sausage, drank some milk, at last detached the money and jewelry packages from our bodies, and got into bed. Tania said she wasn’t going to look at the sheets; she didn’t care what they were like.
We took the street map of Warsaw to bed with us. Tania decided we had to study it during every free moment, segment by segment, until we knew it by heart, like a poem. We would quiz each other, and we were going to start right away, because one always remembers best the things one learns just before going to sleep. When we finished, Tania said that she knew I was sleepy, but there were so many problems to solve that she had to talk. She couldn’t bear to think about them in silence. Perhaps grandfather would have all the answers, but even so, we had to think through the problems first for ourselves.
To start with, what were we to do with the jewelry and the gold and all those bank notes? We couldn’t wear them glued to us all the time, it was too uncomfortable; people got stopped for document checks, and we might be searched. Getting caught with that hoard meant giving most of it away if it was the Polish police, or being taken to the Gestapo if we were caught by the Germans. On the other hand, how could we leave anything of value in this house or any other rooming house we might move to? There was also the question of how to sell the gold or jewelry once we had spent our cash. She couldn’t imaginesimply walking into a jewelry shop and putting a couple of rings or a bracelet on the counter. She would be cheated. We needed a reliable crook; that was probably the sort of person grandfather would know. And where would we go when our week here was over? Presumably grandfather would know about that as well. Perhaps we could move in with him. We would need, in any case, a story to explain why she was here with me looking for a place to live. We would use Hertz’s idea. For instance: wife of Polish officer, doctor in civilian life, prisoner of war in a Russian camp, rest of the family killed in bombardments in 1939 or perhaps deported to Siberia. But why did we leave Lwów? It must be that her nerves no longer could stand Lwów after so many losses. That part of the story, she felt, would have to be perfected as she told it. She would see how her audience reacted; she might try it on the landlady here. And how about me, why didn’t I go to school? That I wouldn’t go to school was understood between Tania and me; one couldn’t take my penis where it might be seen, for instance to urinate in the common toilet, never mind what vicious games boys might invent. The reason had to be my delicate, congenital heart condition. I would be tutored privately; that might be an additional reason for coming to Warsaw. Teaching privately was forbidden. It may be that people willing to take the risk would be easier to find in Warsaw than in Lwów. We could not carry our questions and answers further. Tania turned out the light. We would sleep.
Our rest was interrupted by the now-familiar red visitors. These were big-city bedbugs, more active and moreingenious than their cousins in Lwów. Not content with hustling along the sheet and scurrying up and down walls, they dropped on the bed and on us from the ceiling and swarmed over the plush of the settees and chairs. We even saw them run on the floor, staying close to the wall. The light Tania turned on restored order. Pressed against each other, we fell asleep. On subsequent nights, when we were less tired and more apprehensive about the insect colonies with which we shared our space, we went to bed with the light on and cloth bands tied over our eyes. Tania called it Warsaw blindman’s buff.
The struggle against bedbugs became a leitmotiv of our days and nights in Warsaw. At Pani Jadwiga’s there was nothing to be done other than to turn the bedbugs’ night into day. Our term there was too short. In subsequent rooming houses, more was at stake, sleepless nights being worse than nightmares,
We took the street map of Warsaw to bed with us. Tania decided we had to study it during every free moment, segment by segment, until we knew it by heart, like a poem. We would quiz each other, and we were going to start right away, because one always remembers best the things one learns just before going to sleep. When we finished, Tania said that she knew I was sleepy, but there were so many problems to solve that she had to talk. She couldn’t bear to think about them in silence. Perhaps grandfather would have all the answers, but even so, we had to think through the problems first for ourselves.
To start with, what were we to do with the jewelry and the gold and all those bank notes? We couldn’t wear them glued to us all the time, it was too uncomfortable; people got stopped for document checks, and we might be searched. Getting caught with that hoard meant giving most of it away if it was the Polish police, or being taken to the Gestapo if we were caught by the Germans. On the other hand, how could we leave anything of value in this house or any other rooming house we might move to? There was also the question of how to sell the gold or jewelry once we had spent our cash. She couldn’t imaginesimply walking into a jewelry shop and putting a couple of rings or a bracelet on the counter. She would be cheated. We needed a reliable crook; that was probably the sort of person grandfather would know. And where would we go when our week here was over? Presumably grandfather would know about that as well. Perhaps we could move in with him. We would need, in any case, a story to explain why she was here with me looking for a place to live. We would use Hertz’s idea. For instance: wife of Polish officer, doctor in civilian life, prisoner of war in a Russian camp, rest of the family killed in bombardments in 1939 or perhaps deported to Siberia. But why did we leave Lwów? It must be that her nerves no longer could stand Lwów after so many losses. That part of the story, she felt, would have to be perfected as she told it. She would see how her audience reacted; she might try it on the landlady here. And how about me, why didn’t I go to school? That I wouldn’t go to school was understood between Tania and me; one couldn’t take my penis where it might be seen, for instance to urinate in the common toilet, never mind what vicious games boys might invent. The reason had to be my delicate, congenital heart condition. I would be tutored privately; that might be an additional reason for coming to Warsaw. Teaching privately was forbidden. It may be that people willing to take the risk would be easier to find in Warsaw than in Lwów. We could not carry our questions and answers further. Tania turned out the light. We would sleep.
Our rest was interrupted by the now-familiar red visitors. These were big-city bedbugs, more active and moreingenious than their cousins in Lwów. Not content with hustling along the sheet and scurrying up and down walls, they dropped on the bed and on us from the ceiling and swarmed over the plush of the settees and chairs. We even saw them run on the floor, staying close to the wall. The light Tania turned on restored order. Pressed against each other, we fell asleep. On subsequent nights, when we were less tired and more apprehensive about the insect colonies with which we shared our space, we went to bed with the light on and cloth bands tied over our eyes. Tania called it Warsaw blindman’s buff.
The struggle against bedbugs became a leitmotiv of our days and nights in Warsaw. At Pani Jadwiga’s there was nothing to be done other than to turn the bedbugs’ night into day. Our term there was too short. In subsequent rooming houses, more was at stake, sleepless nights being worse than nightmares,
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