RYSA

Joanna and Jan have been happily married for over 40 years when one day a videocassette appears with a television interview on the work of the Polish state security in the 1950s and ’60s. One case mentioned is that of Jerzy Kocjan, a politician in pre-war Krakow. When Kocjan was released from prison in 1956, a young security officer was assigned to his daughter Joanna with the objective of marrying her and subsequently keeping tabs on her father. The incredulous Joanna now visits the interviewee, the former state security officer Marczak, in a house on the outskirts of the Krakow, where he lives on his pension and the royalties from his memoirs. When she demands written proof of his allegations, Marczak hands her a mouldy piece of paper on which the unofficial collaborator “Tadeusz” requests from his superiors an allocation of five metres of imported Hungarian fabric. Joanna’s ghastly suspicion is confirmed when she returns home: it is the fabric used in 1963 to make her wedding-dress. The next day she suddenly notices she has lost her sense of taste and smell. She hurries home and locks herself up in her study. Shortly afterwards, she moves into a furnished room in Nova Huta. Some weeks later, Joanna learns, more or less by chance, that her husband has suffered a heart attack. She visits him in hospital, unable to bring herself even to touch him at first. When she finally gingerly tries to wipe the sweat off the helpless man’s back, her sense of smell begins to return...