Wartime lies - Louis Begley [64]
We needed to hurry because the beets had to be done next and sent to W. before there was any risk that they might freeze. On the other hand, if they were taken out of the ground too early, warm weather would make them ferment. At noon, Kulowa came into the field with boiled potatoes and buttermilk. Afterward, we worked again until dusk. It took many days to finish the potatoes. Then came time for Kula’s beets. Tania’s blisters had broken; hard calluses replaced them. When we lay down at night, she would ask me to rub her back as long as I could stand it. She said that in the field she sometimes thought she could never straighten herself again. Our shoes disintegrated. Tania bought wooden clogs from Komar. We learned to wear them like everybody else in Piasowe.
Kula decided that Masia did not need both Tania and me for the potatoes; I would go out with the cows so he would no longer have to pay Stefa’s father to have her look after them. Stefa showed me how to get the cows out of their stalls in the morning, after Masia had milked them, and get them moving in the direction of the rest of the herd. In the beginning, I was scared of the cows but managed to hide my fear enough so that Stefa and the boys wouldn’t despise me. Also, I was repelled by the sight and smell of manure in the barn and in the yard and the globs of dung that stuck to the cows’ sides. When we gathered turds for our fire, I dreaded mistakenly picking up one that was not dry underneath and getting my fingers covered with dung. Quite soon, I learned that Kula’s cows were lazy and pacific; I also found out which of the other cows were bad tempered and learned to watch out for their horns.
As we burned our turd fires and played tricks on the cows, I began to feel that being dirty and touching dirt conferred on me a sort of freedom. In the pasture, Stefa would hitch up her skirt, the rest of us would let down our pants, and we would squat down to defecate where we happened to be. If our own turds were not perfectly formed or were too wet, and we felt the need of a wipe, it was accomplished with a handful of dry stubble. Without asking Tania, I came to the conclusion that the children I was with were not on the lookout for circumcised penises. Nonetheless, when I took out mine, as often as possible I would hold it by the end to conceal my lack of a foreskin. In the stable, I was cleaning out the stalls and pitchforking manure with enthusiasm and results that were sufficient for Kula not to comment about my work. One day, I drove the pitchfork into my foot. It made a nasty puncture wound that Tania tried to open so it would bleed better. She could not remember when I had last had a tetanus injection and was wild with worry. The wound healed normally while I hobbled around after the cows and did my chores.
Soon I was able to terrorize Tania with another medical problem. For some time, we had been trying, when we were out with the cows, to smoke a mixture of dry leaves, hay and grass in a pipe that belonged to one of the boys. That led to nothing more than attacks of coughing and a burning throat. One day, Stefa got hold of a package of cigarette tobacco, which must have been of the lowest and strongest grade obtainable, tobacco then sold in Poland being, in any event, vile. We smoked this stuff as long as it lasted. When it was time to drive the cows home, I was desperately sick. I rubbed my face and hands with cow dung to mask the smell of tobacco; the stench of vomit complemented my efforts. The vomiting was followed by diarrhea that continued through the night and into the next day. I was green; my teeth chattered; I was unable to eat. Just as Tania came close to concluding I had come down with typhoid fever, I miraculously recovered. Nothing could induce me to reveal to her the true nature of my illness.
In part this was because of Tania’s severity and particular methods of punishment. I understood her insistence on perfect behavior, or in any event behavior that corresponded to what she wanted, when the outside world was concerned. One could