Wartime Lies (19 page)

But now, at Piasowe and under Kula’s roof, we were differently situated. Every day I got up at dawn to help Masia or Kulowa milk the cows, and then I disappeared, taking the cows to pasture and returning with them just in time for the evening milking. Then, immediately, mash to be taken to the pigs or possibly something urgent to be done about the hens. Sitting at last beside Tania for the evening meal, with both elbows on the table, I would eat my soup as noisily as Tadek. Tania could not reprove me, although I knew that each slurp plunged a knife into her heart. That would have been an indirect criticism of Tadek and, as such, against her rules. In total contrast with our life in Lwów and Warsaw, in Piasowe we were never alone except at night; once the soft drone of Masia’s snoring became regular, we would whisper, holding each other tight under the feather bed as long as we could hold out against fatigue and sleepiness, but that was a time to share secrets and caresses, and not a time for Tania to be
angry. And Tania could not punish me by silence; that would have been putting on a wrong sort of show for the Kulas. It was thus possible that I could have told Tania the truth, and that my unsuccessful introduction to tobacco would have only made her laugh and kiss me and say I was just like my grandfather. But fear of Tania’s punishments was only a part of what held me back with such force from confessing and made me prefer to increase her suffering as well as my own. I was chained to the habit of lying, and I no longer believed that weakness or foolishness or mistakes could be forgiven by Tania or by me.

T
HE
principal secret we were discussing those nights was Tania’s business venture with Komar. As soon as the potatoes and beets were done and her work changed to lighter chores, like churning cream to make butter, washing the kitchen floor, doing the laundry, and preparing the feed for the poultry, she noticed, just as Stefa had foretold, that Kula was throwing increasingly cross looks in her direction. She took to visiting Komar before the evening meal; her work was now finished early enough to allow it. Komar talked to her about the war. His network of commercial relations was a source of unending astonishment, as was the information it brought him. She learned that the Russians were in Czechoslovakia and had crossed the Danube, the Americans and the English were almost on the Rhine; the Germans were beaten and except for us the war was practically over.

She drank with Komar. Her ability to down anything he poured, crack jokes, and distinguish among the grades
of his vodka and
samogon
impressed him. This schoolteacher had uncommon gifts; he told her he regretted not having kept her instead of sending us to that old fool Kula. In turn, she explained how precarious her position with Kula had become: she was wondering how many days it would be before he threw her and her son out to beg on the highway or look for the partisans in the forest. Komar grew dark with anger at the thought; indignation was father to a business proposition. With Christmas approaching, the peasants’ demand for vodka was overwhelming him. Would she become his saleswoman and courier? He would pay a commission and make an immediate advance against future earnings. Thus she could pay Kula for her lodging, I would continue to mind the cows, and we would all live happily until the Russians came and robbed us. They drank bottoms up to toast Komar’s plans. The next day, Komar called on Kula as we were eating our supper, a bottle of vodka in the pocket of his sheepskin coat. Such doubts as Kula might have initially had about letting us stay on were washed away. Before we went to sleep, Tania made her bargain with him about the money.

“
Bimber
” was the wartime name for illegal, home-distilled vodka. This substance was not without danger to the drinker; lower grades caused blindness and paralysis. Manufacturers and sellers were preyed upon by the police, who did not permit the imminent collapse of established order to interfere with their enforcement, mostly through blackmail, of the state liquor monopoly. Small wonder, therefore, that the business was run from the top by big city slickers,
cwaniaki
, refugees from Warsaw, spreading
out from G. into the countryside of the Mazowsze. Tania became Komar’s emissary to these dealers. She traveled to W. once a week in Komar’s cart to pick up the merchandise. Then she would visit, at first with Komar and later alone, peasants in villages near Piasowe who ran establishments similar to Komar’s, and offer her wares to them. The key to a sale was a sufficient level of confidence: the peasant had to feel certain that the
bimber
he was buying was safe to drink. Nothing built confidence more quickly than having the supplier down a glass of the liquor right under the buyer’s watchful gaze, certifying in this manner each bottle. Tania could sample as many bottles as she had the strength to carry, and still have the wits to drive a hard bargain on price and rush back to Komar for more bottles to carry to the next village. At first she trudged from village to village in her wooden clogs; quickly she was able to buy for herself knee-high leather boots, the mark of a successful black-market operator, and for me real shoes. Komar had been right about demand. Soon it was necessary to go to W. as often as every other day and sometimes to use the horse and cart for deliveries. It helped that Tania became friendly with the principal dealer, Pan Nowak. Now, when
bimber
was scarce, there was always enough for Tania and Komar. While Komar or his son-in-law took care of the horses and loaded the cart, Tania and Nowak discussed news from the front and speculated about when the Russians would attack again in Poland and in which direction they would strike.

