Anka is drinking coffee at the kitchen table. She has taken her mother’s letter out of her father’s envelope again and has it propped up on the table so she can see her mother’s writing. She has beautiful pale green eyes. You can see a sly smile come across her face, she’s thought of an idea.

Next, she is down in the basement, in the apartment’s storage space. She pulls out a hobby horse, then a small child’s bicycle — one by one unpacking her childhood. Next, what looks like a carry on bag. Then finally, she drags out a very large suitcase, nearly large enough to be a crate.

She opens it and finds a handbag. You get the feeling she’s looked through it before. She sees one of her mother’s handkerchiefs and a blue comb. She sees a button, a black and white picture of a young man on it — maybe a movie star when she was a teenager. This makes Anka smile. She sniffs an empty perfume bottle.

She pulls out a large black and white photo of four people, two men and two women. She looks closely at her mother in the picture, noticing her resemblance. Then she pulls out a pack from a stationary store, takes out an old envelope.

We next see her writing on the envelope with an old fashioned pen, looking at her mother’s envelope in an attempt to copy the writing style. She seems to be very good at the forgery. We then see a shot of her back in her room — an American flag is over her right shoulder. I imagine this was not uncommon for young people in the late 80s in the Eastern Blok, to worship the United States and its culture. She hears the doorbell.

She puts down her pen and goes to the door. At the door is Adam, a friend or colleague of Michal who came by to pick up some drawings. Anka hands them to the man. Before he can leave, Anka stops him to ask — you have known my father a long time? He answers yes, we were students together. Then he asked if he knew her mother.

Adam says yes, but not very well. He says that she was a lot like Anka, physically, but she also had her sensitivity. Anka asked if she could have some sort of secret. He said he didn’t know, but he thinks if she did have one, she would have found a way to let Anka know, maybe write a letter before she died. He says he’ll drop by again when Michal gets back.

After Adam leaves, she says thanks. I suppose he has just validated her plan. We next see Michal trudging his way from the airport, two arms full of bags with him, including a plastic bag that says Winston on it … the volume of smoking and cigarette signage in the Dekalog — in all of Kieslowski’s work for that matter — is astounding. I can’t think of a single character who doesn’t smoke.

Returning to Michal, he’s wearing a dark jacket and some strangely colored pants, maroon perhaps. No other man in the shot is wearing pants that aren’t blue, black or grey. He approaches Anka slowly, has to put down a bag at one point because of the heavy load, and you start to wonder why she is just standing there and isn’t going out to meet him and lighten his load.

We now see Anka. She’s wearing a beret and a light purple pair of glasses with large circular frames. She looks like a character out of “Desperately Seeking Susan.” She sees Michal struggling but continues to just stand there, waiting.

He finally reaches her, says hi, kisses her on the cheek. He compliments her glasses, says the frames are a light color. She steps away to the right and turns. He asks if anything wrong, she says no. Something wrong at school? No. Then what is it?

Anka takes off her glass and stares at Michal, then begins. “My darling daughter, I don’t know what you’ll look like when you read this. I’m sure you’ve grown up and Michal is no longer alive. Right now you’re a tiny baby. I’ve only seen you once. They’ve stopped bringing you to me because I’m dying. I have something important to tell you. Michal is not your father. It’s not important who is. It was a moment of foolishness that’s caused much suffering. I know Michal will love you as a father, and I’m confident you’ll be happy with him. I imagine you reading this letter someday in a place of your own. You have dark hair, don’t you? You have slender fingers … and a delicate neck … just as I’d have wished. Mother.”

Michal reacts immediately and slaps her. As Michal walks off alone with his bags, you can see Anka’s still red cheek.