Wartime Lies (12 page)

P
ANI
Dumont had met her much regretted late husband, a Walloon railroad engineer, in Kielce, directly after the end of the Great War. He had made his way there as a member of a Belgian relief and technical assistance team. Why Belgians were helping rebuild Polish railroads when their own country had been mauled by the Germans was something Tania wondered about, but that is how Pani Dumont accounted for his presence. She told us that she had learned good French in school and naturally seized the opportunity to practice it with Monsieur Dumont. Her family was hospitable. Romance and marriage followed, they moved to Liège and, after Monsieur Dumont retired, to Warsaw. There his pension went further and enabled them to live comfortably. Monsieur Dumont died in 1940; the Belgian railroad’s checks continued to arrive but now bought very little. That was why she had decided to take lodgers. In addition to us, there were living with her the aged, devout widow of a piano teacher; Pan Stasiek, who played the accordion and the harmonica; and the concave-chested, spectacle-wearing Pan Władek. I still sing Pan Stasiek’s tunes; almost everything else about him has faded from my memory. Pan Władek became my friend.

Pani Dumont was a large, cheerful woman. All her relatives were still in Kielce; so nothing tied her to Warsaw except the apartment and the income she derived from it. Her lodgers became her substitute family. Monsieur Dumont
could not have children; she told Tania that having a young mother with a boy under her roof was a blessing. With Tania’s permission, after I became less shy with her, she would teach me French, naturally without cost. Tania was glad to have a kind and apparently well-disposed landlady. On the other hand, the consequence of Pani Dumont’s vision of her lodgers was that we were in the same difficulty as at Pani Z.’s. Unless we wanted to distinguish ourselves from the others and possibly antagonize Pani Dumont, we had to spend more time in their company than Tania considered prudent. For instance, the French lessons: Would I be able to learn French from her and not get involved in conversations about Tania and me and about the past that might make me step into a trap? Should Tania ask to be present at the lessons so she could come to the rescue? I assured her that she could count on me; I really wanted to learn French, I would be careful. What about those endless conversations at the dinner table and afterward in Pani Dumont’s sitting room? One had to talk, one could not always talk about books, one had to be ready to talk about oneself. Which self? The issue was the limit of one’s inventiveness and memory, because the lies had to be consistent—more consistent, according to Tania, than the truth. And they will all be listening, she warned me, don’t forget that we are interesting, more interesting than they.

We began to visit my grandfather in his room on Sunday afternoons, in addition to seeing him at the Cathedral, the Saxon Gardens and, later, his
mleczarnia
. He told his landlady Tania was the daughter of his best friend and
country neighbor, now dead. There were days I could not go with Tania. I was falling sick again, with long, lingering bouts of bronchitis and, although I saw no children, those few childhood diseases I had not already had. Also, I had my lessons. Pani Dumont took the French lessons very seriously; she found Pani Bronicka to tutor me in general subjects. Unless I was sick, Pani Bronicka came every afternoon except Sunday and left huge assignments to be completed for the next day. She was a
gimnazjum
teacher out of work, the Germans having closed most schools above the primary level. She brought the textbooks we needed. Forming the mind of a nine-year-old who had never been to school appealed to her. She set out to impart to me information and notions of discipline with all the rigor and energy customary in a first-rate state teaching establishment. Giving private lessons was punishable by death, but Pani Bronicka was fearless and needed money. She told me it was a teacher’s duty to teach and make it possible for a boy to become an educated man. All she asked was that I keep my part of the bargain, which was to learn.

She approved of the way Tania had taught me to read and discuss what I had read; she undertook to drill me in compositions: they were to have a beginning, a development and an end. My clumsy slowness in arithmetic appalled her. Above all, she found intolerable my weak character, by which she meant my habit of insinuating flattery. It will not do, she told me, always to be trying to make oneself liked and then to ask whether one has succeeded. She wished me to endeavor, quietly and modestly,
to deserve being liked. Our model compositions were on themes from Polish revolutionary history or, because we were reading Sieńkiewicz, the long Polish struggle against Ukrainian invaders. Pan Wołodyjowski, the diminutive saber wizard, always hopelessly in love, always victorious in a duel, replaced Old Shatterhand as the hero of my daydreams, at least when I was not the colonel of my Wehrmacht lead soldier regiment. At the same time, my lead army was undergoing a degree of reorganization. There was no question that the German soldiers we saw in Warsaw were winners, but was that the reality? We were listening to BBC broadcasts with the other lodgers and when we went to see my grandfather. That was another activity punishable by death. In Smolensk, on the Dnieper, in Kiev, the Russians were beating the Germans; perhaps Stalingrad was not simply a case of von Paulus’s incompetence or treachery. I began to move some of my better regiments over to the Russian side. Pani Bronicka intensified our geography lessons. She too listened to the BBC. She brought a globe to make me understand that it was not just the Russian front that counted. We were to have no illusions, the Reich was terribly strong and dangerous, but one could see thick, heavy arrows sticking deep in its flanks; the Reich would fall, like a wild boar.

