The deli was one of the best in the neighborhood, but there was also a young woman named Wanda who worked behind the counter, and Theodor took every opportunity to flatter her. She was in high school, and sometimes studied behind the glass counter. He liked the way her blonde hair curled around her face, and the way she played invisible pianos when she was reading.
     Theodor was a handsome dresser. He liked to dress in a suit with a diamond pin in his tie, and walk the streets of Poznán and socialize. He had moved to Poznán several years before and bought property with money he had acquired while living in America, and his recent dealings with jewelry.
     Though charming, he had an inborn stubbornness. Since childhood, he made a practice of never doing anything he didn't want to, and this resolve had changed his life more than once.
     Theodor was born outside of Warsaw in what is now Eastern Poland, but at the time of his birth was under Russian control. His first life changing decision came in 1905, when he was drafted to fight in the Russo-Japanese War. But fighting a war for Russia was not for him. He took what money he had, said goodbye to his family, and fled Europe. He took a circuitous route through Shanghai, China, to San Francisco, and eventually settled in a Polish community in Chicago.
     After fifteen years there, a world war (almost all of which took place on Polish soil), and a treaty that promised to make Poland once again a united, independent nation, Theodor returned to his homeland. He had some experience as a jeweler, and upon returning to Eastern Poland, he set himself up in Wilno, one of the larger cities in Eastern Poland. His location turned out to be excellent, as he was one of the first stops where Russians fleeing the Bolsheviks during the Communist Revolution, came to sell their valuables for cash.
     Several years and a load of jewelry later, Theodor moved to Poznán. He bought an apartment building and spent his days doing various tasks that can be classified under the nebulous term “business affairs.” Every morning, he bought a newspaper and read it for several hours. He went to the deli Wanda’s mother owned and talked to Wanda. Theodor knew Wanda's uncle, and so Pelagia, her mother, invited Theodor for dinner one evening. After this, he came around almost daily.
     Wanda graduated from high school shortly after she met Theodor, and started studying at the Poznán Conservatory of Music. Although Theodor was 25 years her senior, Wanda became enamored with his proud, handsome features, and his talk of romantically distant places. Before long, she had forgotten school, and began to look forward to his daily visits.
     The rest was much like any falling in love, only with different events and different words spoken. Theodor took her to the theater, to concerts, parties, picnics, and to a state of passion that caused her to suffer considerably each time they parted. She agreed to marry him after a short courtship, and they married on July 24, 1931, in Poznán.
     The first year of marriage was strange and difficult for Wanda....