Hungary, 1956. Without a word, Katalin leaves her family and sets out for the West. Her husband, Kalman, abandons the family farm and begins a long and circuitous journey through Hungary with his two young children, Kata and Isti. Staying briefly with distant relatives in unfamiliar cities and villages, Kalman keeps his family on the move and shuns anything resembling a home or a steady life. As their father sinks into depression, Kata and her brother create their own imaginary universe: Kata invents relationships with the people they meet during their long journey while Isti converses with world around him-houses, stones, snow, skies. It is only in rare moments, on the riverbanks and lakeshores where the two swim with their father, that they experience a semblance of calm and happiness. This copy is an uncorrected proof.

(Key Words: fiction, swimming, B‡nk, Zsuzsa, Hungary).