late, they had had a very fine refugee, with a gold watch and gold rings and money, but the Germans came last week and shot him right against the barn wall. He pointed to his own barn. He was here, that Pan—and the peasant named my grandfather—drinking with me just like you, when they drove up in a big car, four of them with Pan Miska, who has been living in Zielne, over that way. It seems this Pan with gold was a Jew who owned a big farm and two forests. Pan Miska was his estate manager. My Pan was always helping peasants here when a cow or a horse was sick, he knew more about it than a veterinarian, and one day he walked over to Zielne to give a hand with a calf being born. That’s where Miska saw him and right away decided this Jew shouldn’t live to go back to his estate; better give him to the Germans before the Russians come. Miska told it to the Pan right to his face, before all the peasants standing around in the stable, and my Pan got his hands out of the cow, wiped them on the straw and hit Miska across the face with the stick he always carried with him. Then he spat and said next time Miska wanted to talk to him he should remember to take off his hat first. The peasants were laughing so hard their stomachs hurt, but the Pan went on working with the cow as though nothing had happened. Some of us told the Pan to run away, because Miska wasn’t joking, but the Pan wouldn’t listen. So they came in the car with Miska, spoke in German, and shot the Pan in the head. Miska is still in Zielne, if you want to see him: he might want to sell the gold he took from the Pan’s body. Tania said she asked the peasant for another vodka and then yet another, she was so weak, and then she thanked him; she would see about going to Zielne. After she left him, she walked around Bieda, across the fields, in circles, realizing she had not asked what they had done with grandfather’s body but too scared to go back. Then she lay down in a pasture and fell asleep and woke up before she froze, and she wished she hadn’t awakened, except for me, because now I only had her left in the world. Night was falling. She began to walk back to Piasowe. She had not eaten and kept stumbling and falling down, and sometimes she wasn’t sure that she was on the right road. But she did make it, she kept on saying, more than five hours in the dark, but she made it. We were both crying now and we cried until the Kulas woke up and we had to get ready for work. This was the worst day in our lives.
AND so Tania went as usual to see Komar and sell their bimber. I took the cows to the pasture. A headache came upon me that kept on throbbing, and although it was again very cold and felt like snow, I was hot and sweating and had to keep unbuttoning my layers of coats to let the air cool my skin. In the evening, Tania felt my head and said I had a big fever. She said my eyes were strange and she could hear a noise in my chest she didn’t like. At once she told Kulowa I would have to stay in the house under the feather bed until she was sure I was well; she would pay for having Stefa take out the cows. My fever didn’t go down, although Tania made me take aspirin she brought from W., and I remained on my mattress till I lost count of the days, the kitchen turning around me, Kulowa giving me water while I sweated and shook. Tania was sharp with Kula when she came home in the evenings; then she would give him bimber and even vodka to make up.
One night she got drunk with him and Tadek; through my headache, I heard them singing and banging on the table with their glasses to keep time. I kept having strange half dreams; Tania told me it was the fever, she was sure I had pneumonia. There was nothing to do but keep quiet and very warm. On Christmas day, Nowak came with another scarf for Tania and lemon hard candy for me. He was calling her now by her first name only; perhaps saying Pani was too much trouble. The whole family was in the kitchen, eating the ham Kula had kept for the holiday. The smell made me sick. All at once, I heard Tania shouting at Nowak that he must never again