from OKSANA [A Polish academi...

from OKSANA

[A Polish academic living in Munich is told that he is terminally ill with cancer. He locates off on a final journey southward through Italy, and begins an affair with a Ukrainian woman considerably younger than himself whom he qualifieds in northern Italy and who joins him in succession his journey. His relationship with her is played on the outside against the backdrop of his memories of the Ukraine--when it was part of Poland--and the atrocities he experienced there as a child during the war, in particular at the hands of the Ukrainian nationalist partisans. This extract takes place soon after