saw an artillery piece standing in front of the building and several German soldiers around it. The machine gun rattled constantly from the middle of the square. The gate was half open. A small group of people was negotiating with a tall, broad-shouldered soldier to allow them to exit. The soldier at first did not want to let them out, but at last he stepped aside and waved them past. Instantly several dozen people darted toward the exit.
Malecki swiftly returned to Irena.
“Listen, we can leave, but quickly, because they’ll probably start up again soon.”
Looking at Irena, he fell silent. She was pale and her face had changed. She leaned on one hand against the wall of the building.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, frightened. “Do you feel sick?”
“No,” she protested.
But she grew even paler. Malecki looked around and quickly approached the woman from the basement.
“May I ask you for some water? This woman is feeling faint.”
The woman looked at Irena and hesitated for a moment. Finally she nodded her head.
“Follow me.”
Malecki descended after her and stopped at the door. The odor of poverty struck him immediately. In the basement was a kitchen nook, low-ceilinged, darkened with soot, and saturated with dampness. There was hardly any furniture. On a wooden bed next to the wall lay an old and emaciated man, covered with the remnants of a once-red quilt. Nearer the entrance, a dark young man sat on a stool, peeling potatoes. The work went amazingly quickly. With machinelike speed his pocketknife flashed, and with measured motions he deftly tossed the peeled potatoes into a basin of water on the floor. The young man was leaning downward into the shadows; his face could not be made out.
The woman drew some water from a bucket and handed a mug to Malecki. He thanked her and quickly returned upstairs to Irena.
“Have some of this,” he said, offering her the water.
At first she did not want to take it, but finally she allowed herself to be persuaded. After a couple of swallows she pushed the mug aside.
“I can’t,” she whispered with revulsion.
She was slowly regaining her composure, but she still trembled slightly and kept leaning against the wall.
“How do you feel?”
She nodded, feeling better. At that moment the woman emerged from the basement.
“Maybe the lady would like to sit down?” she called. “Let her come downstairs.”
Malecki looked inquiringly at Irena. To his surprise, she agreed, and he led her down the stairs. The woman wiped off a wooden stool with a rag.
“Please have a seat,” she told Irena and placed the stool nearer the door.
Malecki stood beside her. The antitank guns began to sound again. The man lying next to the wall began to moan, but the woman paid him no attention. She stood before the kitchen, thin and frail, with her arms hanging down, clearly tired beyond endurance. Although she wore a miserable threadbare dress, she looked well-enough groomed. Her hair, already graying, was smoothly combed, revealing the sallow skin of her temples, transparent as vellum. She must have been no more than forty years old, although she looked much older.
Malecki glanced toward the bed.
“Is that your husband? Is he sick?”
“He’s sick,” she replied. “But he’s not my husband. He’s my husband’s father.”
“And your husband?”
“He was killed in September.”2
Irena only now looked about the room. The woman immediately noticed her glance.
“The Germans threw us out of Poznań province,” she explained. “We had a little house in Mogilno. My husband was a gardener there.”
She fell silent and looked about the place herself.
“And now—it’s all gone!”
Malecki, who had been watching the young man peel potatoes for some time, could no longer restrain himself and exclaimed:
“You’re really good at that!”
The youth started, broke off his work, and raised his head. His face, which once must have been gentle and not bad-looking, now was swollen, and the livid, brick-colored spots on his cheeks gave the impression of a mask. His hair was cropped close to the skin, his eyelids deeply red, and his eyes dead, motionless, and without luster. His glassy stare, so little resembling anything human, had a crushing effect on Malecki. He was relieved when the boy, without responding, again bent over and, taking another potato from the small basket, began to peel it skillfully with his red and slightly swollen hands.
No one spoke. The man moaning next to the wall attempted to pull his hands out from under the scraps of quilt. The tenor on the phonograph in the courtyard began singing a new aria. From far away, the short reports of single shots rent the air.
At that, the woman spoke up.
“That’s my oldest son, just returned from Auschwitz.”3
No one said anything in reply. The woman looked at her son with a tired gaze, while he continued indifferently, as if no one had said anything about him.
“He was there for two years. They caught him on the street.”
Abruptly she began bustling about the kitchen, shifting around dented pots and saucepans. There was no fire burning in the stove, and the cold was even more penetrating in the basement than outside. The sun certainly never shone here.
Malecki glanced at Irena. She had completely returned to normal, although she was a bit paler than usual. She sat rigid and attentive, unnaturally straight, her dark eyes examining the woman attentively but with an evident lack of goodwill. The woman, for her part, finally stopped rearranging things, turned, and went up to her son.
“Enough peeling, Kaziczek,” she said gently. “That’ll do for today.”
At that moment the shrill, hoarse shout of one of the soldiers rang out from in front of the gate. The young man started, moved away from the window, and instinctively shrank into himself. For a moment, his red eyes passed across Malecki and Irena with an apprehensive squint. Only when he saw his mother did he calm down somewhat. He continued standing alone, lurking in the corner and gazing uncertainly at the strangers in the room.
“Let’s go!” Malecki leaned over to Irena. She stood up with some effort and thanked the woman, indifferently and with a trace of contempt, for her hospitality.
This cut Malecki to the quick.
“Irena!” he said, his voice rising with reproach, “How can you speak to these unfortunate people in that tone of voice?”
She glanced at him with the same derisive coldness as at the beginning of their encounter.
“So
