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anything’s not clear, don’t hesitate to tell me.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œI know you love Fruzia and Hugo very much. I do too, they’re very good people.”
    I had never noticed before how strange Aunt Lena could be.
    â€œIt’s really hard to tell you this, but you must know the truth. Right. Fruzia and Hugo aren’t your real parents. They have been taking care of you ever since you were little, and they have done a very good job. But you see, your real mother . . . I’m your real mother. And Uncle Emil is your real father. We couldn’t look after you, because of the Party, because we were taking risks and we wanted to protect you. And we didn’t want to give you up for adoption to strangers. Fruzia and Hugo very kindly offered to take you in. But now, for all sorts of reasons which I’ll explain someday, you can’t go on living there. Everything all right, so far? Do you understand?”
    â€œUh . . . yes.”
    â€œGood. So now we’re going to France, and you’re going to live with my sister Tobcia, who has a sweet little girl who’s three years old. She’ll be like a little sister for you. You’ll be very happy with them.”
    My mind was racing. I could tell right away that what Lena was telling me was not true. And I understood perfectly what was going on: she was kidnapping me. In the book I’d been reading since the beginning of the trip (it was my first novel), a child is abducted by people who pretend to be his real parents. The child tells his kidnappers that he knows they are lying to him, and as a result he gets a thrashing. If I didn’t want the same thing to happen to me, I absolutely had to pretend to believe her cock-and-bull story. Then I’d be able to work out a strategy to escape, and get back to Poland and to my real parents.

CHAPTER 4
The Eiffel Tower
    In Paris, Tobcia was waiting for us at the station. All you had to do was take one look at her, with her eyes protruding behind thick glasses, to know she was in cahoots with her sister (and maybe she wasn’t even her real sister!). I smiled and said politely, “Hello, Aunt Tobcia. Yes, I had a nice trip. And you, how are you?” When I think back on it today, I am surprised that Lena didn’t find my excessive politeness suspicious, because it wasn’t my usual style.
    We settled in at Tobcia’s place with her husband Beniek, and Maggie, her “sweet little three-year-old,” who of course turned out to be a real brat. A few days after our arrival we went to visit the Eiffel Tower. I was pleased but I couldn’t make the most of that moment I’d been looking forward to so much, because my mind was bubbling with excitement. This outing might be my only chance to escape. In the street, I looked at every policeman we passed, and I tried to give them the sort of desperate smile that would incite them to ask Lena if they could speak to me in private. And then there was the language barrier . . . But I’d planned everything. I was going to ask for a sheet of paper and a pencil, and draw a child with his two parents, then a mean-looking woman sitting in a train next to a weeping child. It seemed clear enough to me. And even if they didn’t get everything—I couldn’t be sure that French policemen were any more intelligent than Polish ones—they at least ought to understand that I was in a difficult situation, and they’d ask a Polish interpreter for help. But French policemen were even stupider than I had imagined: not a single one came up to speak to me, not a single one gave me a puzzled look. I would have to resort to Plan B: find a way to get in touch with my parents.
    When we arrived at the Eiffel Tower, for a few minutes I forgot the drama happening in my life, because I was overwhelmed with wonder at the sight of this enormous thing standing there before me. First we stood in line, with