Necessary Lies(5)

“Scram, you piece of shit!” the taller milicja man said to Piotr. “And don’t let me catch your ass around here again.”

She was so proud of herself, so relieved that it was all over, that she never noticed his silence. As soon as they turned around the corner he took her bag from her and told her to go to school right away. She tried to protest, but he said he had no time for any nonsense. It was only when he didn’t call her that evening that she realized the enormity of her defeat.

You fool, she said to herself. You damn fool. What have you done?

Anna went to Piotr’s dorm a few times, left messages with the three roommates who swore to tell Piotr she had come by. She cried so much that in the morning she had to put cold compresses on her eyes before she could face her mother, but even that did not help much. “It’s all that reading,” she lied. “Studying for the exams.”

A few days later, Daniel brought her a note, slipped it to her in the math textbook. The note was from Piotr. In Warsaw, during a protest against repressions, the students were beaten up by the milicja, right in front of the University. That was the spark they were all waiting for. Now, Piotr was inside the Politechnika. The Wroclaw students demanded to be heard. He was not going to call her, for all calls were monitored and he didn’t want to put her in danger. She was to wait and trust him. He knew what had to be done.

In the school bathroom where she went to read Piotr’s note she burst into tears. She cried again, on Partisans’ Hill where Daniel patted her on the shoulders and kept saying that Piotr would be all right. But she was not crying from fear. She was crying from happiness. Piotr had forgiven her. She had not destroyed his love.


Soon it became clear that the student revolt had turned into one more defeat, a handy excuse for the government to start another internal purge. The Communist Party had no trouble convincing the workers that the spoiled “brats” from universities were forgetting who was the ruling class in Poland. Whose sweat was paying for their education? As to their demands and criticisms — some were justified. It was not the Communist Party, however, that was at fault, but the Jews. Weren’t they responsible for the Stalinist rule? Weren’t they infiltrating the party ranks? The Jews who never truly supported Poland, never cared for her? If only they would leave, all would be better off. Poland was for true Poles only. The students were misguided at best.

When the strikes and protests were over, the interrogations began. “Why did you do it? Who told you to start it? When? Give us names, more names. That’s your only chance.” Piotr knew the questions by heart, prepared himself with answers. Rehearsed them with Anna, debated the merits of giving the names of known informers or perhaps not mentioning any names at all. Many of their friends were kicked out of the university, barred from all but the most menial jobs, and most of their Jewish friends had already been told to leave.

Newspaper columns filled with code words, foreign element, cosmopolitanism, internationalism. Suspicious words, alien, not Polish. “No one is keeping you here,” the commentaries declared. “Leave. Go to Israel. Isn’t it what you always wanted?” Piotr was interrogated and arrested. Taken from his dormitory room in hand-cuffs. Daniel called. He told Anna to write to Piotr’s father in Kraków.

This is when Anna learned Piotr’s father was not just a doctor, but a well-known heart surgeon whose skills had a price beyond money.

“Please,” he said and his voice when he called her sounded just like Piotr’s. “I have to know everything before I start asking for favours. It is absolutely essential to establish how much they know.”

She agreed to meet him. Her own parents still knew nothing of Piotr. She wanted no comments from her mother that she was still before her matura and university entrance exams, that there were eight candidates for each place at the Department of English. That if she didn’t do well, very well, her whole future would suffer.


Dr. Nowicki waited for her in the Monopol Hotel, in -widnicka street. He won her over at once, with his resemblance to Piotr in spite of the grey in his hair, with his concern for his “foolish” son, a concern, she decided, mixed with admiration.

“He is just like me,” he said, smiling, holding her hand up and kissing it. There was a smell of Old Spice aftershave around him. She knew it; her father used it, too. In her best olive green dress and with her glasses hidden in her purse, she was worthy of his son.

“Please forgive me for imposing myself on you. Piotr should have brought you to Kraków, to introduce us properly. Now, circumstances make their own demands.”

She wished she had not taken off her glasses. As he sat across from her at the table, she could not see the fine details of his face.

This was not the first time he had to come to his son’s rescue, Dr. Nowicki began. But he was not blaming Piotr. Far from it. It was all Communism’s fault, he said.

“Bullshit,” she would hear Piotr say later. “Of course he blamed me. His methods, of course, are so much more superior to mine, right? All he has to do is to cut open a few party bosses and then ask for a small favour in return.”

But that was to come later. Then, at the Monopol Hotel, Dr. Nowicki was still investigating the situation that he admitted was very unpleasant and delicate. “You see, Pani Aniu? he said, “This is not the first time I’m doing it.”

“I know,” she said.