kasia needed her as she approached her due date. Zosia argued, cajoled, called in favors, and finally managed to get Katerina’s objections overridden.

They transported themselves to Berlin as the major and his wife and daughter,-but upon their arrival at Ryszard’s house, they took up their new identities as a young cousin from the East and her two servants brought in on a temporary trade. Joanna was placed in Genia’s room, and her parents were given two cots in the attic for their use whenever necessary, but Kasia had given them the guest room as well so they could spend most of their visit in comfort. There in the guest room they put on the finishing touches.

They laughed at each other while they put on their costumes, poking fun at the presumed sudden change in their blood as they dived down through the ranks of humanity to the very bottom. Zosia had dyed her hair a dark brown and donned a shapeless and ill-fitting blue shift. She spun around in front of Peter and asked, “What do you think?”

“You look gorgeous.”

She smirked. “That’s not supposed to be the effect.”

“Sorry. I can’t help you’re beautiful.”

She smiled at his compliment, went into the bathroom, and putting some
grease on her hands, rubbed it into her hair. “This should help a bit.” She pulled the oily brown mass back into a sloppy ponytail. Then, using an eyebrow pencil, she darkened her eyebrows and just under the inside of her eyelids. The action was obviously painful, and her eyes turned red and teary from the abuse. She turned toward him, scowled slightly, and asked, “Better?”

He nodded. “But you’re still gorgeous.”

“Oh, you’re no help!” she exclaimed, exasperated.

“What about me?” he asked, presenting himself for inspection.

She studied him for a moment: the transition was heartbreaking. They had colored his hair using an easily dissolved brown dye, and he had done nothing beyond that other than don the uniform, yet he looked completely different! He raised his eyebrows as he awaited her evaluation. She smiled at him, came forward, and gently grasped his hand, brought it to her lips, and kissed it.

He laughed slightly at her silence. “I know, I look like hell.”

“No, you look afraid.” She saw how his tongue moved back to touch the false tooth that now carried poison for him. It was an involuntary probing that they all did at first. Death whenever one wanted it. Funny, but no one felt reassured. “I am, too,” she confessed.

He looked at her in surprise. “You?”

She nodded. “Scared shitless.” Her hand moved unbidden to her abdomen, and her eyes dropped to contemplate their unborn child. “More afraid than I ever been.”

They presented themselves downstairs to the general merriment of the family.-With Stefi at the encampment, the eldest child at home was Pawel, a witty and bright sixteen-year-old boy. He teased his aunt mercilessly but had either been forewarned or was sufficiently intuitive that he did not harass Peter at all. His younger brothers, Andrzej, who was thirteen, and Jan, who was ten, joined in. When Zosia scolded Jan for teasing her too much, he stated quite impishly that he had nothing to fear as long as she wasn’t wearing her necklace. Andrzej joined in, asking, “Auntie Zosia, what are you going to do without your necklace to keep us in line?”

“Ah, just you wait and see.” Zosia’s eyes glinted with feigned menace. “The next time you visit us, I’ll show you where your father used to be locked up by your grandfather! It’s the darkest, dankest part of the bunker and there’s no way out!”

The boys drew back slightly, unsure of the reality of the threat. Joanna gave both her parents a hug and told her mother that she looked awful with her hair all messed up. Zosia thanked her for that information and then set about practicing her character by making tea for everybody.

Zosia settled into her role surprisingly well. She was not only supportive of Kasia as she struggled through the last awkward days of her pregnancy, but she let Peter teach her the basics of how to handle a household and carried out her self-assigned duties with a cheerful gusto. Only in the early morning when she
would moan about killing herself rather than getting up yet again to go and fetch breakfast rolls was she less than enthusiastic in her job. Peter tried various ways of waking her up, but nothing really worked. Eventually he would ask if she wanted him to go, and she would groan that it was too dangerous and finally manage to roll out of bed.

She found the whole process extraordinarily disconcerting. The first morning Kasia accompanied her, and as the two women walked slowly to the bakery, Kasia stopped to explain Zosia’s temporary presence to the patrols. They were deferential toward Kasia, and though Zosia kept her head and eyes down, they seemed to treat her courteously enough—one of them even stooping down somewhat comically so he could peer into her face. The next day, however, when she went on her own, they treated her with an ill-tempered brusqueness that promised violence at any second.

“I hadn’t done anything!” she moaned to Peter. “I’m sure of it! I was walking like you taught me, careful not to look at anyone, doing everything you said, and still they came over barking at me like . . .” She looked up at him plaintively. “Did I screw up? I thought I was doing it right.”

He embraced her, stroked her messy, greasy hair. “I’m sure you were perfect. They just harass people, especially new people. There’s no way around it. It sounds like everything went just as it should have done.”

She pulled back to look at him. “Really?”

He nodded, pulled her back into his arms. “I’m sorry, darling, that’s just the way it is. They’ll probably lay off in a day or two. Just be especially careful for the next couple of days.”

“What more can I do to be careful?” she asked quite seriously.

“I don’t know, it was useless advice.”

