Wartime Lies Part 2

Everything edible was rationed. Black-market prices rose to levels that made Tania stingy. Grandfather was also nervous about money. One day, Tania came from the market with pork she had gotten at a decent price, probably because it was an inferior cut. She cooked it especially long; she was worried about trichinosis. When we sat down to supper that night, we alone had meat before us. Tania said we would share, and served portions for everybody. The meat had an odd taste; it was sweet. Pan Wadek said he would show it to a veterinarian; perhaps Tania had been sold horse meat. He took a piece with a bone. Next day he told her in secret there was no doubt we had eaten man.

Grandfather's jeweler disappeared. We had to have cash. Both Tania and grandfather thought it was dangerous not to have a reasonable supply of bank notes on hand. If a man in the street had to be paid off, one could not hand him a ring. He would never again leave one alone. Tania said she knew a person who might help, Pani Wodolska, the widow of a professor of philosophy at the university in Cracow. Her husband had been fond of Tania, she had often been a guest at their house; the widow was in Warsaw, she would find her. Grandfather remembered the name only vaguely; he did not object. Somehow, Tania got the address and went to see Pani Wodolska alone and unannounced. She returned perplexed. Pani Wodolska recognized her immediately, was very cordial, and said she knew jewelers who might help. She might even know someone for gold coins. Wouldn't it be best if Pani Tania brought all her things to her house the next day? They could look them over together and decide what should be sold and what should be kept. Tania said that might be difficult. Our things were split up, in the custody of different friends; it was necessary to be very discreet about going to their houses; she would see what she could do and certainly bring the one or two pieces she had at hand. Grandfather said, Don't go back there. They quarreled about it. Tania thought cash was worth taking a risk for. Pani Wodolska was a prewar lady. How could she understand the dangers we were running or how little trust we had? She would show her two rings and a chain.

That is what she did. They agreed on the lowest acceptable price; Pani Wodolska asked Tania to stop by in two days, in the afternoon. She was sure that the affair would be concluded by then. Tania kept the appointment, leaving me at home. She returned very late, so late that I had become frightened. She said she was tired; she would say what had happened only if I promised not to repeat it to grandfather. Then she told me that, when she arrived, Pani Wodolska had asked her what other pieces she had brought. Tania was startled and told her none, she thought that was all we were selling. What you gave me were false stones set in gold-plated tin, replied Pani Wodolska. That is an old Jewish peddler trick, and I have the police waiting for you.

There was, in fact, a man in the apartment, who came in and sat down on a chair near the wall when Pani Wodolska rang. They finally allowed Tania to leave in exchange for the bracelet and the ring she was wearing and the contents of her wallet. It took her so long to return because she went about in circles, trying to make sure she was not being followed.

THE day of my first Communion came. Tania offered to give me breakfast on the sly in our room, but I refused. I wanted to be clean inside, just as Father P. had directed. The entire household, except for Pan Wadek, who was not feeling well, went to church with Tania and me. Father P. had heard my confession the day before. I had gone over my sins with Tania to be sure there were just enough and that I did not try to be too clever. The priest blessed me. He told me to say the Creed twice, the Our Father five times and the Hail Mary as many times as I could and still pay attention. I did it all carefully and slowly, and even though I knew I remained in the state of mortal sin, I tried to do nothing, until I knelt to receive the wafer, that would add to the weight of the judgment hanging over me. day of my first Communion came. Tania offered to give me breakfast on the sly in our room, but I refused. I wanted to be clean inside, just as Father P. had directed. The entire household, except for Pan Wadek, who was not feeling well, went to church with Tania and me. Father P. had heard my confession the day before. I had gone over my sins with Tania to be sure there were just enough and that I did not try to be too clever. The priest blessed me. He told me to say the Creed twice, the Our Father five times and the Hail Mary as many times as I could and still pay attention. I did it all carefully and slowly, and even though I knew I remained in the state of mortal sin, I tried to do nothing, until I knelt to receive the wafer, that would add to the weight of the judgment hanging over me.

DANTE'S disdain: his disdain for the d.a.m.ned. They are naked, the reader knows it, yet Dante never misses an opportunity to point to that degrading circ.u.mstance. Take the tongue-las.h.i.+ng he administers, albeit with a touch of sanctimonious hesitation due to the subject's exalted rank, to Pope Nicholas III, who sold church offices. Virgil approves of this boorish harangue. A satisfied look comes over his face as he listens to his disciple. In general, Virgil likes Dante's disdainful soul disdain: his disdain for the d.a.m.ned. They are naked, the reader knows it, yet Dante never misses an opportunity to point to that degrading circ.u.mstance. Take the tongue-las.h.i.+ng he administers, albeit with a touch of sanctimonious hesitation due to the subject's exalted rank, to Pope Nicholas III, who sold church offices. Virgil approves of this boorish harangue. A satisfied look comes over his face as he listens to his disciple. In general, Virgil likes Dante's disdainful soul, alma sdegnosa.

Dante's d.a.m.ned also can be disdainful or, at least, unbowed. Brunetto Latini, sprinting along the burning sand with a band of sodomites, lifting his feet with the greatest possible speed from the fire, is like one running the race for the green flag in Verona, and seems to be among those who win and not those who lose-Dante uses the respectful voi voi when he speaks to him. Heretic Farinata rises upright in the tomb where he is baking to address Dante, as though he held h.e.l.l in great disdain when he speaks to him. Heretic Farinata rises upright in the tomb where he is baking to address Dante, as though he held h.e.l.l in great disdain, com'avesse l'inferno in gran dispitto. Under flakes of fire falling slowly, like snow in the mountains when there is no wind, lies Capaneus, disdainful and scowling Under flakes of fire falling slowly, like snow in the mountains when there is no wind, lies Capaneus, disdainful and scowling, dispettoso e torto; his pride is unquenched. And Vanni Fucci, tormented by serpents, makes the sign of the fig with both hands, crying, Take them, G.o.d, I am aiming at you his pride is unquenched. And Vanni Fucci, tormented by serpents, makes the sign of the fig with both hands, crying, Take them, G.o.d, I am aiming at you, Togli, Dio, ch'a te le squadro! Ostensibly, these are instances of punishment that for mysterious reasons is not working: fire does not mature Capaneus, the b.e.s.t.i.a.l Vanni Fucci is unripe Ostensibly, these are instances of punishment that for mysterious reasons is not working: fire does not mature Capaneus, the b.e.s.t.i.a.l Vanni Fucci is unripe, acerbo, and the reader is not apt to take him into his heart. But what reader, even of those who have sane intellects and the reader is not apt to take him into his heart. But what reader, even of those who have sane intellects, li'ntelletti sani, does not, in his heart of hearts, admire Brunetto and Farinata, even the blaspheming giant Capaneus, precisely for their disdain? does not, in his heart of hearts, admire Brunetto and Farinata, even the blaspheming giant Capaneus, precisely for their disdain?