Meanwhile, I was breaking Pani Bronicka’s heart. She wrote down my assignments in pencil in a little notebook she had given me. I would erase the page numbers and set myself lighter tasks. After a week or two she caught me: she had recorded the assignment in her own notebook as well. She said it was her duty to tell my mother. I pleaded
with her, promising to make up the omitted pages; she relented. I was desperately afraid of Tania. She hated cheating, except to avoid capture; she would sense danger in the effect on Pani Dumont and the other lodgers if my behavior became known. They were all taking an interest in my progress. Pan Władek, who was a chemist, was helping me with arithmetic. But almost immediately after Pani Bronicka forgave me I began to change my assignments again, in exactly the same way. I even cut some pages out of the notebook with a razor blade. This time Tania was informed; my soldiers were confiscated and put in Pani Bronicka’s custody until further notice, Tania having somehow propitiated her to the point of agreeing to continue to teach me.

When we were alone, Tania said scornfully that if it was my nature to be a cheat it was too bad that I was not at least original and clever at it. My disgrace was too profound, and Pani Bronicka too visibly upset, for Tania not to tell Pani Dumont. At the evening meal, my case was discussed, the lodgers offering varying assessments of my guilt. Pan Władek’s was the worst: he thought that, considering the help
I
had gotten from him, I was not just lazy, I was evil. He was laughing, rocking back in his chair. I punched him, in his hollow chest, with all my force. The blow threw him against the wall. He coughed; his glasses fell off his nose. It occurred to me that I had done this terrible thing not because of what he had said to me, but because he had put me to shame before Tania. But I was not altogether like Pan Wołodyjowski; I was afraid. I got down on one knee and asked Pan Władek’s forgiveness.
He said I was not to worry; it was his fault. He had been wrong to tease me when I was unhappy.

T
HE
woman at grandfather’s apartment, Pani Basia, was definitely Jewish. Right after our first visit, Tania said she must really be Pani Sara. Her son’s name was Henryk; he was younger than I, as grandfather had supposed. I thought he was also more stupid, he was not taking lessons from a tutor, and Pani Basia didn’t work with him regularly. His collection of lead soldiers was good, better than mine. Before my soldiers were taken away, I brought them with me on my visits. Later, he shared his with me.

We played in my grandfather’s room. It seemed to me that grandfather was getting thinner, which made his nose look big and sharp. Ever since Tania had told him about grandmother, he wore a black band on the sleeve of his black coat and only black neckties. Tania worried about how taciturn he had become; she said he talked only when I was there or if she put him on the subject of air raids. He knew the date of every major bombardment of Germany. It was best, he would say, when they came in waves, like the three attacks on Berlin in November and December; that gave them no rest. Although the Germans did not know it, they were becoming hunted animals, like Jews. But the BBC didn’t have a raid against Germany to report every day that met my grandfather’s standards. The winter wore on sadly, and every Sunday, against grandfather’s and Tania’s better judgment as to what was prudent behavior, and their promises to each other that we would
not go to see him so often, we would be in his room, with a cake or cold meat or fish or whatever else Tania could find that was good and that she knew he liked.

I was playing with Henryk and his soldiers one such Sunday in January 1944 when grandfather and Tania heard something disturbing in the corridor. The door to grandfather’s room was always closed. They told Henryk and me to be quiet; we all began to listen carefully. These were men’s voices. The landlady was answering them. Then there were footsteps going in the direction of Pani Basia’s room, then more voices, and a door being slammed.

Grandfather said, I won’t sit here pretending I am deaf, I will speak to the landlady, the three of you stay here and try to be calm. In a moment he returned and told us, You have to be patient. It’s the Polish police in civilian clothes; they know about Henryk’s mother. But Pani Maria told them she saw Henryk go out with his ice skates; she made sure Pani Basia could hear her. She told them nothing about us. If Pani Basia has any money and any sense, she can buy them off.

