Wartime lies - Louis Begley [32]
Tania had brought some bread and ham for our supper, and soap and coffee. We sat down to eat; it was our first meal since the morning. I was very hungry. When we finished, Tania said that we would go to Warsaw soon and find grandfather. Perhaps we could live with him, but we shouldn’t count on it. She and I had to get used to the idea that we were quite alone: Tania and Maciek against the world. This was not an easy lesson to learn, but probably the world would beat it into our heads. Then she said that was enough philosophy for one Saturday evening; the two musketeers needed some rest. She opened the bed. The sheets had been washed; we would not worry about what was underneath.
That was our introduction to bedbugs. Tania felt them first. Suddenly, she sat up in bed and said that something strange was happening; she was itching all over. As soon as she turned on the light, we saw them: oblong red dots scurrying from the sheet to the recess between the bed and the headboard. Other red dots were rushing along the wall, some up to crawl behind the frame of the picture of a stag and dogs, some down to the floorboards. We knew all about fleas. They were omnipresent in Poland; when my father came home from the hospital ward or calls to certain patients, he would undress completely in the examination room and give his clothes to the chambermaid. She would beat them, right outside the kitchen, with the same bat that was used at monthly intervals for whacking away at carpets until not a mote of dust could be seen to rise. That was the best way to get fleas out of clothes that couldn’t be washed, short of catching them with one’s fingers. But it took Tania a while to identify and name these insects that bit but didn’t jump. Since they seemed to dislike the light, we decided to sleep with the light on. Tania said this was just a comical reminder: we were reaching the lower depths. If the Germans didn’t get us, lice would be next.
THE papers were not ready the following week or the next. The season changed while we waited in that house, among its strange tenants and their furtive visitors. Tania went out as little as possible, to buy food, to meet Hertz and give him money while she accepted his excuses, trying not to be noticed, afraid of leaving me alone. I did not leave the apartment at all. At last, Hertz delivered our new papers. Although so much time had passed, once again he advised Tania to leave the city; he thought it was impossible that the Gestapo would let a matter of this sort drop; if somehow they found out about her, eventually they would look in Lwów. They surely knew that Reinhard spent Saturdays and Sundays there. Hertz also brought her a gift, two vials of cyanide. He said it was good to have it. In case of need, one just bit through the glass, which was thin, and left the Germans and all other troubles behind.
Our departure was now a matter of precise timing and preparations. Tania wrote a short and vague letter to my grandfather, telling him to expect us soon, saying nothing of what had happened. The photograph of the woman in Tania’s new papers looked sufficiently like her, except that it showed very short, wavy hair. Tania went to a hairdresser and had her hair cut and curled. She bought a black coat for herself and a gray coat and cap for me. She worried about how to transport our money and grandmother’s jewelry. Hertz told her to be very careful. There were so many black-market operators on trains that Polish police and even the Feldgendarmerie frequently went through passengers’ handbags and luggage. She decided she would tape the jewelry to my stomach and chest and the bank notes and gold coins to herself. We practiced doing it so that it was all smooth and would not be noticed if we were only frisked. The jewelry had to be wrapped in cotton anyway; otherwise it would dig into my skin. In the new papers, my name was no longer Maciek, and Tania was no longer