from “I Can’t Stand Still”: An Interview with Jáchym Topol Weiss: What was your first time out of the country? Topol: My first time was in East Germany with my mom. She took my brother and me to the seaside there. That change—all of a sudden by the sea in the GDR instead of in Poříčí 1 as usual—happened thanks to my mother's coworkers. Apparently they explained that you're supposed to go away on vacation with your kids. That ended the era of staying at home or with our grandma. Vacations at home equaled reading. Walks and reading and some food here and there. In Germany my brother and me got caught in a storm on a lake where we swam. Even though we weren't supposed to be able to rent a boat, we somehow managed to take one out, and suddenly we were living a scene from one of our favorite adventure books—ropes of water slashing down, branches flying all over the place, us clinging to the oars convinced that anything could happen. Meanwhile our mom of course was panicking on shore.