Pan Nowak complained about being alone in W. with
nobody to talk to except peasants and small-town ignoramuses; if Pani would only leave Piasowe, they could work together and make a fortune before the war ended. There wasn’t a village within a hundred kilometers in any direction from W. where he didn’t deal with the peasant who sold vodka and had the whole village under his thumb.

Tania told me that Nowak’s intentions were not confined to marketing
bimber
and having someone intelligent to talk to, and she decided she would flirt with him just a little, for the good of the business, even though he was a repulsive gangster. She was also using him for another purpose. Since he had all these connections, she gave him the name that grandfather had used in Warsaw and his description. Nowak swore to ask each of his peasants if there was such a man in his village. One could not tell; perhaps grandfather was somewhere near us; there seemed to be so many refugees from Warsaw in this wilderness. She had a feeling we could find him through Nowak. Finding my grandfather became a continuous and overwhelming fantasy for both of us. We would whisper about it at night, between anecdotes of bimber sales and Kula’s moods and Tania’s worried questions about my staying warm in the pasture. She wanted to get a sheepskin jacket for me, but they were hard to find; besides, I didn’t want one. I wanted to be dressed like the others, in layers of patched, cast-off coats, to look like a scarecrow.

L
IGHT
snow fell several times, but the cows could still graze. It was so cold in the pasture that we had to keep
moving and stamping our feet, our arms crossed on our chests and hands buried in the sleeves. Kulowa wanted to start preparations for Christmas. Kula agreed and told Tadek to slaughter the biggest pig, a muddy, suspicious-looking animal. Kula didn’t intend to keep all the meat for himself; he would sell most of it in the village and to Komar.

Neighbors came to help and watch. First, they got the pig into the yard with pitchforks. He stood there grunting. A few times, he made a sudden rush to get away, but they always drove him back into the center. Then it was Tadek and Kula and Stefa’s brother, Jurek, who rushed the pig, stood him upright and tied him to a post. He was squealing now, the neighbors were pricking him with their pitchforks, and the other pigs in the pigsty were making a terrible noise. Everybody was joking that the pig must have been through this before to be so scared, and what a pity it was he would not be eating his own ham. Meanwhile Tadek got his knives and a big basin that he gave to Kulowa to hold. When he slit the pig’s throat, it made a coughing noise, and blood gushed so strongly that Kulowa had trouble catching it all in the basin. After they decided that the pig had done all his bleeding, Tadek shaved parts of him and skinned the others and, slicing very fast, began to separate the different cuts. Once in a while, he would throw a piece he didn’t want to the dog, who was dancing wildly on his hind legs, head held back by the chain. The dog’s antics began to annoy Tadek. He went over to the dog, a piece of meat in his hand, and when the dog opened his mouth to take it, he kicked him
in the stomach. That made the dog crawl into his house and Tadek began to tease him. He would hold out a scrap, the dog would rush for it, and sometimes Tadek gave it to him and sometimes he kicked him or hit him with a meat mallet he had taken in his other hand and hid behind his back. This game went on for a long time, because the dog did not seem to catch on or know what to expect.

