This book is a textured weaving of the elements of chance, fate, uncertainty, premonition and flashback. Minco draws on her Jewish background and her own personal experiences to relate the story of Frieda Borgstein, a Jewish woman who is the sole survivor from her family after the Second World War. The main action of the story takes place on the last day of her life while the previous events of her life are recounted through flashbacks.


The structure of the novel is made interesting by changes in the narrative point of view and by the use of flashback and foreshadowing. The reader is introduced to Frieda Borgstein as she is about to celebrate her eighty-fifth birthday with the staff and residents of the old people’s home where she lives. On a particularly cold and icy morning she leaves the home to make preparations for the celebration. Through a freak accident she falls to her death down the open ventilation shaft of the underground municipal heating system.


There are strong parallels between the events surrounding her death and the events that surround another crucial point in her life — the capture of her family by the Nazi occupiers of the Netherlands. The attack on the family was a complete surprise to them and came just as they were about to flee to neutral Switzerland. Her escape occurred because she left the room to fetch a jumper to keep her daughter warm on the journey. She hesitated before leaving her daughter’s room; she tripped on the way down the stairs; her twisted ankle did not allow her to run out the door after her family. Similarly, her death occurred because of a series of conditions and chance happenings. The heating system was undergoing a programme of maintenance at the time; the workmen neglected to put up the usual safety barriers around the opening; a strong wind blew Frieda off a different path she might have taken.


Hesitation and uncertainty ruled Frieda’s life. She always wondered who betrayed her family at the time of their capture and how it came about. Some of these issues are cleared up for the reader after Frieda’s death but she was destined to die in ignorance.

It had been the evening of the twenty-first. Their wedding anniversary would fall three days later. They were to celebrate it on the way. ‘And when we are in Switzerland, we’ll do it once more,’ Jacob had said.

Why had she remained standing in Olga’s room? Why hadn’t she walked downstairs immediately? She could have gained at least a minute. She shivered and did up the top buttons of her sweater. Until the end of her days two images would continue to appear and sometimes shift over each other, just as now: she stood on the threshold of a crowded room and could not go in; she stood on the threshold of her empty house and could not go out. Through the rear window of the car as it drove away she saw their heads moving. But she was deluding herself; she hadn’t really been able to see them, for the distance had been too great. (p. 62-63, tr. Jeannette K. Ringold)