“Ludwik, my child.” The tenderness in her raspy voice shook me to the core. There was loneliness in that voice too, and exhaustion, a voice no longer used to speaking, one that had used up most of its words. “Is everything all right, my love?” she asked. I could sense the stillness of our old flat while around me throngs of people rushed past. I nodded into the receiver.

“Yes, Granny. I’m all right. I just wanted to hear you.” I breathed in deeply. “It’s so good to hear you. How are you?”

“I’m well,” she said gravely. “Don’t worry about me. May God protect you, my love. Come home soon, yes?”

Familiar guilt stirred in me, together with a longing for that faraway part of my childhood when everything had seemed almost carefree. “Yes, Granny, I will.”

I put down the phone and walked on, agitated by my powerlessness. I walked with rage in my body, the old shame stirring, reawakening in the depths of my stomach, heavy and hard and sharp. I walked in the direction of the flat, my eyes fixed on the pavement, on the cracks in the concrete.

I came upon a large queue by a grocery store, and without knowing why, I stopped dead in my tracks. A rush went through the street, an undeniable shift of energy. As if it was about to thunder. Everyone, including the people in the queue, looked up. A cloud was falling from the sky, white and brilliant in the sunlight, sheets of paper, like wings, light and beautiful, like time, fluttering through the October air. It felt like a dream. Everyone stood still, women with their shopping nets and couples and children, stretching out their hands, looking up and around, letting the paper rain onto them. One of the sheets landed right by my feet. There was a red hand on it, seemingly dripping with blood and grabbing stalks of wheat. “Our Land, Our Food. OUT with the Soviets, IN with Our Rights!” it said in black letters. “Brothers and Sisters, Rise Up Tonight.”

The words resonated in me like a voice speaking in my head. The crowd’s amazement turned into apprehension as soon as they read the words. A child bent down to pick up the sheets, and his mother ripped them out of his hands, slapped him, and tore him away. Some hurried along; others looked up to the windows of the block that towered above us. I stood and watched, my senses in vertigo, my brain peculiarly calm. Already police sirens were howling and the crowd ran toward the blocks, the queue dispersed, people hurrying off like guilty foxes. In the confusion of it all, I bent down and picked up the leaflets, stuffing handfuls into my bag, wads of them, hearing my pulse pound in my ears. With the sirens coming closer, I jumped onto an approaching tram with my heart threatening to leap out of my chest.