Why is this so? The grandfather's and Tania's bravery and occasional defiance were admirable, but then the punishment the Germans piled on them in the h.e.l.l of Poland was undeserved, and they were morally right to defy it. In the and they were morally right to defy it. In the Inferno, Inferno, the punishment is always deserved, a primordial part of the universal order over which presides the G.o.d of Love. And yet, when proud or physically courageous d.a.m.ned are defiant and disdainful, admiration and even pity stir in the heart. Why is this so in the the punishment is always deserved, a primordial part of the universal order over which presides the G.o.d of Love. And yet, when proud or physically courageous d.a.m.ned are defiant and disdainful, admiration and even pity stir in the heart. Why is this so in the Commedia Commedia and in life? We should more properly be outraged at these sinners' failure to welcome their torments meekly, a.s.suming as we must, that their crimes are abhorrent and that Mins, that connoisseur of sins and in life? We should more properly be outraged at these sinners' failure to welcome their torments meekly, a.s.suming as we must, that their crimes are abhorrent and that Mins, that connoisseur of sins, conoscitor de le peccata, has consigned them to fit punishments. Why does a Jew, hunted by the Gestapo, captured, and on his way to the gas chamber, have to be disdainful or defiant to awaken sympathy, avoid disdain? Why cluck one's tongue over the courage of fat Goring at Nuremberg? In the vestibule of h.e.l.l dwell the sorry souls of those who lived without infamy and without praise. These wretches run in a long train after a banner, naked, as Dante takes the trouble to emphasize, and stung by gadflies and wasps so that blood mixed with tears streaks their faces. It is clear that Dante disdains them more than any of the other d.a.m.ned: neither heaven nor deep h.e.l.l will receive them; mercy and justice scorn them; Virgil refuses to discuss their condition. Why are they worse than the d.a.m.ned who lived in infamy and were notorious on this earth for their sins? Why do we find it so difficult to admire those who are tormented and make no defiant gesture? Suppose they are neither meek nor proud, only frightened. Why do we care whether a fallen demon outs.h.i.+nes legions though bright? has consigned them to fit punishments. Why does a Jew, hunted by the Gestapo, captured, and on his way to the gas chamber, have to be disdainful or defiant to awaken sympathy, avoid disdain? Why cluck one's tongue over the courage of fat Goring at Nuremberg? In the vestibule of h.e.l.l dwell the sorry souls of those who lived without infamy and without praise. These wretches run in a long train after a banner, naked, as Dante takes the trouble to emphasize, and stung by gadflies and wasps so that blood mixed with tears streaks their faces. It is clear that Dante disdains them more than any of the other d.a.m.ned: neither heaven nor deep h.e.l.l will receive them; mercy and justice scorn them; Virgil refuses to discuss their condition. Why are they worse than the d.a.m.ned who lived in infamy and were notorious on this earth for their sins? Why do we find it so difficult to admire those who are tormented and make no defiant gesture? Suppose they are neither meek nor proud, only frightened. Why do we care whether a fallen demon outs.h.i.+nes legions though bright?

V.

SHORTLY after my first Communion, I turned yellow. My liver hurt and I was feverish. It was obvious to Tania that I had jaundice, like my grandmother just before the end. Through my previous maladies Tania had treated me with aspirin, compresses and chicken bouillon. Summoning a doctor was excluded; he would want to examine me, he might see my p.e.n.i.s. I was not a girl, and we were not in old China: I could not show the physician what hurt me by pointing, from behind a curtain, to the body of an ivory doll. This time, Tania was worried. She was not sure how my father cured jaundice. Apparently, Pan Wadek was worried too. He came to our room and said, I can recommend a doctor you can trust in every way; please let him examine the child, Pani need not be afraid. Tania agreed. The diet and pills the doctor prescribed worked rapidly. I was able to resume lessons and even to go out to meet my grandfather. after my first Communion, I turned yellow. My liver hurt and I was feverish. It was obvious to Tania that I had jaundice, like my grandmother just before the end. Through my previous maladies Tania had treated me with aspirin, compresses and chicken bouillon. Summoning a doctor was excluded; he would want to examine me, he might see my p.e.n.i.s. I was not a girl, and we were not in old China: I could not show the physician what hurt me by pointing, from behind a curtain, to the body of an ivory doll. This time, Tania was worried. She was not sure how my father cured jaundice. Apparently, Pan Wadek was worried too. He came to our room and said, I can recommend a doctor you can trust in every way; please let him examine the child, Pani need not be afraid. Tania agreed. The diet and pills the doctor prescribed worked rapidly. I was able to resume lessons and even to go out to meet my grandfather.

It was a glorious hot summer, one sun-filled day succeeding another. As my grandfather had foreseen, the Wehrmacht was crumbling in the East. In three weeks, fifteen German divisions were annihilated; in the two or three weeks that followed, the Russians advanced almost four hundred kilometers. We had already seen an army routed and in full retreat: the Red Army fleeing from T. in June 1941. But at that time, from the outset, the front was never far from us, and then the Russians seemed to disappear overnight. Now we saw a defeat as though in slow motion: trucks in the streets of Warsaw as well as trains with German wounded, trucks and trains with bedraggled units being withdrawn from the front-all heading west. One heard of German soldiers asking to be hidden or to trade their pistols and rifles for civilian clothes.

Meanwhile, the police were everywhere. Feldgendarmerie patrols were stationed at important intersections. There were more and more controls of identification papers and random arrests. A loudspeaker would suddenly bellow over a marketplace with orders to freeze, and police, sometimes only Germans and sometimes Germans and Poles, would appear from ab.u.t.ting streets and search the crowd. On certain days, Pan Wadek advised us not to go out; it seemed that he no longer went to work; he would leave the apartment and reappear at unusual hours. On other days he would ask Tania and sometimes me to carry packages for him. We were to hand them over to such and such person who would approach us at a specified place. He said it was as safe as anything else we did.

Then, toward the end of July, the Russians astonis.h.i.+ngly slowed down. We could not understand how they could have been stopped. The BBC told us, in its usual brisk and cheerful manner, that they were regrouping and shortening their supply lines. Fresh troops from the Dnieper were advancing to the front. But fresh German troops were also being brought on the line. There was talk in Warsaw of long German convoys, this time heading east. The RAF and, as some thought, the Russians bombarded Warsaw during several nights. Tania told me to welcome the thud of the bombs and the whine of a diving plane that almost always preceded them. We were learning to guess, according to the depth and richness of the thud, whether a building had been hit. Sometimes the thud was very loud and very near and the walls and ceiling of the cellar, where our whole building took shelter, would suddenly sway. A raid seldom lasted long. We would go back upstairs and get into bed, our hearts filled with hope. These planes were a friendly presence; they could not stay but they would return.

