Swen sat there with his beard. Reddish.
“Well, you know. At such a moment…”
The moment had already lasted fifty days. Why shouldn’t I go? I got one hundred złotys from Father. They had a lot of money. Father, Zocha, Halina. And I trudged off. Through the courtyards. Or maybe the street. In the direction of Marszałkowska. Under those great Secession-style buildings on Wilcza. They were shooting. Of course. Rhythmically. Artillery. I entered a courtyard. And either from the yard or the gate. From the back. I made it. To the barber. He was taking customers. His door was open. I think he had just finished working on someone. Because someone was leaving. He invited me. To take a chair. There was an armchair. I sat down. In front of the mirror. There was also a mirror. The water was cold. And only a little. But there was water. A comb. And clippers. And a razor. And probably an apron. He put it on me. There was soap, too. But everything seemed artificial. Dark. The whole place was dark. Because the front, which faced the street, was carefully boarded up. But the boards had chinks in them. And so it was half dark. The whole place was dirty. Dusty. Everything, of course, was covered with dust. The chair. The barber. Not to mention my head. I remember sitting there. Passivity. Traditional. Like from before. A haircut, a shave. That semidarkness. My spectral likeness in the mirror. Or rather, a half view of the whole scene. The parquet floor. Yes. My hair flew off. A lot of it. There was rattling against the board, because every now and then something. Somewhere. Pounded. From the artillery. The barbershop was large. It echoed. The street — a tunnel. So also. Its own echo. Added to this one. The barber said nothing. I said nothing. About this. As if it was nothing. I paid.
“Thank you.”
“Thank you.”
I raced back to my shelter mates. My family. Renewed. Without a beard. Without tufts on my neck. My ears. Never before or after has a barber had such charm and style. Except. September 10, 1939, on the tenth day of the war, on the fifth day of our “wandering,” in Równo, for the first time in my life I sat down in a barber’s chair for a shave. That barber, however, was still working on prewar momentum. That was barbering!
Lice. It had to be. It was already too long. For there not to be any. Yes. Without water. Those tufts of hair. The cellar. It’s well-known. But who? To whom? First, half timidly, some people passed them to others. Cellar to cellar. Street to street. I exaggerate. Perhaps in families. It amounts to the same thing. In one day, two, it was clear. Obvious. No one was ashamed before anyone else. But we gave advice. How to find them. Everyone was searching for lice.
I don’t know who was first in our family. Maybe all of us. Żurawia Street had already announced the appearance of lice. Swen came. He said he had them, too. Everyone did. They were around. Lice. Had appeared. It was hard. Your sleeve too sometimes — one crawls out. A person delouses himself a little. Washes up. Looks for them. Flicks them off. And keeps sitting there. It’s no secret. Others will crawl over.
We felt them on ourselves. Right away. Like something burning. Everyone at 21 Wilcza. Quick! Look for them! Halina and I rush into the kitchen. It seems the Woj. couple had already found them.
Killed them. In Pani Rybkowska’s kitchen. That kitchen. I remembered it. Only from that lice occasion. The kitchen was separate. Where was the entrance? I don’t know. From the anteroom? Maybe. We run from door to door, to the kitchen. Halina and I strip off this and that in a hurry. Halina takes hers. Searches.
“Nothing.”
She takes mine. I wait, half naked.
“Nothing.”
Or maybe I went first. My own things. And she searched after I did. Mine. And nothing. We’d made a fire for the occasion.
“Ech, that’s impossible!” Halina says.
Zocha is already preparing to look. And Father. Zocha also says it’s impossible. Halina picks up her clothing. Then mine. Randomly.
“Give me!”
She looks.
“I think we’d better take a good look at the seams. Oh, there’s one! Got it!” And flick. Onto the stove.
“Oh, another!” Flick.
“Four! And you?”
“Four.”
Or perhaps it was eight each? Anyway, later there were more. And for a long time afterward. Searching for lice became fashionable. We became experienced at it. The right time. The right place. I’ve described — the beginning.
In the meantime — as I indicated — hunger began to make itself known. Someone traded matches for tomatoes on the corner of Wilcza and Krucza. Then someone brought bread out to that corner. Maybe rusks. Then someone else traded cigarettes. Gold, too, I think. And so the bazaar got started.
We heard that a mill on Prosta Street was in our hands. Still well stocked with lots of rye, wheat, barley. That expeditions were being organized. Caravans. Whoever wanted to go. Fifteen kilos — for the troops. The rest — as much as you can lift — for yourself. It seems people went. Right away we saw people with sacks under their arms. Going to that mill. It was far. It’s true. I was surprised. That it was beyond Żelazna. That far. And that it was ours. But it was far. There would be trouble on the road. It was dangerous. Artillery. From the train track. From “Siberia.” From beyond Towarowa. From the armored train. That didn’t terrify us. We thought that perhaps we should go there. And quickly. Tomorrow. An expedition was actually being organized for tomorrow. The assembly point was on Hoża.
I don’t remember how many of us there were. In our group. Groups left every so often. Twenty people. Or was it thirty? Forty? We went: Father, Swen, and I. The others — strangers or semi-acquaintances. I think there were probably some women, too. I remember one for sure. With a sack under her arm. Each person had a sack. His own. It wasn’t hard to find sacks. We had a guide. The collection had to be completed in a hurry. And the tempo of the whole expedition was rapid, too. I don’t remember any waiting. The partisans, or the organizers of the expeditions, were counting on a large return from the grain groups. Each person meant fifteen kilos for the troops. It wasn’t so certain that we could hold the mill.
I think our group immediately set out more or less in single file. That was the style then. Anyway, you couldn’t walk any other way. Through those cellars, holes, and vaults of Krucza. Then under Aleje.
So, we were “in front of Aleje” for the first time after our moonlight flight. That we were going to walk beyond Marszałkowska made a greater impression. For the first time. Swen and I. And several others, I think. I don’t remember by what route — exactly — we reached Marszałkowska. A general debate began while we were running. Which way to go. After crossing Marszałkowska. First we were supposed to go along Złota. But the news came like a bombshelclass="underline" Złota won’t work. So we went via Sienna.
I think we turned somewhere into the rear of the buildings on Sienkiewicz Street. And here’s where we ran across Marszałkowska. Which means first there were cellars. And people singing in them:
Under Thy protection…
Holy Mother of God…
Then crouching down. And whiz! Across that black pit. What else could you call it? Stealthily up to the barricade. I didn’t see much. The pit. Marszałkowska — apparently — was under fire from the tower of the Church of the Savior. Black walls. The undersides of the tram cars. And I heard, while running by, how someone on our side (our Chmielna) was banging out the “Warszawianka” on a piano. And immediately we dived into the cellars on the other side. Here they were singing:
But deliver us from all evil…
We rushed into the next cellar.
Our Lady,
Our Lady,
Oh, Our Laaa-dy…
I remember that definitely in three cellars in a row there were three places of that same antiphon. Evidently it wasn’t going very well. Since they were singing like that. Or — they were firing. Firing from that armored train. Father, whose memory I am relying on for about three times, maintains that there was a shell every seven minutes.