I was standing by the high window in the tiny kitchen. It was my habit to abandon my books after an hour or two of studying, and looking out of the kitchen window had become my own special pastime. First, I would drag a small wooden crate across the floorboards to the window, and then I would mount it so that my chin could rest on the lower sill. From this precarious position, I looked down into the streets. It had been some time now since anyone in our community had witnessed splendid decorative hats upon women's heads, or gentlemen walking with canes. From my perch I observed only bent backs, bare heads and, Uttering the streets, lonely corpses. Occasionally I would see a scholar, an old man in a full-length coat, shamelessly dependent upon his walking stick, beard flowing, eyes damp, a pile of books tucked under one arm, his soup pot hanging idly from his waist. These men peered at the useless future without the aid of their round wire-rimmed spectacles, and they depressed me the most, for it was all too easy to calculate the extent of their fall, wearing as they did the outward garb of their former status. I hoped that Mama and Papa's daily search took them to a better place than this, but in my heart I knew otherwise. I assumed that every street was crowded with people with crazy, despairing eyes, and I imagined that they were all trying to sell something, or beg something. It could not only be this street. We knew that everything in our world had changed. In fact, everything in our world was collapsing all about us.
And then one hot summer day Rosa appeared, as if from nowhere. I don't know how long she had been standing behind me, but when she spoke I nearly fell from the crate.
'Can you see anything interesting out there?'
I turned quickly, then grabbed the tattered curtain. Rosa had about her shoulders a woollen shawl which she clasped tightly in front of her. I jumped to the ground and, as I did so, she took a step backwards. There was to be distance between the pair of us.
'Just people,' I said. 'Lots of people.'
I lived for nearly two years in that small apartment, abandoning my books, making daily visits to the high window in the tiny kitchen, and staring at the world which my parents had forbidden me to re-enter. They feared that, should I venture out, they would lose their remaining daughter, and so I was to remain hidden inside. I understood that we were fortunate, that most were living ten or more to an apartment, and that Papa's money, and what little influence Mama still had, had bought us this luxury of space. But still, I was unhappy and frustrated, and sixteen.
Rosa stayed in the room next to mine, but I had never heard a sound through the wall, or, until the afternoon she surprised me in the kitchen, caught a glimpse of this mysterious woman. However, during the day, when my parents were out, I often heard a man who came regularly to visit her. I would sit in my room and listen to him pounding up the communal stairs. Then I would hear the front door open, then slam, and then I would listen to the hurried patter of his feet as he scampered into Rosa's room. Soon I knew how to time my exit so that I would be in the kitchen by the time he curled himself around the front door. He would look down the short hallway and see me standing on the crate. An unshaven man, with dirty worn clothes, he seemed an unlikely visitor. Perhaps three times a week he would simply smile at me, and then he would disappear into Rosa's room.
'A friend,' was Rosa's response to my question. 'Just a friend.'
'But why is your friend not living here with us?'
Rosa gave me a tired smile.
'He cannot be with us. He's fighting. In the underground.'
I looked down at her bony hands, then up again at her anxious face. She could only have been in her mid-twenties, yet she seemed so sad.
'I see.' I watched as Rosa tried to hide her hands in the folds of her cotton dress.
But, of course, I didn't really see. Rosa and I would spend long afternoons taking turns on the crate, and then Rosa would suddenly step down and disappear before Mama and Papa returned. No 'goodbye'. No 'see you tomorrow'. She would just turn and leave, as though in her mind an alarm-bell was sounding. I would climb back up on to the crate and once more survey the streets that were crowded with the desperate and the hungry. With each passing day, the women in the street grew to resemble men; by this time, it was often difficult to tell the difference. And then, later in the afternoon, I would once again step from the crate, drag it back to its familiar place, and return to my room and my books, and pull in the door behind me.
The day that Rosa surprised me on the crate, Mama and Papa arrived back early and were extremely angry to discover me sitting in the kitchen. Papa stormed off into their room, but Mama stayed with me. I explained in a low voice about Rosa, and how wonderful but frightened she was, and Mama listened patiently. However, I sensed that I should not be discussing Rosa. Before my discovery of her (or her discovery of me), Mama and Papa had seemed reluctant to answer any of my questions about the young woman in the apartment. Was she old or young? Did she own the small apartment that we had been forced to move into? Was she pretty or ugly? Did she know that we had had to leave nearly everything behind, including Mama's piano? Did she know that we were not poor, that I had a sister, that the things we brought with us were merely the things that we could carry? Did she know? Mama and Papa always evaded my questions with a polite smile. And then they would change the subject. And then, in the morning, they would once more go out into the streets to find whatever they could, and each evening they would return with the evidence of their labour. A single potato was a triumph. Or an egg. Or a misshapen loaf of illicitly baked bread. Papa was too honest to become involved in any of the smuggling rings, so there were never any treats. Never any fruit. Never any sugar.
After they discovered me in the kitchen, Mama and Papa must have talked. A week later, Papa came to me and announced that, because the heat was becoming more oppressive, he understood that I could not be expected to remain in a stifling room all day. Not only was the door to be unlocked, but I could occasionally leave. Finally, they were treating me as an adult. Papa continued and said he hoped that I knew that I would soon see Margot again. He also told me that they, too, missed her. Papa never said how, or where, or when I might see Margot again; he simply said he hoped that I knew that I would soon see her again. I almost believed him.
'Are they killing people today?'
I heard Rosa's voice and turned from the window. The early autumn light was catching Rosa's face and accentuating her pale features.
'Don't watch if they're killing people.'
I stepped down from the crate and smiled at my friend. I was the same height as Rosa. These days, she seldom seemed to venture anywhere without her shawl. During the summer, the shawl was occasionally forgotten, but now, summer over, she always wore the shawl across her rounded shoulders.
'I'm sorry,' she said. 'Please, watch if you must.'
'I don't like watching.'
'I know you don't. You're just curious. It's perfectly normal.'
I felt ashamed. There was nothing normal about watching a boy dancing barefoot, one hand outstretched, his brother's corpse curled at his feet, and people slouching around them both as though neither of them were visible. Normal? I had almost forgotten the meaning of the word. These days, Rosa and I talked more easily. She informed me that I was lucky, for my parents were relatively young. Even though the weather was turning bitter, they still had the energy to go out. They still had hope.