It was also useless worrying, his sitting by the back window each morning waiting for her to reappear, but he did it nonetheless. From the moment she went out the door until the moment he saw her opening the back gate, he sat and uselessly fretted. Sometimes he ventured out into the yard to the back gate to watch for her approach down the alley, but he felt that this might be viewed as suspicious behavior by the neighbors, so he did not often indulge himself.

Eventually he came upon the idea that Joanna and Kasia’s five-year-old daughter, Genia, could walk each morning with Zosia to the bakery. The children were under strict instructions never to try to interfere, just to run home and report any serious trouble. They were happy to take on the responsibility, and Zosia enjoyed the company. Knowing how the patrols tended to behave themselves in the presence of Rudi and Gisela, Peter felt sure that the girls would act as a reasonable deterrent to any unpleasantness.

Once the morning routine had been sorted out, the days were quite pleasant. Zosia and Peter managed to keep the house in a reasonable state; Kasia helped out when she felt up to it and sprawled awkwardly in an armchair to rest when
she did not. The children were self-sufficient, and there was plenty of time for visiting and conversation. The only annoyance, and that was fairly minor, was that it was considered too dangerous for Peter to leave the property given that the Traugutts lived in the same Party-favored area as the Vogels. He accepted the inconvenience and used the time wisely, studying material that he had brought with him about America and its culture.

Ryszard came home in the evenings invariably exhausted by the stress of his day. He did nothing to help around the house; he rarely even interacted with his family. He just sat and smoked, sometimes reading the Party newspaper, often just staring off into space, sipping a whiskey. Sometimes Kasia would sit and join him and try to converse, but usually he was so unresponsive that she gave up and left him to his thoughts. Occasionally he argued with his son Pawel. He wanted Pawel to move out of the house as soon as possible, to move into Szaflary with his sister Stefi under the pretense that he had left home for a military academy. But Pawel, having only just turned sixteen, was not yet ready to leave home. He wanted to remain with his family and especially wanted to be there for his mother. He was aware of his father’s stress-induced depression and felt the need to shoulder the burden of taking care of the family as his father struggled with his own internal demons.

Pawel confided his difficulties to Peter, and the two of them discussed the best approach to use with Ryszard. Pawel, and Andrzej as well, both leapt at the opportunity to talk to Peter and learn whatever he could teach them. They seemed completely starved of fatherly attention and complained bitterly of their father’s increasing withdrawal from the world around him. He had always been somewhat preoccupied with his work, they said, but since their move to Berlin, his preoccupation had deepened into something much more destructive.

Peter tried to explain their father’s behavior to them, tried to ease them into communicating with him, but all that seemed to happen was that the boys latched onto Peter as a substitute father, and as Ryszard finally took notice that he was being usurped, he fell ever deeper into his self-absorption.

Within a week, Peter decided there was nothing to do for it but talk directly to Ryszard. It was not hard to find him alone; he actively encouraged the children to avoid him, and with the birth overdue, Kasia was ever more tired and napped frequently. Peter asked Zosia if she would like to help, but she shook her head in mock terror and exclaimed,“Not my brother! No thank you!”

So, Peter entered the living room alone to try to talk to his brother-in-law. Ryszard was sitting in the armchair, sipping some whiskey, immersed in his newspaper. Peter poured himself a drink and sat on the couch.

“Ryszard, we need to discuss your sons,” Peter began abruptly.

Slowly Ryszard lowered the paper, gave Peter a well-practiced look of disdain, then raised the paper again.

“This is serious.”

Ryszard lowered the paper again. “Let me guess: you know better than me how to raise my boys.”

“It’s not that.” Peter tried to be gentle. “It’s your withdrawal from them. They need you.”

“What would you know about families?” Ryszard asked contemptuously. “You couldn’t even
act
the part of gracious host at your own wedding!”

Peter had never thought about his encounter with Zosia’s family in those terms, and it made him realize for the first time that he had been quite insulting in his behavior. His own family, when it had existed, had interacted so little with each other and with anyone else that in some areas he was completely ignorant of standard social behavior.

“Even your friend Karl would have had enough class to greet guests at his own wedding!” Ryszard goaded.

The cruelty of the remark did not make it any less true, and Peter felt thoroughly embarrassed. He did not want to be sidetracked, but nevertheless said, “I’m sorry about that. I was feeling rather, er, worried at the time.” On the spur of the moment he decided that it was a perfect segue and continued, “I was insecure in my position, and so I withdrew into myself and as a result hurt the ones nearest and dearest to me. Like you’re doing now.”

“Give it a rest.” Ryszard ruffled the paper noisily.

“They’re your sons—not mine!” Peter retorted angrily. “Look at them! If I do anything around your house, they’re there asking me questions, trying to help, interested in learning!”

“Oh, so they can be plumbers!” Ryszard responded scornfully. “What the hell are you doing fixing faucets anyway?” He had seen plenty, but that had really bothered him—all three of his sons in the bathroom, Pawel half under the sink, Andrzej holding on to the tap from above, Jan handing tools to his brothers, as Peter sat on the edge of the bathtub and directed their efforts.