However, that was the last smart thing Jaruzelski had done. Since then the Communists had been lethargic, as if they were so sure of winning that they could hardly be bothered to campaign. Their slogan was “With us it’s safer,” which sounded like a condom ad. Tanya had put that joke in her report for TASS, and to her surprise the editors had not taken it out.

In the people’s minds this was a contest between General Jaruzelski, the country’s brutal leader for almost a decade, and the troublemaking electrician Lech Wałesa. Danuta had her photograph taken with Wałesa, as did every other Solidarity candidate, and the photographs had been put up everywhere. Throughout the campaign the union published a daily newspaper, written mostly by Danuta and her women friends. Solidarity’s most popular poster showed Gary Cooper as Marshal Will Kane, holding a ballot paper instead of a gun, with the slogan HIGH NOON, 4 JUNE 1989.

Perhaps the incompetence of the Communist campaign was to be expected, Tanya thought. After all, the idea of going cap in hand to the people and saying “Please vote for me” was totally alien to the Polish ruling elite.

The new upper chamber, called the senate, had one hundred seats, and the Communists expected to win most of those. The Polish people had their backs to the wall, economically, and they would probably vote for the familiar Jaruzelski rather than the maverick Wałesa, Tanya expected. In the lower chamber, called the Sejm, the Communists could not lose, because 65 percent of the seats were reserved for them and their allies.

Solidarity’s aspirations were modest. They figured that if they won a substantial minority of votes, the Communists would be forced to give them a voice in the government.

Tanya hoped they were right.

After mass, Danuta shook hands with everyone in the church.

Then Tanya and the Gorski family went to the polling station. The ballot paper was long and complicated, so Solidarity had set up a stall outside to show people how to vote. Instead of marking their preferred candidates, they had to put a line through the ones they did not like. The Solidarity campaigners gleefully showed model ballot papers with all the Communists crossed out.

Tanya watched people voting. For most this was their first experience of a free election. She observed a shabbily dressed woman moving her pencil down the list, giving a little grunt of fulfillment each time she identified a Communist, and running her pencil through the name with a smile of pleasure. Tanya suspected the government might have been unwise to choose a system of marking the paper in which rejection could feel so physically satisfying.

She talked to some of them, asking what was on their minds when they made their choices. “I voted Communist,” said a woman in an expensive coat. “They made this election possible.” But most seemed to have picked Solidarity candidates. Tanya’s sample was of course completely unscientific.

She went to Danuta’s place for lunch, then the two women left Marek in charge of the children and drove in Tanya’s car to Solidarity headquarters, which was upstairs at the Café Surprise, in the city center.