Wartime lies - Louis Begley [38]
All at once, grandfather wiped his face dry, stood up very straight and said in a loud voice, My dear children, God will bring us consolation, this is His place, let us pray once more for your dear mother’s soul. He took Tania and me by the arms and led us up to the side altar. There, he pushed us down to our knees and whispered, Quick, start crossing yourselves, put your hands over your faces and pray. I knew how to do it; Zosia had taught me long ago to make the sign of the cross, and we now crossed ourselves each time we walked by a church. We remained in that position until grandfather whispered that we should cross ourselves again, stand up, and follow him. He showed us at a distance two men who had left the Cathedral and were walking toward the other end of the Rynek. This pair looked to him like real policemen, he said, not the usual trash. He had noticed them standing nearby, studying us with great interest, intently. He was surprised the prayer performance had fooled them; more likely, they didn’t want to be seen picking people up in the Cathedral even when it was half-deserted. It was his fault: he should never have allowed us to stay so long on that bench talking. It was bound to attract attention.
By the end of the following week, we were installed at the apartment of Pani Z. in a street of Długa. This lady turned out to be the widow of a physician. Tania discovered the unfortunate coincidence of the late husband’s profession over a cup of tea; the deal to rent the room had been concluded. As soon as Tania began to try out her speech about being the wife of a doctor from Lwów and the officers’ prison camp in Russia, Pani Z. told Tania about her natural sympathy for the family of a colleague. Tania said she almost spilled her tea when she heard this news, and she continued to think the medical connection meant serious trouble.
There was no doubt about Tania’s being able to pass for a doctor’s wife. She could display a knowledge of medicine and the honorarium structure of the profession that would do credit to any doctor’s wife or widow, as well as an appropriate capacity for instant diagnosis. But what acquaintances might this she-devil of a landlady have among doctors in Lwów, of whom she could inquire, if she felt a stirring of curiosity, about Tania’s husband? Would she attempt to look him up in professional lists? Anything like that might be fatal. To begin with, we had no idea of the profession of the man whose name appeared on our papers; that information wasn’t required to be mentioned. All we knew was that his name was Tadeusz. That appeared on my birth certificate and Tania’s identity card and marriage certificate. But we weren’t really sure that such a Tadeusz had ever existed in Lwów or elsewhere. Hertz said the papers were genuine, but he might have been sold very skillful forgeries. It was also possible that he had told Tania they were real only to give her greater self-assurance in the event we were ordered to show them to the police.
The solution was to move, but we couldn’t do it immediately; that might arouse suspicion. We would look for another place, rent it, and leave here within two or three weeks, paying Pani Z. a month’s rent in place of notice. It was unlikely she would begin prying and get information right away; it was a risk we had to take. Grandfather agreed with this plan. He had not met Pani Z. or come to our room. If he had, his relationship to us would have had to be acknowledged: we three looked alike and it would be hard to lie about it, yet telling Pani Z. that he was