Pan Wadek and Pan Stasiek now openly referred to Armia Krajowa, or A.K., which stood for Home Army, the main branch of the Polish resistance directed by the government in London. They brought leaflets that had appeared in the streets calling on the population to rise and rally to the Polish colors. A.K. was ready to strike at the enemy and liberate Warsaw. According to Pan Wadek, they were only waiting for the Russians to complete their preparations and resume the offensive. But the Russians did not seem to be moving at all. The positions reported by the BBC were unchanged; for the time being, the front in Poland was stationary.

The only trace left of my jaundice was an excessively refined sense of smell; I could tell what meal was being cooked in each apartment in the building. Unfortunately, just then meals were especially malodorous. Sometimes I would reel from nausea. Tania took me to the Saxon Gardens to breathe fresh air. We went on ever longer walks.

August I was a Tuesday. We met my grandfather in his mleczarnia mleczarnia. Almost no food to be had anymore. We had some bread and tea. Grandfather said he felt an uncomfortable sort of quiet in the city. At the same time, there had been more leaflets about liberating Warsaw. He didn't like it. He thought Tania should carefully stock some provisions, never mind how much things cost. She should buy candles if she couldn't get acetylene, flour, rice, bacon, whatever she could find. We decided to meet again the next day. He told us to take the trolley home and buy the provisions. He took a trolley himself and went back to Mokotow.

In fact, we did not take the trolley. A sort of laziness overcame us. We went first to the Saxon Gardens and sat in the sun. We were wondering whether my father was alive. Neither of us could imagine when the end of the war would come or where we would be at that time or where he might look for us if he reappeared from Russia. I thought it would be best to wait for him in T. We would get our house back, perhaps find our furniture, and begin to live as before. He certainly would have the same idea; he would go to T. We headed in the direction of the Cathedral and the Rynek Starego Miasta, the Old Town market. The streets were full of people strolling about; one felt a mood of gaiety out of keeping with the Wehrmacht and Feldgendarmerie squads in battle dress on Teatralny and Zamkowy. They had armored cars; the machine guns on street corners were surrounded by sandbags. We ate a roll in the Rynek, watching the crowd. It felt strangely difficult to return to Pani Dumont's: Tania said for the moment we were free, the house was like a prison cell. But we had to go back. Though we were tired, Tania thought we should take advantage of the late afternoon sun and walk. It was time to start.

We were still in the narrow, gray streets of the Old Town when we began to hear, seemingly from all sides, the sound of rapid gunfire, then the sound of machine guns, and then much louder sounds, which we would later recognize as the explosion of hand grenades. People ran in the street; other people shouted for everyone to get off the street, into entranceways of buildings or wherever else one could find cover. We ducked into an entrance gate, like many such gates in Warsaw really a porte-cochere leading from the street into the inner yard, which someone immediately began to try to shut; it was stuck and left us a view of the street. Clattering down Piwna in the direction of the Rynek was a Wehrmacht armored car, the barrel of its machine gun moving carefully from side to side, firing in regular, short bursts. We could see the tracers, then the holes that the bullets made in the buildings, and the shattering of gla.s.s. From up high, a window or a roof, someone began to shoot at the armored car, and bullets were ricocheting from its sides. The car stopped, raised its machine gun, and returned fire. This lasted awhile, until a cylindrical object, like a small gla.s.s bottle, rolled toward the rear of the armored car and under it. For a moment nothing seemed to happen. Then there came a loud explosion, smoke, and the car began to burn. German soldiers got out; other men could be seen kneeling on the sidewalk and taking aim. The soldiers fell. Everybody in the porte-cochere was talking at once: we began to understand what was happening. Before our very eyes, probably throughout Warsaw, the A.K. was attacking the Germans. The uprising that Pan Wadek thought was to await a new Russian offensive had begun; that could only mean that the Russians were coming. Tomorrow or perhaps within a few days at the latest, we would be free; we would never have to hide or be afraid again.

Instead, weeks pa.s.sed and the fighting in the city continued. Until the Germans cut the electricity, we listened to the news. According to the BBC, the Russians were still consolidating their positions and shortening supply lines. The Wehrmacht radio told us that German reinforcements had been brought to the periphery of Warsaw. The BBC knew that but hoped that the Red Army would liberate the city before long; pending that event, airdrops of weapons and ammunition would sustain its heroic defenders. The Wehrmacht radio promised the population of Warsaw prompt extermination. We were beginning to joke that perhaps the Americans would get to us sooner than the Russians.

Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe, flying very low, was bombing and burning Warsaw in a wheel of fire; we, in the Old Town, were the hub of that wheel. Progressively, the wheel became smaller. Until the bombs began to fall regularly quite near us, we went up on the roof to watch the planes, the bombs they dropped, and the fires. In appearance these new German fireworks were not unlike those in the flaming ghetto we had earlier observed from Pani Z.'s. Only this time, we and our fellow watchers were a part of the spectacle, and no one on the roof was cheering. The university library was. .h.i.t and burned; for days afterward, in addition to the steady rain of undifferentiated ash to which we were now accustomed, entire calcined pages of books fell from the sky. Sometimes they were stuck together and did not break up when they hit the ground; one could make out large portions of the text.

We had been in the house on Piwna for perhaps a week when a woman lawyer who had also found herself there because she was visiting her corset maker's workshop on the third floor of the building began to smile and wink at Tania and then to talk to her. It was the evening; as usual we were in the cellar. Tania asked her to sit down with us on the mattress she had bought from the janitor's wife, Pani Danuta; Tania still seethed from the unpleasantness of the transaction. To my surprise, she began to tell this stranger how, for days after she had paid the extortionate price, the janitress came to the cellar, looked the mattress over, and speaking to no one in particular explained that Tania had driven a hard bargain, acquired the precious object for half its value and was lucky to have made the deal before other homeless, more willing to open their wallets, got hold of every spare mattress and cot in the building. Pani Danuta was tired of all the homeless-begging, whining and needing everything just because they had nothing. They should have stayed in their own apartments, with their own furniture, food and clothes instead of trying to live off the kindness of poor people who would soon be hungry and naked themselves.

