Most who emigrate leave relatives behind, yet this can prove to be more problematic for some than for others. Leaving Poland at a time when the Iron Curtain encircled the land certainly had an impact on my family. For one, my brother and I have never met most of our relatives, and the fleeting contact which survives with some, only deepens the feeling of estrangement. For us, the ties of family can give rise to instinctive anxiety as much as primordial longing. This, combined with the fact that my father is ailing and may secretly harbor the dream of being laid to rest near his parents, whose funerals he was barred from attending, gave birth to this story.
