The war kept brewing. On and on.
We were rotting away. Who would
have thought it would last so long?
I wanted to escape to the Old Town.
I felt as if I were in some strange
German city crippled by the stones
under my feet.
I kept going in circles doing nothing.
I had so much to say, I preferred
not to be snared by words.
From early in the morning we heard
artillery and machine guns:
without that ‘music’ we were sad.
We received a spoonful of good jam.
At night we gathered snow.
The mass started at seven instead of midnight
because of the curfew.
I wanted to appear very devout
by walking the six kilometres to church.
Living in the country was the best
medicine, being put up at a new farmhouse
every twenty-four hours.
Zofia had a fall coat,
her place was a crooked shack sunk
into the earth as if for gnomes.
She perched on the packed dirt floor
like a hen, sealing herself with her shawl.
I took out our little pillow
which had lost half its feathers,
and next to it I folded over
many times my one and only dress.
Halina cut out a blouse for me
and some underwear from a pillowcase.
I sewed them up quickly.
We tried using our tongues
to wet each other’s lips
with the fresh surface of water.
On the third day
we looked through our Lilliputian window
at a field of mute bricks.
Yes, he said, with his woven band
à la Tirol, this train belongs to me.
Armed with a pistol, with the safety off,
for the last time I fired a few shots
at the nouveau-riche smugglers
frequenting the coffee shops.