'We'll manage,' said Uncle Nico defensively.

'No one,' said the secretary in answer to his own question. 'Finally we shall invite the Russians to occupy us. We will need their oil and grain. It will be our only way out of this economic mess. That, or we will starve to death.'

'I say we'll manage,' repeated Uncle Nico.

'You don't buy the food and run the house,' said the secretary earnestly. 'This week again the dairymen from the village went to Warsaw, selling their soft cheeses from the back of a truck. They won't sell to local people any more; in Warsaw people will pay in American dollars or pounds or German marks. All the hard cheeses disappeared months ago. Our pickled vegetables are already almost eaten. Our apples have all been stolen. These are almost the last of them.' He mashed the stewed apple with his fork as if angry with it.

'You shouldn't have traded those apples,' said Uncle Nico.

'For paraffin oil? What would we do without light?'

'When they saw the apples, they knew where to come and help themselves,' said Uncle Nico.

The secretary would not be distracted from his woe. 'This winter will see starvation and ruin right across the land. Disease will follow. It could destroy the whole of Europe, and perhaps the world.'

We all looked at him. The candlelight flickered across his face. The Poles have a style of melancholy that is entirely their own. Russian melancholy breathes vodka fumes; Scandinavian melancholy is masochistic. Austrian melancholy is entirely operatic, while German melancholy is disguised self-pity. But Polish melancholy is a world-embracing philosophy impervious to cheer.

Beyond him, and through the window, I could see the dark forest. Now flickering lights amongst the trees revealed the approach of men with a handcart. They were carrying flashlights. Karol turned his head to see what had caught my attention. By this time the two callers had approached close enough to the windows to be lit by the lamps in the drawing-room.

'Men from the village. They are delivering meat,' explained the secretary, as if this was the normal time for meat deliveries in this part of the world. I nodded.

Aunt Mary got to her feet and rang her bell and ordered that coffee should be taken to the drawing room. The young people who had joined us for the meal slipped away without a word. In the drawing room I tried to secure a seat near the stove but I was too late, Aunt Mary got it. A servant set the coffee tray before her and she poured it from a huge silver pot. The maidservant took the cups, one by one, to each of us and offered us canned milk and sugar. Uncle Nico put two level teaspoons of sugar into his tiny cup of black coffee, measuring them with the exaggerated care a pharmacist might devote to mixing a dangerous sleeping draught for a valued customer. Then he stirred furiously and watched the whirlpool slow before sipping some and burning his lip.

'It is made with boiling water, you old fool,' said Aunt Mary in low and rapid Polish, an admonition clearly not intended for our ears.

He nodded without looking at her and turning to me said, 'They've found a body.' Absentmindedly he spoke in Polish.

'I beg your pardon?' I said.

'The body. Didn't they tell you?' He tutted as if at some inexcusable lapse of good manners. 'Didn't they tell you they are digging up a corpse? It's why they are out there.'

I looked at Karol the secretary. He had declined coffee and had moved his chair closer to the stove. With one arm resting on the back of the sofa he could actually walk his fingertips along the warm white porcelain, and this he did. As if totally occupied with warming his fingers he made no reaction to the old man's startling revelation.

'No,' I said, 'I didn't know.' I drank some coffee. Speaking Polish is difficult for me; understanding it brings on a headache.

'What did he say?' Dicky asked me.

'Nothing,' I said. 'I'll tell you in a moment.'

'A body,' said Karol to Dicky in English. 'They are talking about a dead body. A copse . . . ' he corrected himself. 'A corpse.' Then he covered his mouth with his hand and burped.

'Oh,' said Dicky and smiled to hide his confusion.

'He might have stayed there for years,' said Uncle Nico. 'But the dog found him. About twenty meters off the forest path . . . buried. But the dog found it. An arm. It's fresh.'

'That's Bazyliszek,' said Aunt Mary. 'That's the dog they take when they are looking for truffles.' She reached for my empty cup and poured me a second cup of coffee. It was very good coffee; very strong.

'A body?' I said without putting too much emotion into it.

'The ground is hard,' said Uncle Nico. 'Didn't you see the men at work when you arrived? When you asked the way.'

'Yes,' I said.

'They are always finding bodies,' said Aunt Mary calmly. She discovered a ball of wool on the floor. She picked it up and looked at it as if suspecting that it might belong to someone else, but eventually she put it in her workbasket. Everyone was watching her and waiting upon her words: 'Those woods are full of secrets,' she said. 'The Germans buried people there during the war. Mass graves. Jews, soldiers, villagers, gypsies . . .'

'You silly old woman. This is nothing to do with the war,' said Uncle Nico.

Undeterred Aunt Mary continued: 'The partisans fought here. Thousands died. The remains of the old wartime encampments and bunkers and hideaways run right through our land.'

'I say it's not the war,' said Uncle Nico, puffing angrily at his cigarette.

'No,' agreed Aunt Mary, suddenly changing tack. 'It will be that girl Anna from the pig fann. She was pregnant. I could see it when she was in church the Sunday before she disappeared.'

'Be quiet, you foolish woman,' said Uncle Nico. 'She went to her cousin in Gdynia to have the baby. She writes letters home.'

'Letters! Rubbish! I say it's her. She's dead. Her father went to the next village and said prayers for her.'

'It's not the pig girl; it's a man,' said Uncle Nico. He looked at the secretary but Karol was staring at the floor.

'We will see tonight when they dig it up. They'll put it in the barn and the police will come,' Aunt Mary said. She opened her needlework basket, looked down to be sure everything was inside, and closed it again.

'Not tonight. The ground is as hard as rock,' said Uncle Nico. 'It will take a lot of digging.' He got to his feet and Aunt Mary got up too. They wished us good night and departed.

'Vodka?' the secretary asked.

'Not for me,' said Dicky. I shook my head. I was shivering with the cold. All I wanted was to get into bed and pull the blankets over me.

'I shall have one,' said Karol the secretary, getting to his feet very slowly. I suddenly realized he was very drunk. Some of the glasses at the dining table had not contained water. He poured himself a large vodka. Standing propped against the sideboard, with the drink in hand, he said: 'Uncle Nicolaus is a fine old fellow: a fighter. Each year, on the anniversary of the uprising, he goes, together with a few old comrades, to stand in front of the Palace of the Republic at the place where he, and the rest of the patriots, descended into the sewers for the final act of the battle against the German beasts.' He sipped his drink. 'The police don't like that sort of celebration. One year they arrested all the survivors; they said they were a threat to public order.' From upstairs the piano started again. This time it seemed to be a nocturne. 'Let me pour you a vodka? Perhaps you don't like the potato vodka. Pertsovka with the red and black pepper makes a good nightcap.'

'No, thanks,' I said. 'I have to keep a clear head for dreaming.' Karol shrugged and topped up his own drink. He had downed two more of them by the time I was halfway up the stairs. As I got to the door of my room I heard him trip over the walking stick rack in the hall and get up cursing.