Wartime Lies by Louis Begley Read Free Book Online Page A

still going on; the Germans in her office told her to go home right away to make sure we were safe and gave her a document that was an order saying we were not to be disturbed, which she was to leave with us. We would talk later; in the meantime, she had to go back to work. This was typical of Tania now—she was always saying we would talk when she came back from the office. As soon as she had gotten her job, Tania brought home a typewriter and practiced every evening after work. She said if she learned to type quickly and accurately she would become indispensable. She sat at the table in our room copying page after page of a German novel. Then, to practice dictation, she had my grandfather read aloud from the novel fairly fast, and she tried to keep up with him on the typewriter. One day, she said it was enough; she was the best the Germans had. They gave her a special pass, so that she didn’t have to respect the curfew, and often she worked very late. Sometimes, she was on duty all night and only came home in the morning to change her clothes.
    That evening, however, she returned early. She brought canned pâté, a bottle of vodka, and chocolate for grandmother and me, although grandmother was supposed to avoid sweets. She also brought a canned ham for the Kramers and chocolate for Irena. After dinner, when we were in my grandparents’ room, she said she wanted to tell us an important secret. She had a German friend. He was in love with her. He wasn’t a Nazi, he wasn’t even a soldier anymore, although he wore a uniform, because he had lost an arm in a factory accident. He was very goodat organizing army supplies, so he was important and influential. If we were lucky, if grandfather behaved reasonably, her friend would save us. He was already risking his life for Jews. Bern had found a way to get to the partisans; this German friend, Reinhard, was equipping him for the forest. He was even going to give Bern a rifle and ammunition and drive him to the rendezvous in his own car. We would meet Reinhard when the time came. She wanted grandfather and grandmother to think of me and for once to concentrate on what was really happening around them. She didn’t care what others would think. Jews in T. and everywhere else in Poland were as good as dead, but she intended to live and to save us, and this was the only way.
    They knew they could not shout because of the Kramers, so the news all came out very slowly and very quietly. There came a silence, and then my grandfather said that Tania was wrong, it was not the only way. If the Germans won the war, then her way led nowhere—in the end, we would be killed just like everybody else, only perhaps a little later. And if the Germans lost, then surviving her way was no good. There was enough money, if we sold grandmother’s jewelry piece by piece, to get a peasant family to hide us and feed us as long as the war lasted. He would begin looking for the right people immediately.
    Tania had been crying, but at once she stopped. She spoke again very softly and very slowly. She said that no peasant family would take all four of us; we would have to be separated; and if peasants took us, it would be to get hold of our money and our jewels. Afterward, theywould sell us to the Germans. There had already been such cases near Lwów. Jews found families to hide them so they would not have to go to the ghetto, and after a week with their saviors they were denounced and shot. Waiting in some boarded-up cellar until the Gestapo came to get us was not for her. We could trust Reinhard; anyway, there was no use arguing. Reinhard had told her that he would take care of all of us and that he would not, under any conditions, allow her to leave.
    So Tania won the argument, and so far as we four were concerned, it was all now in the open. Bern came to say good-bye. It was awkward, until Tania said that she would be there when Reinhard and he drove off the next morning. Then Bern understood that what