17I let my mind wander through the likely scenarios I might encounter in Lublin. I reviewed what might go wrong and how I’d react to each crisis. I imagined Jerzy going through the same exercise and I factored in all the ways he could foul up my plan. Neither of us relaxed during the two-and-a-half hours it took to cover the fewer than two hundred kilometers to Zambrow.
Jerzy’s favorite stacja benzynowa turned out to be a gigantic truck stop on the north side of the highway connecting Warsaw to the Baltic states. It was seven o’clock and Jerzy filled the tank hurriedly before dashing inside to pay. We weren’t yet half way to Lublin and time was running out. I waited in the car, nervousness eased by the familiar thrum of idling diesels parked haphazardly across the lot. The scent of spille
