the heat of it in his blood. Perhaps I would have done the same, Galileo, given the chance. For what is crime but a darkened reflection of laws made to choke a man? And itâs always the young that get choked first.
âHave you guessed it yet, Galileo? I can see by that gape of yours you have not. Then I will tell you: smuggling. Your brother became a smuggler. You should have guessed it when I mentioned the land surrounding Pietraszowice. Nothing but forests, forests as dense and wild as those here in MaleÅkowice. And to where do those forests stretch? A good few kilometres into German soil, with no sure way to police the border there. Thereâs just too much forest. But the smugglers had spent years learning the secret language of the trees and the brush, the tracks and trails that led through it and crossed the border into Germany. And PaweÅ too learned those paths and, so the story goes, learned them better than any of his fellow smugglers.
âSmuggling, Galileo, was no small trade back then. In that time of no work and little money in Poland and Germany alike, a good many farmers were willing to buy and exchange smuggled goods. The money you could make from smuggling was often less favourable than the payment in goods. There are things in Germany you canât easily get here, and it was the same the other way around. A certain type of German orange. A certain breed of Polish horse. So these things they smuggled. In and out across the border, through the forest. PaweÅ learned his craft quickly. He learned how to monitor the movements of the border guards who sometimes patrolled the German fields. Learned how to pick a single route through the forest and memorize it. Flashlights were easy giveaways, you see; better by far to run in darkness. And finally he learned always to enter and exit at the same point of the forest, or else you might get lost. And if you got lost, you got caught.
âIâve heard tell that your brother smuggled entire herds of horses into Germany. With the other men he would ask the farmers who were known to them as allies to forsake any spare animals they might have in return for goods or money. Then, Iâm afraid, they would swell the numbers by rustling from the farmers who wouldnât sell. Picking off an animal here and there where they had been allowed to roam abroad in the fields unsupervised, tossing their manes and blowing steam through their muzzles. And in the dead heart of the night they would lash the beasts together and ferry the whole lot through, stamping and blowing and rolling their eyes, straight into trucks waiting at the other end. Thatâs quite something, eh, Galileo? Quite something.
âSo all that time your mother and father believed he was working for the leathersmith, and he would bring back gifts of bags and purses to keep them believing. Fact is, boy, no parent wants to distrust a son. No parent wants the pain of such a discovery, no matter how strongly they suspect there is something to be discovered. So they believed, with or without the gifts, and PaweÅ continued his runs across the border. Eventually, of course, Francesca found out. She found two sacks of fresh oranges under his bed. She always was a bright girl, and curious too, curious like all the Sófkas seem to be, but PaweÅ made her promise not to tell and she agreed, not wanting trouble in the house.
âShe must have worried, though. Because sometime later, I suppose after fretting and arguing it out in her head, she told Anna Malewska. And Anna was furious. None of us had ever seen such fury, though of course we didnât know then what stirred it in her. You should have seen her, marching through the village to the station! She went to PaweÅ that night and demanded he stop all his business with the smuggling, and stop it immediately.
âYou see, Galileo, she was a bird keeper, and PaweÅ her falcon. She let him fly now and then, and hunt and dive
âHave you guessed it yet, Galileo? I can see by that gape of yours you have not. Then I will tell you: smuggling. Your brother became a smuggler. You should have guessed it when I mentioned the land surrounding Pietraszowice. Nothing but forests, forests as dense and wild as those here in MaleÅkowice. And to where do those forests stretch? A good few kilometres into German soil, with no sure way to police the border there. Thereâs just too much forest. But the smugglers had spent years learning the secret language of the trees and the brush, the tracks and trails that led through it and crossed the border into Germany. And PaweÅ too learned those paths and, so the story goes, learned them better than any of his fellow smugglers.
âSmuggling, Galileo, was no small trade back then. In that time of no work and little money in Poland and Germany alike, a good many farmers were willing to buy and exchange smuggled goods. The money you could make from smuggling was often less favourable than the payment in goods. There are things in Germany you canât easily get here, and it was the same the other way around. A certain type of German orange. A certain breed of Polish horse. So these things they smuggled. In and out across the border, through the forest. PaweÅ learned his craft quickly. He learned how to monitor the movements of the border guards who sometimes patrolled the German fields. Learned how to pick a single route through the forest and memorize it. Flashlights were easy giveaways, you see; better by far to run in darkness. And finally he learned always to enter and exit at the same point of the forest, or else you might get lost. And if you got lost, you got caught.
âIâve heard tell that your brother smuggled entire herds of horses into Germany. With the other men he would ask the farmers who were known to them as allies to forsake any spare animals they might have in return for goods or money. Then, Iâm afraid, they would swell the numbers by rustling from the farmers who wouldnât sell. Picking off an animal here and there where they had been allowed to roam abroad in the fields unsupervised, tossing their manes and blowing steam through their muzzles. And in the dead heart of the night they would lash the beasts together and ferry the whole lot through, stamping and blowing and rolling their eyes, straight into trucks waiting at the other end. Thatâs quite something, eh, Galileo? Quite something.
âSo all that time your mother and father believed he was working for the leathersmith, and he would bring back gifts of bags and purses to keep them believing. Fact is, boy, no parent wants to distrust a son. No parent wants the pain of such a discovery, no matter how strongly they suspect there is something to be discovered. So they believed, with or without the gifts, and PaweÅ continued his runs across the border. Eventually, of course, Francesca found out. She found two sacks of fresh oranges under his bed. She always was a bright girl, and curious too, curious like all the Sófkas seem to be, but PaweÅ made her promise not to tell and she agreed, not wanting trouble in the house.
âShe must have worried, though. Because sometime later, I suppose after fretting and arguing it out in her head, she told Anna Malewska. And Anna was furious. None of us had ever seen such fury, though of course we didnât know then what stirred it in her. You should have seen her, marching through the village to the station! She went to PaweÅ that night and demanded he stop all his business with the smuggling, and stop it immediately.
âYou see, Galileo, she was a bird keeper, and PaweÅ her falcon. She let him fly now and then, and hunt and dive
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