In the face of the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, Zofia Bronska Ilinska and her mother Helena Bronska fled their village and made a narrow escape to England. For years they dreamed of going back to Mantuski and to the Bronski house, which over time came to stand for everything they had lost. After her mother dies, Zofia dreams alone. When at last the dull years of cold war isolation have passed, the moment comes, and Zofia plans her trip to Mantuski, asking her friend Philip Marsden to accompany her. The journey carries expectations almost too great to bear, and when Zofia arrives in Mantuski she fumbles for familiarity. Once part of Poland, Mantuski now belongs to Belarus. Like other villages built on the borders of empires, its identity has been subsumed and redefined by the mindlessness of war and the fine print of treaties. New generations speaking a new language have sprung up. Sullen faces peer at her from windows. Weeds have grown over ruined foundations. Yet once her eyes adjust to the strangeness of the landscape, Zofia begins to see what time and history could not change. As Marsden narrates Helena's story, a picture of what the Bronski house really means take form - more than a set of walls and geographical setting, home is where we find it in our hearts and minds, the place love alone has the power to construct and to resurrect.
