Necessary Lies Read Online Free

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.
    â€œBullshit,” 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.”
    â€œI know,” she said.
    She did know. Why would anyone, she once wondered, come to live in Wroclaw? Come here from Kraków, of all places, that rare Polish city untouched by the war, saved by a miracle that, depending on who was describing it, involved a German art-lover, a Russian marshal, or wet and sabotaged explosives. Leave a city where generations of Polish kings lay buried in the vaults of the Wawel Castle, where in St. Mary’s church a trumpeter stopped his bugle-call in mid note in memory of a Tartar arrow that pierced the throat of his predecessor, centuries ago. Leave to come here, to Wroclaw, this city without a past, where history ended with the desperate Nazi defence of
Festung
Breslau.
    Her own parents came to Wroclaw because Warsaw was bombed and destroyed. They stayed because this is where theygot their jobs. There always had to be reasons, reasons to come here and ever better reasons to stay.
    â€œI got into trouble,” Piotr said. He told her how, with his two friends, he went to the country and bought a pig. “Then,” he said, leaning toward her, his eyes still sparkling at the thought, “we painted it red and let it out. During the May First parade. Right underneath the tribune, all their fat party leaders standing at attention.”
    â€œYou did what?” she asked. She couldn’t stop laughing. He watched her, smiling, pleased with himself, so very much pleased.
    â€œWasn’t easy, you know. We had to bribe the peasant with a bottle of vodka to sell it. He said we didn’t look like the types who would know what to do with a pig. Then we had to bring the beast to Kraków, in Father’s old car. But, ah, it was worth it. The looks on people’s faces! You should have seen it!”
    She wished she had. It was a story she loved to hear, the picture filling out with each retelling. The pig squeaking, running in circles. The stinking car that had to be washed and aired for days. The red faces of the “pompous fools” on the tribune.
    â€œHow did they find out it was you?”
    â€œSomeone squealed,” he said, winking at her. Someone saw them, heard the noise. The police found the paint in his room. They were blacklisted, thrown out of Jagiellonian University.
    â€œMy father had to pull a few strings to get me to school here,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.
    That’s what attracted her then, this recklessness that seemed to know no fear. “As if there were no tomorrow,” her grandmother would have said, with a sigh.
    Now, Piotr’s father was telling her of his vigil in front of the Party secretary’s office. Of his pleas to let his son continue with his studies. Of biting his tongue when he was lectured on how badly he had brought him up.
    She told Piotr’s father all she knew. About Daniel. About the leaflets. About the nights spent at the
Politechnika.
Dr. Nowicki listened and nodded. Sometimes he asked questions. He asked, for instance, if Daniel was likely to