—Wisława Szymborska We sit in a small restaurant, Jacqueline and I, by the impossibly blue and serene lake in Lausanne. Small boats bob on the water and all around us, under red and white parasols, people enjoy ice-creams. It’s a picture-postcard place. The irony is not lost on us: it would be difficult to find a more contrasting setting for our conversation. While the present stands still, we talk – not for the first or last time – about the stormy lives of our parents. After thirteen months in Bereza, Władek returned home to Ola – his face drawn, his bones unbroken and also, it seemed, his spirit. He enjoyed everything that freedom had to offer. He relished telling me about his first meal: scrambled eggs with rounds of sizzling sausage and thick slices of bread, which he and his comrades wolfed down in some godforsaken railway station. There were four of them, famished and weak, eating greedily, their hands trembling. When it came to payment, no matter how many times they counted what money they had, it was not enough.