The lawyer laughed and asked that Tania call her by her first name; she used a diminutive, Pani Helenka. Let Pani put herself in the janitress's place, she said. Now these people have three armies to hate: the Wehrmacht, because it is German; Armia Krajowa, because it started this accursed uprising; and the invading army of the homeless, yourself, your son and me and all the others who have been thrust into their midst by bad luck-happening to be on Piwna at the wrong hour of the wrong afternoon. And we all want their mattresses and their food! Pani Danuta and many of the others here see that there is something wrong with this uprising-while the Russians were winning and the Germans were running away our A.K. warriors pa.s.sed out pamphlets and perhaps shot a German here and a collaborator there. Then just as the Wehrmacht managed to stop the Russians, the boys began their war! Is that the coordination with the Russians and the English they were promising? If they planned to have all of Warsaw destroyed, like Stalingrad, they could not be doing a better job. In any case, the woman means no real harm; Pani isn't from Warsaw and can't know this cla.s.s of people. Among them a sharp tongue is often the sign of a soft heart.

Pani Helenka had short, curly gray hair, a round face with round brown eyes, and a round little body. Her gray silk sleeveless blouse was stretched tight over a large bust thrust forward and fortified by a corset I could glimpse under her arms when she gesticulated. She liked to talk; as she warmed up to her subject, she stroked Tania's hair. It was the first time I had seen a stranger be so familiar with Tania. It did not surprise me that Tania submitted; we were in no position to offend Pani Helenka. But it was also the first time since we left Lwow that I heard Tania express her real feelings about anyone except to my grandfather and me.

The cellar was dank; the walls, floor and wooden support beams were all wet to the touch. Pani Helenka bought a salmon pink quilt on credit from her corset maker. All three of us could huddle under it at night, sleeping fitfully, Tania whispering that I must not be afraid when we heard bombs and gunfire approach. During the day, Pani Helenka presided over a bridge game with Tania and a childless couple who moved their mattress so that it faced ours. I watched their hands. When they weren't bidding, we listened to Pani Helenka. Her own apartment, where she also received clients, was in Mokotow, not far from my grandfather's. She had a telephone, but there was n.o.body to answer it so it was quite useless: we couldn't get a message through to him even if the line weren't down. She had let her secretary go a long time ago. There are no more clients, she laughed, just the black market. She blamed the A.K. not only for having started the uprising when it was unprepared and outnumbered, but especially for having attacked in the afternoon of a working day, so that Warsaw's working people were away from their homes-unless, of course, like her corset maker they worked where they lived. Don't think just of people like yourself and your boy, you were out enjoying the good weather-thank G.o.d you are together-or an old maid like me with n.o.body to care about who decided to have a fitting for some oversized bras, she said addressing Tania. Think of all the mothers who were at work and left their children unattended, children who were sent to play with friends in some park, old people left behind locked doors of their room while whatever niece takes care of them went to work or to shop, all of them lost in a city that has become a bombing-practice target for the Luftwaffe. These are the tragedies that break my heart; people won't let the A.K. forget them.

The Germans cut off the water as well. Going to the toilet was a harrowing problem; the building we were in had no outhouses. With a pickax, the janitor and some other men managed to lift enough paving stones in the yard to allow them to dig a hole. They covered it with boards, leaving a narrow s.p.a.ce so that one could empty a chamber pot or even use it directly. Before, we and the other homeless had to ask someone's kind permission to respond to a call of nature or to wash our body or clothes. Now we were at least on a footing of equality. Somebody said, It serves the tenants of this building right; let them start growing petunias in their toilets.

It became harder and harder to get food. Householders sitting in their apartments ate whatever they had gotten ready from well-developed wartime habit or because like my grandfather they sensed that the storm was about to break: potatoes, rice, dried beans and flour. We had to talk them into selling some of these provisions. Tania let Pani Helenka conduct the negotiations on our behalf, but soon no one was foolish enough to exchange necessities for paper that was probably worthless. It became a matter of begging. An A.K. officer tried to instill a spirit of sharing in the building, but no such spirit developed. As the days wore on, the elation of August I was turning into resentment and sometimes outright fury against the underground, just as Pani Helenka had foreseen.

Tania's worry about my grandfather was extreme. He was alone, and as a Jew he continued to be in special danger. We also realized how right he had been: we should not have dawdled in the Old Town. We kept daydreaming aloud about somehow finding our way to him, but there was no reasonable prospect of it. His room in Mokotow was practically at the other end of Warsaw, so far that Pani Helenka said she would stop us by force if we tried to go there. In fact, although we did not know it yet, just crossing the street in the Old Town could be a deadly business. Soon, our daydreams had to take another direction. An A.K. man told Tania that the Germans were already in control of Mokotow. We now had to hope that grandfather had not been killed in the fighting. In that case, if we also survived, we would be reunited after the war.

Pani Dumont's apartment was less remote than Mokotow. Tania decided we should try to return there: the jewelry was in its hiding place under a floorboard; we would have clothes and, unless the others had helped themselves to it, Tania's small stock of provisions. We would be surrounded by familiar faces: Tania said that she had never before imagined missing Pani Dumont-Pani Helenka's attentiveness was becoming oppressive. Thus, early one morning, after a brief embrace to bid Pani Helenka farewell, we started out. Tania thought we could manage a few blocks at a time before we were forced to seek temporary shelter. I would go first, running along the sidewalk, keeping low and trying not to make noise. Every couple of houses, I was to stop in an entrance gate and wait for Tania. It was better that I go first because the Germans might not bother about a child; if we went together, we would make a larger and more attractive target. Tania promised she would not be far behind.

The street was empty except for us; I felt very nimble and swift. The gates to buildings were closed, but, even so, in every porte-cochere there was just enough s.p.a.ce to squeeze into between the sidewalk and the closed gate itself for me to have a protected corner to crouch in. When Tania reached the gate where I had paused, she would kneel beside me, tell me which new gate to head for and when to start. But at the corner we had to cross Piwna; just turning the corner made no sense.

I could see an entranceway with a closed gate and a good hiding place diagonally across the street. Tania said to run as fast as I could, never mind keeping low this time. I had barely reached the entrance and settled myself against the wall, though, when I heard gunfire, and bullets began sc.r.a.ping the ornamental stone post on my side of the gate and the sidewalk in front of me. A German soldier on the roof of a building on the side of Piwna I had just left, a few doors away from the corner, was shooting at me. So long as I had stayed on his side of the street he not seen me and I had not seen him. Now each of us had a good view of the other. He was kneeling next to a chimney; from time to time he looked at me through his field gla.s.ses. After a while, he stopped firing if I remained very still. As soon as I moved, a single bullet and sometimes two would zing past me. I realized that while he was there Tania could not cross Piwna and come to my gate. He would kill her in the middle of the street.

