Rondo

In his own words, Tom is an insignificant man, powerless to affect changes even in himself let alone in others. He is pathologically normal, with “something of Buster Keaton” to him. Yet an initially harmless fabrication motivated by his love for a woman will move him to center stage in one of the 20th century's most infamous conflicts and will ultimately change the course of history.
Tom is in love with Tola, an actress of the Warsaw stage. Tola, sadly, loves another, a celebrated and charismatic actor named Cezar. But despite his unrequited love, Tom cannot help being concerned for Tola. Following the Nazi occupation of Warsaw at the outset of WWII, when she tells him she wishes to enlist in the Polish Resistance, he conceives of an imaginary political cadre, “Rondo,” and cleverly conscripts his beloved actress into it. The idea is innocent at first, little more than a flight of Tom's fantasy designed to protect his beloved from the tribulations of the real Resistance. But through its own comic momentum, Rondo unexpectedly becomes a major force in the Polish underground. When Tom is drawn into the internal politics of the Resistance, the results are not only highly entertaining but telling of the eternal follies of war.
Can a game, an innocent falsehood, become reality? Can a man in love who is otherwise ordinary in every way change history? In Rondo, a modern classic now available for the first time in paperback, Brandys explores many of the obsessions of twentieth century literature, giving us an eloquent statement on politics, war, and personal exile while telling a story that is nothing if not a touching and enthralling love story. One of the century's great literary figures, Brandys's voice has “quickened the conscience and enriched the writing of the twentieth century” (Time).