Attempt to grasp, with the creative imagination, the past and its silences. - André Brink

She did what no one had thought possible.

Even during the days and nights when she was dazed and only half awake the stories must have insinuated themselves into her torn and bruised body like draughts and ointments with healing powers beyond all explanation. (There is no pain and no badness,) she still hears the dry voice of old Taras in her ear, that a story cannot cure.

Specific silences imposed by certain historical conjunctions.