I didn't have a watch, but I thought hours must have gone by while I stayed at the gate. Occasionally Tania waved to me; she was making signs with her hands that I couldn't understand. Then she disappeared inside her gate. Once in a while, on my side of the street, a door would creak open, and the German would immediately send a bullet or two in its direction. Sometimes it was the same system as with me: silence and then shots. I thought that these were buildings where people were also hiding in entranceways or trying to come out. Once he must have hit somebody, because there was a cry followed for a long time by moaning.

Two more Germans appeared on the roof carrying a machine gun; they set it up and started firing along my side of the street, spraying the entranceways carefully, as though with a water hose. The noise was deafening. I had become less frightened when I saw that the first German could not get me; now I was terrified again. More gunfire came from another direction. The Germans continued firing, but no longer at the street. Something was going on from one roof to another; the shooting became continuous. I decided I would try to open the gate and sneak inside while the Germans were busy with other targets, but they were watching me too: when I began to move bullets. .h.i.t my gate and the post behind which I was hiding.

Abruptly, help came. The gate behind me swung open, someone was firing from behind it in the direction of the Germans, someone else pulled me inside, the gate shut. Inside were Tania and two A.K. soldiers. The men had led her through a sewer below the street to an adjacent building and then through a pa.s.sage between the courtyards to my gate. They said we must hurry, and we followed them to a crowded cellar. The arrival of the A.K. men caused a stir. One of them asked everybody to be quiet; he introduced us as having been trapped in the street by German fire and asked that we be made welcome.

The new cellar was quite light, for it had half-moon windows near the ceiling, opening on the street and courtyard, that had not been boarded up. People were sitting on beds and chairs; there was a great deal of conversation. Some of the women spoke to Tania. I heard her say she was sorry we would be a burden for them. But these seemed to be strangely generous people: right away, someone offered us biscuits and jam; another person was looking for a mattress and quilt we could use; there was a family willing to have us sleep in their apartment when it was safe to be upstairs.

We remained in this second cellar until the last days of August. By then, Warsaw lay in ruins, with only a few buildings in the center of the city intact above the second floor. All talk of an A.K. victory had ceased. One could hope that Rokossovsky's army, immobile on the other side of the Vistula, would finally storm Warsaw and drive the Germans out. But were we more likely to survive a German or a Russian attack? The odds seemed even save in one respect: we heard rumors that in neighborhoods where the Germans had succeeded in stamping out A.K. resistance they either killed the civilians on the spot or took them away to camps.

In the meantime, we went about our daily ch.o.r.es. At night, we took turns going through jagged pa.s.sages the A.K. had chopped in walls to a courtyard at the end of the block where there was a well and a pump. The training I had received from Pan Kramer in T. became useful again; I could show Warsaw grown-ups at what rhythm to pump, and how a bucket that was only three-fourths full was easier to carry and would not spill. Once again, there was very little to eat. Someone from another building-the general opinion was that none of us could have been guilty of such ignominy-broke into the kitchens of several apartments and looted them. The loss of provisions was considerable. Guards were posted. The building decided that the remaining food would be pooled and rationed by a committee of cooks. Several of the older people were sick. Tania volunteered to be a nurse, dispensing aspirin, which was very scarce, applying compresses and cups. A.K. soldiers became a regular presence in the cellar; they needed to sleep for a few hours, some were wounded. The fighting in the streets was drawing closer. We were constantly being bombed and strafed by the Luftwaffe. The A.K. had no antiaircraft guns; they tried to shoot at the planes from the roofs with rifles. Machine guns were scarce and ammunition for them was running out. Once, before it became too dangerous to go to the roof, we watched them hit a plane that had been flying low, from time to time dropping a bomb. It began to smoke and then burn and finally disappeared among distant buildings. Perhaps it returned to the airfield. Now there was no going to the roof or resting in an apartment during pauses in the bombardment. We waited for the end in the cellar.

ONE afternoon, an A.K. officer came to speak to the people in the cellar. He said that the A.K. would have to withdraw at once from the neighborhood through the sewers; the Germans could be expected within a few hours. We should stay calm and, when the Germans did come, follow their orders promptly and without argument. They would make us leave the building; it was a good idea to gather whatever clothes we needed and have a little suitcase ready. The Germans had Ukrainian guards with them. The Ukrainians were like wild animals. It would be best if young women put shawls over their heads and faces and tried to be inconspicuous. He saluted and wished us all luck. Soon afterward, a bomb fell on the building next to us; another made a hole in the street. People from the building that had been hit came to our cellar. There was less gunfire, and after a while both the gunfire and the bombs began to seem more distant. It was already dark, and the Germans had not come. Few people slept that night. Families sat together talking. Some people prayed aloud. afternoon, an A.K. officer came to speak to the people in the cellar. He said that the A.K. would have to withdraw at once from the neighborhood through the sewers; the Germans could be expected within a few hours. We should stay calm and, when the Germans did come, follow their orders promptly and without argument. They would make us leave the building; it was a good idea to gather whatever clothes we needed and have a little suitcase ready. The Germans had Ukrainian guards with them. The Ukrainians were like wild animals. It would be best if young women put shawls over their heads and faces and tried to be inconspicuous. He saluted and wished us all luck. Soon afterward, a bomb fell on the building next to us; another made a hole in the street. People from the building that had been hit came to our cellar. There was less gunfire, and after a while both the gunfire and the bombs began to seem more distant. It was already dark, and the Germans had not come. Few people slept that night. Families sat together talking. Some people prayed aloud.

Tania told me to lie down on our mattress. She lay down too, put her arms around me and talked to me in a whisper. She said it was lucky that we had not forgotten for a moment we were Catholic Poles and that n.o.body seemed to suspect us. Our only hope was to be like all the others. The Germans weren't going to kill every Pole in Warsaw; there were too many of them, but they would kill every Jew they could catch. We would make ourselves very small and inconspicuous, and we would be very careful not to get separated in the crowd. If something very bad happened and she was taken away, I wasn't to try to follow: it wouldn't help her and I might even make things worse for both of us. If possible I should wait for her. Otherwise, I should take the hand of whatever grown-up near me had the nicest face, say I was an orphan, and hope for the best. I shouldn't say I was a Jew, or let myself be seen undressed if I could avoid it. She had me repeat these instructions and told me to go to sleep.

