Wartime lies - Louis Begley [69]
When we went to bed that night, Tania told me not to pester her about Nowak’s man in the moon. Nowak had used the pretext about the man in the moon to be able to speak to her alone. She knew how to handle Nowak and would continue to handle him as long as it suited her. The important thing was that perhaps he had found grandfather. A peasant he had talked to a few days ago told him he had heard there was an older Pan, with a name that could be the right one, in a neighboring village. That Pan came in almost every day to have a glass or two of vodka with the man who sold vodka there. The name of the village was Bieda, less than thirty kilometers from Piasowe. It could all be a mistake, but she didn’t think so. She had decided how she would get there. Hiring a peasant with a horse and cart in Piasowe was out of the question. There were too many risks, whether it turned out to be grandfather or not. She didn’t want every gossip in Piasowe and Bieda involved in our affairs. Instead, she would start out on foot in the morning, before anybody else woke up. If she was lucky, she would find a peasant on the road to Bieda who would give her a lift. She would worry about how to get back once she was in Bieda; the only thing that mattered was that this man should turn out to be grandfather. It was impossible to let me come with her; I would slow her down.
I saw that her mind was made up and asked what I should say to Kula or Komar if they asked where she was. Tania had not thought about this. First she told me not to worry, nobody would ask, because she would have returned to Piasowe before I brought the cows back from the pasture. Later, when I was almost asleep, she said it would be best to pretend I knew nothing; let them guess she had gone to meet Nowak. She was too tired to think, but on her way back to Piasowe she would decide what story to tell, depending on whether she had found grandfather and what he thought she should do. After that, we tried to sleep, but we slept very little, we were so full of hope and so frightened. It was still dark when Tania tiptoed barefoot out of the kitchen. The dog recognized her; he made no noise.
The day passed slowly. Stefa said it was going to snow, but it didn’t. It just got colder and windier. All the good of our fire seemed to disappear in the gale. An old cow, almost entirely black, with heavy eyes, was my favorite. She liked being scratched and talked to. I would put my arms around her neck and stand for a long time pressed against her flank. When the warmth of her body had penetrated mine, I would go back to Stefa and the boys and our fire. We talked about the pig killing, about the hams and the sausages Kula would be selling, and about Christmas. I told them the Russians would soon be in Piasowe. Then the war would be over, and Tania and I would go back to the city. I still didn’t want to mention T.; that seemed like revealing too much of our story without need. Warsaw was destroyed; I knew we couldn’t go there. I said we would probably live in Cracow. That was where my grandparents were from. I told them grandmother was dead, but we would move in with my grandfather. We would invite them all to visit in the winter, when there wasn’t that much work in Piasowe. We would send a horse and cart to take them to G. and train tickets for Cracow. Or perhaps I would come to travel with them so they wouldn’t be startled by the railroad and the big city. They shook their heads and said I would be too far away to think of them, but I was excited by the vision of Cracow and being with my grandfather in his house and made more promises: I thought my grandfather would want to come