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By Root 384 0

day I got up at dawn to help Masia or Kulowa milk the cows, and then I disappeared, taking the cows to pasture and returning with them just in time for the evening milking. Then, immediately, mash to be taken to the pigs or possibly something urgent to be done about the hens. Sitting at last beside Tania for the evening meal, with both elbows on the table, I would eat my soup as noisily as Tadek. Tania could not reprove me, although I knew that each slurp plunged a knife into her heart. That would have been an indirect criticism of Tadek and, as such, against her rules. In total contrast with our life in Lwów and Warsaw, in Piasowe we were never alone except at night; once the soft drone of Masia’s snoring became regular, we would whisper, holding each other tight under the feather bed as long as we could hold out against fatigue and sleepiness, but that was a time to share secrets and caresses, and not a time for Tania to be angry. And Tania could not punish me by silence; that would have been putting on a wrong sort of show for the Kulas. It was thus possible that I could have told Tania the truth, and that my unsuccessful introduction to tobacco would have only made her laugh and kiss me and say I was just like my grandfather. But fear of Tania’s punishments was only a part of what held me back with such force from confessing and made me prefer to increase her suffering as well as my own. I was chained to the habit of lying, and I no longer believed that weakness or foolishness or mistakes could be forgiven by Tania or by me.

THE principal secret we were discussing those nights was Tania’s business venture with Komar. As soon as the potatoes and beets were done and her work changed to lighter chores, like churning cream to make butter, washing the kitchen floor, doing the laundry, and preparing the feed for the poultry, she noticed, just as Stefa had foretold, that Kula was throwing increasingly cross looks in her direction. She took to visiting Komar before the evening meal; her work was now finished early enough to allow it. Komar talked to her about the war. His network of commercial relations was a source of unending astonishment, as was the information it brought him. She learned that the Russians were in Czechoslovakia and had crossed the Danube, the Americans and the English were almost on the Rhine; the Germans were beaten and except for us the war was practically over.

She drank with Komar. Her ability to down anything he poured, crack jokes, and distinguish among the grades of his vodka and samogon impressed him. This schoolteacher had uncommon gifts; he told her he regretted not having kept her instead of sending us to that old fool Kula. In turn, she explained how precarious her position with Kula had become: she was wondering how many days it would be before he threw her and her son out to beg on the highway or look for the partisans in the forest. Komar grew dark with anger at the thought; indignation was father to a business proposition. With Christmas approaching, the peasants’ demand for vodka was overwhelming him. Would she become his saleswoman and courier? He would pay a commission and make an immediate advance against future earnings. Thus she could pay Kula for her lodging, I would continue to mind the cows, and we would all live happily until the Russians came and robbed us. They drank bottoms up to toast Komar’s plans. The next day, Komar called on Kula as we were eating our supper, a bottle of vodka in the pocket of his sheepskin coat. Such doubts as Kula might have initially had about letting us stay on were washed away. Before we went to sleep, Tania made her bargain with him about the money.

“Bimber” was the wartime name for illegal, home-distilled vodka. This substance was not without danger to the drinker; lower grades caused blindness and paralysis. Manufacturers and sellers were preyed upon by the police, who did not permit the imminent collapse of established order to interfere with their enforcement, mostly through blackmail, of the state liquor monopoly. Small wonder, therefore,