We were awake when they arrived late the next morning. It was the same bellowing as for Jews in T., the same pounding of rifle b.u.t.ts on the gate and then on the cellar door and the apartment doors and people trying to hurry and stumbling on the stairs. A Wehrmacht officer and a couple of German soldiers stood on the sidewalk in a little group apart while the work was done by Ukrainians: they rushed around, pus.h.i.+ng and hitting people as they came out into the street. Some of them had whips and some had dogs. A woman just ahead of us did not move fast enough to satisfy a Ukrainian. He hit her with his whip. Her husband pushed his way in front of her. Two Ukrainians beat him. Many people from other buildings were already a.s.sembled in a column, four abreast, ready to march. A Ukrainian called for silence and asked that all the women in our group immediately give up their jewelry. He pointed to a bucket. Then he told us to pa.s.s by it one by one. When our turn came, Tania took off her bracelet and ring and threw them in. He asked to see her hands and waved us ahead. I looked at Tania. She had put a kerchief over her head and tied it under her chin; her face was smeared black with coal dust; she was walking bent over like an old woman. When we reached the column she said she wanted to be in the middle of a row; I could be on the outside. The column seemed ready to march when another squabble erupted: a woman had not thrown anything into the bucket; the Ukrainian in charge of it grabbed her hand, saw a ring, beat her on the face and with an easy, fluid gesture, just like a butcher, cut off her finger. He held it up for all to see. There was a ring on it. The finger and ring both went into the bucket.

The march began. Tania had maneuvered us both into the middle of the row, with a man on either side. We no longer saw familiar faces. People from our building had drifted away; much rearranging had to be done before the German officer gave the order for departure. The column went down Krakowskie Przedmiecie, turned right on Aleje Jeroolimskie, but it was difficult to recognize in the smoldering ruins the streets we had tried to memorize. Tania said she thought they were taking us to the Central Station. We were a sea of marchers. Tania and I had no possessions; our hands were free. I was walking with a light and bouncy step. Was it fear or the strange parade we were a part of after the weeks spent in cellars? Around us, people were staggering under huge valises; some were transporting a piece of furniture or a rug. Many had children in their arms. Directly in front of us was a man with a large gray-and-red parrot in a cage; every few minutes the bird screamed. The man had the cage door open, and he would put his hand in to quiet the bird.

As in T., when I watched the final departure of the ghetto Jews, but on a vaster scale suited to the breadth of the avenues we were walking on and the enormous length of the column, the crowd was contained on both sides by Ukrainians, SS and Wehrmacht. Many of the Germans were officers. The Ukrainians and their dogs walked with us, while the Germans, immobile on the ruined sidewalks, were like green-and-black statues. From time to time, a Ukrainian would plunge into the column and beat a marcher who was not keeping up with the others or had stopped to s.h.i.+ft his load. They beat marchers whose children were crying; we were to make no noise. And they dragged out of the column women who had attracted their attention. They beat them, beat men who tried to s.h.i.+eld them, and then led the women to the side, beyond the line held by the Germans. They possessed them singly, in groups, on the ground, leaning them against broken walls of houses. Some women were made to kneel, soldiers holding them from the back by the hair, their gaping mouths entered by p.e.n.i.s after p.e.n.i.s. Women they had used were pushed back into the column, reeling and weeping, to resume the march. Others were led toward the rubble and bayoneted or shot.

Occasionally, the column halted. Tania and I remained standing; people foolish enough to sit down on a suitcase or a parcel were beaten to the ground and then kicked and shoved till they were properly upright again. During these stops, the selection of women for Ukrainians was most active. Just ahead of us stood a tall and strikingly beautiful young woman with a baby in her arms. I had noticed both her beauty and her elegance; she wore a beige tweed suit with a dark zigzag pattern that reminded me of Tania's old suits. A Ukrainian grabbed her by the arm and was pulling her out of the column. At first she followed without protest, but then she broke away from him and ran toward a German officer standing some two meters away. I had also noticed this officer before. He had a distinguished, placid face and a very fresh uniform. The boots hugging his calves were polished to a high s.h.i.+ne that seemed impossible to maintain in this street covered with chalky dust and debris. His arms were crossed on his chest. Could the young woman also have been dazzled by the boots? When she reached the officer, she threw herself on her knees at his feet, held the baby up with one arm, and with the other encircled these superb black tubes. A cloud of annoyance mixed with disdain moved across the officer's face. He gestured for the Ukrainians to stand back; a silence fell as he decided on the correct course of action. What followed the moment of reflection was precise and swift. The officer grasped the child, freed his boots from the young woman's embrace and kicked her hard in the chest. With a step or two he reached an open manhole. There was no lack of these, because the A.K. had used the sewers as routes of attack and escape. He held up the child, looked at it very seriously, and dropped it into the sewer. The Ukrainians took away the mother. In a short while, the column moved forward.

It was late in the afternoon when we reached the great square adjoining the Central Station. The s.p.a.ce was divided into two unequal parts. The much larger one was where we and, we supposed, the rest of the remaining population of Warsaw were now gathered. People were lying down, with their heads in the laps of companions; others were sitting on their possessions or crouching on the ground. Alleys kept free for access, like lines of a crossword puzzle, traversed the mult.i.tude. On the perimeter Ukrainian guards paced back and forth. The smaller part of the square had become a military encampment, crowded with trucks and armored cars.

Tania and I sat down on the ground, leaning against each other, back to back. Our neighbors, who had been there since the day before, said there was no food and no water to drink except what one could get from people who had a canteen or something to eat in their bundles. Apparently, there was no lack of such clever people among us. We also learned that in the morning and during the previous day parts of the square had been emptied; whole sections had been taken to the station. New arrivals like ourselves had taken their place. The night had been worse than the march and the waiting: the Ukrainians and the Germans were drunk. They roamed through the access alleys, chose women to take to the encampment. There had been screams, probably they tortured as well as raped. Tania asked if anyone knew where the trains would take us. Opinions were divided. Some thought it was just a short ride to some forest where we would be machine-gunned; others talked of concentration camps or work in factories in Germany. Tania also asked about latrines. It turned out there were several points that served that purpose. They were easy to find: one followed the smell. That was, Tania decided, where we would now have to go; we should not wait until the night.

