When she is twelve, Bitton-Jackson dreams of becoming a celebrated poet and hopes to attend prep school in Budapest, the city of her dreams. In her “small farming town on the edge of the Carpathian foothills,” the Danube is the central feature. Days wind down early. Stars illuminate the town, and an “orchestra of insects begins its overture” (15). She longs for her mother to be more affectionate, like her friend Bonnie’s mother. Her mother, Laura, says too much affection makes people soft, and unprepared to face life’s hardships, but Bitton-Jackson fears her mother is not affectionate because Bitton-Jackson believes herself unattractive and clumsy. Her mother wanted dark-haired, dark-eyed children, but Bitton-Jackson has blond hair and blue-green eyes. She has ambition, which her father praises, but worries it will not be enough to achieve success as a poet.

In August,1943, Bubi leaves for Budapest to study at the Jewish Teachers’ Seminary. That winter, the Hungarian occupation brings food shortages and Hitler’s “shrill radio broadcasts”; Bitton-Jackson hears him say Germans will “play football with Jewish heads” (18). Her father tells her not to worry, but the vision becomes “a recurring nightmare” (18). Since the occupation began and his business was confiscated, Markus, Bitton-Jackson’s father, has become distant.