Every spring, when the snows melted, they found bodies in this town, men who got drunk and passed out in the forest. Nobody could survive a Siberian winter night without warmth. The drifts and flakes gently, lethally covered the bodies, and they never bothered anyone again.

But Vladek was strong. And determined. He could still remember the light over the door, shining out at him like a beacon of salvation. How he’d snuck in behind a group of welders from the factory, run to the coat rack and hidden himself, giddy with the warmth of the furs. But he didn’t sleep, although he longed to. He grabbed a broom and went around sweeping up. That night, luckily for him, Pyotr had indulged in his own product. While he lay passed out on the counter,Vladek diligently cleaned up, stacking the chairs on the tables, locking the tempting box that held the piles of roubles, notes and coins.

The bar had never looked so clean. When Pyotr woke, groaning, he thumped the hell out of Vladek, assumed he was a thief. But Vladek twisted away, his nose broken and bloody, refusing to run, refusing to leave, and managed to show Pyotr how he’d kept all the cash locked up. He could clean the place, he offered, and manage it, let Pyotr have fun with the customers.

The barman was suspicious. He didn’t need another set of wages. But Vladek held up his hands; not a rouble, he only asked for the scraps of food the customers left, and permission to sleep on the cloakroom floor and wash in the bathroom.

Pyotr agreed, and Vladek had a job. The potatoes and fish he scarfed down nightly were hot and welcome; there was sometimes even fruit, a half-withered apple smuggled in from town. He didn’t drink the alcohol, though;Vladek hated to be out of control. He despised Pyotr, who even after one year had never offered to pay the boy, or let him sleep in his house. He despised the drunken miners putting off going home to their fat wives. He especially despised the party commissars, lording it over everybody, but at closing time winding up just as vodka-sodden as the rest. They were the only men there with a chance to get out of this hellhole, and what did they do? Stay, and work at being big fish in a small pond. But really, Srebrinka was so small it was more like a puddle.