I came home eleven months early without telling anyone and found my wife sitting against a wall with her head shaved and her face bruised, while my mother shouted at me to throw her out. I didn't argue. I looked at what had actually been broken in that room, and then I asked my wife for the notebook.

They had broken a thermos, a chair, and a plastic washing-up bowl.

They had broken the cheap things.

Then I looked at my sister again. If there had been men in that house throwing furniture the day before, why did Margo not have one mark on her, and why was her manicure four days old at most?

I took my mother's hand off my arm.

I went over and crouched down and put my jacket round my wife's shoulders.

My mother said, "Marek. Are you going to stand there and protect her?"

And I said, "Nobody in this house touches her again."

I took Tova upstairs and cleaned her up. She did not make a sound the whole time, which was worse than anything.

When I took her hand she started shaking.

I said, "I don't know what's happened yet. But I know you. And I believe you."

She cried for about four minutes without making any noise at all, which I had never seen a person do.