Wartime lies - Louis Begley [58]
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-class compartment of a train waiting at a distant platform, he clicked his heels. Tania was not to worry. He was signing a pass 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 shivering 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 passed 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 passages, 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, grass-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 pass, 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 passages 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 passages, 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