We picked our way among the crowd; there was a long line to use the place. Tania said that after we finished she would somehow buy food and water; we had to keep up our strength. She would do it without me, it would be easier, but first we would choose a place that I would keep for us in one of these cl.u.s.ters. She wanted to find one without crying children or wailing sick: they attracted misfortune. And she wanted us to be in the middle of the group. People trying to be on the outside, to get more air and to be able to get around, were wrong. She didn't care about fresh air; she wanted to live through the night. We did as she said. In a little while she returned. She whispered that she had bread and chocolate. We had not eaten chocolate since the beginning of the uprising. She also had a bottle of water. She had traded her earrings for them; earrings, she informed me, had never been more useful; she had been right to hide them. Best of all, from her point of view, she had also been able to acquire a small mirror, a comb, a lipstick and a blanket. The blanket was for the night, the rest was for the morning. Tania didn't let the food be seen until our neighbors began to eat. She thought it was difficult, and in some degree dangerous, for a woman and a small boy to eat in a hungry crowd without sharing. Then she divided the bread into evening and morning portions. She allowed us each one gulp of water. The rest, and especially the chocolate, were also for the morning. We wrapped ourselves in the blanket and lay down. It was getting dark; all around us people were clinging to one another for warmth and comfort. Tania told me she was afraid of this night, but we had to make ourselves sleep; if we were exhausted we would make mistakes. For instance, she said, that young woman with a child made a terrible mistake when she knelt down before the officer. She should have stood as straight as she could, looked him in the eye, and demanded that he make the Ukrainians behave like disciplined soldiers. Germans, said Tania, cannot bear the feeling of pity; they prefer pain. If you ask for pity, you get the devil that is inside them, worse than the Ukrainians.

The day finally departed. I fell into a dead sleep. Shouts and curses awoke me. Beams of electric torches crisscrossed the night. Just as we had been warned, Ukrainians and Germans were hunting for women. Tania said, Quick, cover me with the blanket and lie on top of me; pretend I am a bundle. Around us, soldiers were wading among the sleepers, looking them over, rejecting some, hauling away others. Then they were gone.

Peace, disturbed only by sighs, laments and moans had barely settled on us when we heard a new and improbable noise: the loudspeaker the Germans had used to give orders during the day was now filling the square with familiar Wehrmacht songs. Some soldier had brought a gramophone and was playing background music for a field brothel. But fornication apparently did not preclude other amus.e.m.e.nts. Soon, a sound like very loud static was interfering with the ninth or tenth rendition of "Lili Marleen." It was a machine gun. Cries of wounded replied. Perhaps a soldier thought it disorderly for prisoners to scurry about in the night. The way to end any such unauthorized activity was to aim the fire directly above the heads of people quietly squatting or lying on the ground: anyone who stood up would be mowed down, which was good for discipline. Alas, not everybody could crouch or sit or, better yet, lie facedown. The wounded were begging for help, disembodied voices called for doctors to make themselves known, and doctors who were brave enough to respond became new moving targets.

That night, in turn, departed. It was followed by yet another sparkling and cloudless day. Autumn is the sweetest season in Poland, redolent of harvest smells and promise, a time to pick mushrooms in the moist shade of giant trees. But neither the morning hour nor the season brought with it hope. The loudspeaker began braying lengthy instructions about going to the right and going to the left, forming in groups of fifty, forming in groups of one hundred, leaders responsible for order, picking up trash, sitting, standing and waiting. Since we were thought incapable of comprehending, Ukrainians with their dogs and whips came again into our midst to help us form satisfactory columns. By noon, Tania and I were marching in step in the rear of such a column. The Central Station was before us, oddly unmarked by the fighting. I was very afraid: our destination was about to be revealed.

I could not tell whether Tania was as afraid as I. We had eaten the rest of our bread and chocolate as soon as the sun rose. Unlike most of our neighbors, Tania did not need the help of the Ukrainians to fathom the meaning of the loudspeaker, and the moment it was clear that we were leaving, she had become very busy. Long before the Ukrainians began charging the crowd and one had to stand in ranks at rigid attention, over my tearful protests she had used our remaining water to wash our faces and hands. She brushed the dust off her clothes and mine and straightened them. Then she combed my hair and, with great concentration, peering into the pocket mirror, combed her own hair and put on lipstick, studied the result, and made little corrections. I was astonished to see how she had transformed herself. The stooped-over, soot-smeared old woman of the march from the Old Town had vanished. Instead, when we entered the station, I was holding the hand of a dignified and self-confident young matron. Unlike the day before, she was not hanging back, trying to lose us in the crowd; she pushed her way to the outside row and, holding my hand very tight, to my horror, led me away from the column so that we were standing, completely exposed, in the s.p.a.ce on the platform between the rest of the people and the train. Despite my panic, I began to understand that Tania was putting on a very special show. Her clear blue eyes surveyed the scene before her; it was as if she could barely contain her impatience and indignation. I thought that if she had had an umbrella she would be tapping the platform with it. And, indeed, what a tableau was there to contemplate! Two long trains of cargo and pa.s.senger cars, one on each side of the platform, group after group of Poles in the column being pushed and beaten by the Ukrainians, then shoved toward the trains, old people falling on the platform, some slipping off the platform onto the tracks as they tried to hoist themselves into the freight cars, suitcases judged too large by the Ukrainians torn open and their contents scattered on the ground, howling dogs pulling on their leashes, Ukrainians yelling in their mixture of broken Polish and German, people weeping and sometimes embracing each other.

Also surveying the scene, with an air of contempt that matched Tania's indignation, was a fat middle-aged Wehrmacht captain, standing alone a few meters from us, in the middle of the platform. I realized that Tania was including him in her outraged stare and that her show seemed particularly directed at him. All at once, I felt her pulling me behind her again. With a few rapid strides she reached the officer. Addressing him in her haughtiest tone, she asked if he would be kind enough to tell her where these awful trains were going. The answer made my legs tremble: Auschwitz. Completely wrong destination, replied Tania. To find herself with all these disreputable-looking people, being shouted at by drunk and disorderly soldiers, and all this in front of a train going to a place she had never heard of, was intolerable. She was a doctor's wife from R., about two hours from Warsaw; she had come to Warsaw to buy dresses and have her son's eyes examined; of course, everything she bought had been lost in this dreadful confusion. We had nothing to do with whatever was going on here. Would he, as an officer, impose some order and help us find a train to R.? We had spent almost all our money, but she thought she had enough for a second-cla.s.s compartment. The captain burst out laughing. My dear lady, he said to Tania, not even my wife orders me about quite this way. Could Tania a.s.sure him her husband would be glad to have her return? And where had she learned such literary turns of expression? After he had an answer to these basic questions he would see about this wretched train business. Tania blushed. Should I tell you the truth, even though you won't like it? Naturally, replied the captain. I think my husband doesn't mind my being sometimes hot tempered. I learned German in school and probably I managed to improve it by reading, especially everything by Thomas Mann I can find in the original-not much in R., but quite a lot in Warsaw. It's a good way for a provincial housewife to keep occupied. I know Mann's work is forbidden in the Reich, but that is the truth. I am not a party member, merely a railroad specialist, announced the captain still laughing, I am glad you have chosen a great stylist. Shall I get someone to carry your suitcases while we look for transportation to R.?

