“Anyway,” I tell her, “thanks.”

She throws me a gleaming smile. “I knew you’d like it.”

* * *

It’s late in the afternoon and I’ve come across Jorzy sitting at the kitchen table, whittling at a piece of wood with his knife. It looks like a doll for Babet.

“I – I want to help,” I tell him.

“Really?” Jorzy raises his eyebrows. “Help with what?”

Hot in the face, I kick at the table leg. “You know,” I mutter. The incident with the fish is still fresh in my mind and makes me angry all over again.

Jorzy sets down the whittling, and takes his time lighting his pipe.

“I’m not a kid any more,” I add, suddenly wanting to lash out.

My brother glances up. “I know that.”

“Then let me help.”

“You’re already helping, Leho. By telling us about the house – about him.”

“It’s not enough.” I pull out a chair and sit at the table. Footsteps sound in the corridor outside the kitchen, somebody going to the bathroom, and I lower my voice. “I want to be doing something.”

Jorzy stretches out his right hand, studying the long fingers that are permanently grimy under the nails from his days at the factory. Deep in thought, he makes a loose fist, then rests his hand on the table. The knuckles are white. He must be pondering how much to tell me, and I silently hope he’ll open up for once. Finally he meets my gaze.

“Look, we’re not ready to move yet,” he says cautiously, with a glance at the open doorway. “Our plans are still only ideas. And it needs the right moment – to strike.”

“I know what you mean,” I admit. After all, it’s what I feel myself. “Though how long can you sit back and wait?”

Jorzy shrugs, taps at the wooden doll on the table. “I don’t know, Leho. One part of me wants to jump in and do something radical. Just do it. Yet another part of me looks around here – at our family – and holds back.” He examines me for a while, though his voice is softer now as he thinks it through. “It’s bloody hard, eh. I don’t know how Ma and Papa did what they did, where they found the guts.”

“Yeah, I know. They were brave.”

“Or foolhardy,” says Jorzy wryly. “Maybe I’m not foolhardy enough.”

“I reckon you are.” I grin. He swipes at my head, but I pull back before he connects.

“Anyway, what about Marina?” I ask more seriously, something that’s been worrying me. “Aren’t you going to stop her?”

A shadow passes across Jorzy’s face. Then he gives me a lopsided grin and picks up the half-formed doll. “Right. As if anybody could make Marina change her mind about something.” He glances at me. “She’s as stubborn as Nanna, you know that.”

“At least you could try,” I tell him.