Historical and human perspectives clash in this cool, compassionate, psychological novel that unfolds around the chance meeting of two elderly women at a Belgian health resort. Each woman has come for the famously curative waters, but it is no coincidence that both suffer from debilitating arthritis-the women are twins, separated in childhood by the death of their parents. Anna stayed in their native Germany, while Lotte was taken in by relatives in the Netherlands. Consequently, they lost touch with each other and lived through the rise of Hitler, the second World War, and the postwar era from opposite sides of the war. The narrative unfurls through a series of often thorny conversations, as the sisters probe these and other points of contention. Artfully weaving two fully developed fictional personalities into an expertly realized historical background, this exploration addresses notions of guilt and responsibility in a sensitive, thought-provoking manner, without exonerating or condemning its central characters.

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