Wartime lies - Louis Begley [12]
Now Zosia was gone as well. Aryans were no longer allowed to work for Jews. Zosia cried, saying this had nothing to do with us, that I was her child. She wanted to stay. She would become Jewish like me. But her father came from Drohobycz and asked to speak to Tania. He told her it was high time his child stopped wiping the rear end of a little Jew bastard. He was prepared to let bygones be bygones, but there had to be compensation. What kind of a future could Zosia have with the smell of Jew all about her? Fortunately, my grandfather was out of the house. Tania asked Zosia’s father to wait at the railroad station and please to remember next time he called on us to come to the kitchen door. She went to get her beaver coat and hat and gave them to Zosia and also gave her money. Grandmother too wanted to give Zosia a fur, but Zosia cried very hard and refused, and instead grandmother gave her the ring with little diamonds she always wore on her second finger. Then Zosia packed her things. She asked to wait for my grandfather, but Tania said to run along, that all this crying and saying good-bye was going to make me regress permanently to being a two-year-old.
Tania turned out to be right about the house. A few days after the flood receded, a German officer presented himself, very politely asked Tania if she was the owner and told her that we must move out by the end of the next day. The house was needed for Gestapo headquarters. We could take our clothes and personal items; everything else was to remain. An inventory would be made. He suggested she be present to make sure that everything was quite in order and said it was pleasant in this part of the world to hear German spoken correctly.
Our tenants were also ordered to leave. Pan Kramer came to see Tania and told her that he was embarrassed to propose such a thing, but if we wished, we could move together. He knew of an apartment near the market, a couple of houses from his shop. It was very modest, not the sort of thing she had ever seen, but it was available and it was furnished. The old lady who lived there was willing to give it up and go to live with her children. The rent was too high for the Kramers alone. Since we were old neighbors, perhaps we would not mind sharing. They were very quiet, spent most of the day in the shop, and Irena and I could play together. My grandfather was consulted and he agreed. There were no apartments for Jews in T.; Jews were all being thrown out. He would see the man who had stabled his horses about carting our things.
The new apartment was in a house that was four stories high. We were to live on the third floor, which was hard on grandmother because of her heart. One passed through a gateway wide enough for a horse-drawn cart into a rectangular courtyard. Above it, balconies on which the apartments opened ran around each floor, linked by stairs. Our apartment consisted of three rooms and a large kitchen that my grandmother declared was quite good. The three Kramers were to sleep in one room; Tania insisted they take the largest one. My grandparents had the room next to them, where there were two beds. Tania and I took the living room; she would sleep on the couch and I on a folding cot we could open at night. We discovered there was no running water; one got it from the pump in the courtyard. Pan Kramer showed me how to work the pump, with short strokes at first to get the water to flow and then slow and steady; that was how to do it without getting tired. Irena and I were to be responsible for the water: that was how one became careful not to waste it.
We made yet another discovery.