The women were in the kitchen, chopping and grinding meat for sausages. When he finished playing with the dog, Tadek set up the machine for stuffing sausage skins and got a couple of the women started on it. They made blood sausages first, having set aside just enough blood for the soup. Kula and the other men were drinking in the yard, passing the bottle from hand to hand. They became very loud. When the bottle was empty, Kula called to Tania and asked what was the use of having her and her bastard in the house if she did not even offer them a bottle of
bimber
when she saw that his bottle was dry. Tania thought that over and answered she wasn’t in the business of offering vodka to him any more than he was in the business of offering hospitality to her and her son. Still, she would give him one bottle if he bought two. That made the other peasants laugh and clap Kula on the back saying that the scythe had struck a hard stone. Kula began to laugh too and said he meant no offense. Tania held out her hand for him to shake, said she never stopped being grateful to him and the mistress, and went to Komar’s to get the bottles.

Meanwhile the soup and the plates of cubed bacon, fried until it rendered all the lard, had been set out, ready
to eat. Even the children were given big slices of bread to eat with the bacon or dip into the boiling fat. A chorus of joyful shouts greeted the arrival of Tania with a bottle, which she immediately uncorked and handed to Kula. Behind her were Komar and another man I didn’t know, wearing high leather boots like Tania’s and a rich sheepskin coat that met his boot tops. Tania called me over and made the introduction. It was Nowak. He pinched my ear. Passing near Piasowe, he explained, he could not help dropping in on his friend Komar, and now he was lucky also to see the most beautiful woman of Warsaw. By pure chance, he had some trifles for us. He gave Tania a package with a red woolen scarf in it, which she immediately tied around her shoulders. While she was inspecting the effect in the mirror in the Kulas’ room, Nowak pinched my ear some more and gave me a large mouth harmonica. That was a present I was really glad to receive. As soon as Tania gave me permission, I said good-bye to Nowak and went to the barn with Stefa and the boys to try it out.

They drank until late. Nowak borrowed my harmonica; it turned out he could play very well. First, Tania and Komar danced. Then Komar played and Nowak danced with Tania. They even got Kula to dance with Kulowa and later with Tania. Stefa told me that the show in the barn had begun. Jurek and Masia were hard at it and Tadek was watching. Komar and Nowak brought more bottles. Many of the peasants were very drunk; they would rush out of the kitchen to vomit in the yard, stagger back, and, after eating a piece of bread with lard, drink again. Nowak wanted to show Tania the hat on the head
of the man in the moon. This took quite a while. When they returned, Tania looked very serious. Then a second round of bottles was drunk. Tania alone still seemed sober. The peasants were being dragged home by their wives. Shaking with hiccups, Nowak addressed long and gallant remarks to Tania, all about the absolute urgency of meeting again before the week was out. Then he and Komar also left.

When we went to bed that night, Tania told me not to pester her about Nowak’s man in the moon. Nowak had used the pretext about the man in the moon to be able to speak to her alone. She knew how to handle Nowak and would continue to handle him as long as it suited her. The important thing was that perhaps he had found grandfather. A peasant he had talked to a few days ago told him he had heard there was an older Pan, with a name that could be the right one, in a neighboring village. That Pan came in almost every day to have a glass or two of vodka with the man who sold vodka there. The name of the village was Bieda, less than thirty kilometers from Piasowe. It could all be a mistake, but she didn’t think so. She had decided how she would get there. Hiring a peasant with a horse and cart in Piasowe was out of the question. There were too many risks, whether it turned out to be grandfather or not. She didn’t want every gossip in Piasowe and Bieda involved in our affairs. Instead, she would start out on foot in the morning, before anybody else woke up. If she was lucky, she would find a peasant on the road to Bieda who would give her a lift. She would worry about how to get back once she was in Bieda; the only thing that
mattered was that this man should turn out to be grandfather. It was impossible to let me come with her; I would slow her down.

I saw that her mind was made up and asked what I should say to Kula or Komar if they asked where she was. Tania had not thought about this. First she told me not to worry, nobody would ask, because she would have returned to Piasowe before I brought the cows back from the pasture. Later, when I was almost asleep, she said it would be best to pretend I knew nothing; let them guess she had gone to meet Nowak. She was too tired to think, but on her way back to Piasowe she would decide what story to tell, depending on whether she had found grandfather and what he thought she should do. After that, we tried to sleep, but we slept very little, we were so full of hope and so frightened. It was still dark when Tania tiptoed barefoot out of the kitchen. The dog recognized her; he made no noise.