We sat in silence, Henryk crying a little. Grandfather got out his cards and made a sign to Tania. They began a game of gin rummy. Grandfather whispered, This is just a pleasant family scene; if they come here, Henryk is our Janek’s friend, he came with Janek to visit, you are my oldest friend’s daughter, I held you at your baptism, and now stop sniveling and play with your soldiers. A long time passed, and again there were voices and steps in the corridor; Pani Basia was giggling. Grandfather opened
the door, looked down the corridor and said, It’s all right, the police are gone. We went to Pani Basia’s room. The drawers and the wardrobe were open, there were clothes on the floor; they must have searched for money or jewels. She was lying crosswise on the rumpled bed. Her legs were bare; she was very pink in the face. When she saw us, she raised herself and went slowly over to Henryk and then gestured to the table, where there was a bottle of vodka and glasses. They wanted everything, money, liquor, me, she said, and they got all they wanted. They told me they won’t be back, they know I have nothing left except more of me and that’s not worth much.

I did not see Pani Basia or Henryk again. Tania told grandfather that she could not risk taking me there, that he should move, because they might come back or send their friends. Grandfather refused. He said he would stay right there in his room and might marry his landlady, even though she was older than he and ugly.

P
AN
Władek asked me why I had the habit of smiling when there was nothing to smile about; it couldn’t be because I was stupid, it had to be because I was a little hypocrite. We were at the dinner table, with Pani Dumont and the other lodgers. I didn’t know how to answer. Tania answered for me: He does it to be polite. No, said Pan Władek, politeness does not call for pretending about one’s feelings except to avoid hurting another person. Our Janek is a hypocrite. And then he asked whether I knew if hypocrisy was a venial or a mortal sin. This time the piano teacher’s widow intervened. The question was
too difficult. How could I know when I had not even been to catechism class; Pan Władek was wrong to try to confuse me. Until I received instruction, it was enough for me to remember never to lie. But, she continued, turning to Tania, Isn’t it time for dear Janek to prepare himself for his first Communion? Father P. will be leading a class himself, Janek could be ready by May. With Pani Tania’s permission she would be happy to introduce me to the priest.

There was approval of this new step in my education all around the table. Only Pan Władek mumbled something about how priests made hypocrites and pharisees and how that was not what he had intended when he undertook to draw me into a frank conversation. When we got up from the table, he surprised and frightened me again: Would Pani mind, he asked Tania, if Janek talked to me for a few minutes, alone?

I had never been in Pan Władek’s room before. It was furnished like ours, except for a large armchair in which Pan Władek sat down after lighting his acetylene lamp. He asked me to sit in the straight chair at the table and told me he was very sorry about what had happened; this time I must forgive him. Sometimes watching my mother and me struggle so hard became unbearable; he wanted me to be, if only for a moment, like other boys. Anyway, we were doing too much. Nobody needed to be so perfect. I was to go to my room now and tell my mother not to worry. He was our friend.

Tania was furious. She said he could only mean that he had guessed the truth, and if that was the case, his conduct
was inexcusable. He was drawing attention to me, he had put us in a position about the first Communion she had wanted to avoid. She hoped, but wasn’t sure, that this was not his way of confirming his suspicions before he blackmailed or denounced us. She would talk to grandfather about it.

My grandfather listened carefully. We were in the
mleczarnia
eating cheese
naleśniki
. He thought that this Władek of ours would not have waited so long if he had bad intentions, but that he might be indiscreet. Probably I should avoid conversations with him. If he was a good man, he would understand and would not hold it against us. Helping a Jew to hide was an action that Poles were shot for; Pan Władek ought to prefer not knowing about us and above all ought to prefer not letting anyone else think that he knew. It was lucky the Russians would be with us soon. Kiev was not so far away; before long, the Wehrmacht would begin to crumble. We were all too tired to keep up the pretense if they made us wait. Just this morning a man had stopped him in the street and asked to see his papers: the usual face, the usual clothes, the usual voice. If Pan doesn’t want trouble, perhaps we can settle it right away, conveniently, at this gate—they went into the gateway of a building on Miodowa, near the theater. The man looked at the papers and said, If Pan lets down his trousers here, it will save us the trouble of going to the police station, Pan knows that once we are there that’s the end for him. Grandfather was ready. While the man was busy with the papers, he had opened his jackknife inside his coat pocket. Now he took it out and said, Here is my
penis if you want to check it, and take yours out, so I can cut it off. They parted, grandfather said, on the best of terms, but he wasn’t sure he had the strength to deal with more of these robbers.