The captain was a man of the world. He did not feel compelled to introduce himself and gave no sign of being discouraged or startled by our lack of luggage. Having handed Tania into a first-cla.s.s compartment of a train waiting at a distant platform, he clicked his heels. Tania was not to worry. He was signing a pa.s.s to R.; it was not necessary to buy tickets; the German reservist in charge of this military train would see to it that she was not disturbed.

The train remained in the station for some hours after he left us. Slowly, it filled up with soldiers; noisy groups of officers were in the compartments on both sides of ours. Meanwhile, Tania's excitement left her and with it her boldness: her face turned haggard, it was the face of the night before. She could not stop s.h.i.+vering or talking about our being doomed because the train had not left. She was sure the captain would mention the amusing little shrew from R. with an interest in Mann to some officer whose understanding extended beyond railway trains, and they would immediately send the Gestapo to get us. Once again, she had gone too far with her lies; we would pay for it. But no one came. The officers who glanced at us curiously as they pa.s.sed in the corridor continued on their way. A whistle blew, the train started, and soon the elderly reservist came to tell us that the next stop would be G., more than halfway to R.

VI.

THE fields were very flat. At the edge of the horizon one could distinguish a line of trees, probably similar to the parallel line of trees near us that marked the western boundary of the pastures belonging to the village of Piasowe. To the right and left were other lines of demarcation: rutted pa.s.sages, made by cart wheels and hooves of horses and cattle, running in an almost straight line to that western boundary, just wide enough for a cart; and elsewhere long, thin, gra.s.s-covered mounds separating a peasant's land from that of his neighbor. Farther off to the right, at a distance of some three kilometers, there was the dirt highway with which the main road of Piasowe made a right angle. Peasants' horse-drawn carts moved along it, sometimes at a brisk trot when the cart was empty and the peasant cracked his whip, and sometimes at a pace so slow that a good part of the day was gone before the cart disappeared from view. Once in a long while, rarely enough to provoke comment in the village, a German truck or staff car would pa.s.s, enveloped in a cloud of white dust. The highway led west to Rawa; to the east lay W., where the market was held, and, much farther, G. Beyond the highway was the forest. At this time of the year all the crops were in, and the pa.s.sages between the fields were used mostly to haul hay from distant stacks to the barns. fields were very flat. At the edge of the horizon one could distinguish a line of trees, probably similar to the parallel line of trees near us that marked the western boundary of the pastures belonging to the village of Piasowe. To the right and left were other lines of demarcation: rutted pa.s.sages, made by cart wheels and hooves of horses and cattle, running in an almost straight line to that western boundary, just wide enough for a cart; and elsewhere long, thin, gra.s.s-covered mounds separating a peasant's land from that of his neighbor. Farther off to the right, at a distance of some three kilometers, there was the dirt highway with which the main road of Piasowe made a right angle. Peasants' horse-drawn carts moved along it, sometimes at a brisk trot when the cart was empty and the peasant cracked his whip, and sometimes at a pace so slow that a good part of the day was gone before the cart disappeared from view. Once in a long while, rarely enough to provoke comment in the village, a German truck or staff car would pa.s.s, enveloped in a cloud of white dust. The highway led west to Rawa; to the east lay W., where the market was held, and, much farther, G. Beyond the highway was the forest. At this time of the year all the crops were in, and the pa.s.sages between the fields were used mostly to haul hay from distant stacks to the barns.

Returning to the stables in the evening, we would drive our cows along these pa.s.sages, together with other children from Piasowe who grazed cattle in adjoining pastures. We could get the cows home more quickly that way than through the fields, without making them run, which was bad for the milk and sometimes even dangerous for the cows. The cows liked having a path to follow. It was also more fun for us, because it made a large herd of cattle, cows lowing and jostling one another. There were four of us who took cows to the same pasture, two other boys and a girl; the houses we belonged to stood in a clump with their outbuildings; the other houses of Piasowe were up the village road, closer to the highway. The barns and stables gave onto the fields directly; the houses were separated from them by large yards. Perpendicular to each house, on one side of the yard, were usually pigsties and chicken coops, and on the other side manure piles. The houses faced the village road; their outbuildings were enclosed by wooden fences to keep the poultry and piglets inside during the day. At night, the dogs would be off the chain: the fences kept them in too.

We children were responsible for some twenty cows and heifers. Three of the cows belonged to Tania's and my master, a slow-talking bald peasant called Kula. The cows grazed peacefully, picking at the stubble; when Stefa told us it was time, we would move them, calling them by their names and waving the stripped branches we used to poke at them and hit them. At thirteen, Stefa was the oldest. The boys were my age. We always did what Stefa said when it came to taking care of the cows. In fact, there was not much to do, besides changing every couple of hours from a place that was overgrazed and making sure the heifers did not wander off. The cows were content to eat and chew and drop t.u.r.ds; we brought excitement into their lives only occasionally, when Stefa agreed that a little running early in the day would do them no great harm. Then we would give one another boosts to get on a cow's back and try to ride her in a circle around the herd. Sometimes even Stefa would take a turn. She usually managed to stay on the longest.

Our serious business was to keep from freezing. There were no trees in the pasture and no dead branches to burn. We made fires out of a few dry cow t.u.r.ds and sat cross-legged around them. At noon, we would scratch a hole in the ground, put our potatoes in it, and cover them with dirt. Then we pushed the fire right over the potatoes. We would build the fire up to make it really strong, still trying not to use many t.u.r.ds because very dry ones were hard to find. In about an hour, the meal would be ready. Somebody always brought salt. The baked potatoes would make warmth circulate from the stomach throughout the body. They thawed out our hands. We would eat two or three potatoes and wish we had more.

We used a little hay from a nearby haystack to start our fires; it reminded me of dry flower stalks and the game my grandfather had played with Zosia and me in our garden. I told Stefa and the boys that we could make fires to jump over. They wanted to try it. The next day, we brought bundles of straw under our jackets and arranged the fires in a row, close together, so that as soon as one had jumped over a fire one had to leap into the next one. The straw burned with a quick hot flame; they liked the game, although we didn't have enough straw to make it last long. We began to play almost every day. Running and jumping helped warm us.

I realized that jumping over fires, which I had taught them, was the only game they knew. They liked to ride the cows, to hit a crow with a stone, or to grab a cat by the tail and whirl it, but that did not seem to me to be playing; it was real teasing and hurting, more like catching a hen in the yard, holding it with one hand by the wings and, with the other, wringing its neck. I could not deny that I enjoyed watching a hen killed this way. The hen would flap its wings and try to fly and skid when it was running away and make a huge cackling sound once it was caught; even Kula and his wife, Kulowa, laughed eac