When he was done he rejoined me in the shade. I complimented him, then started to say good-bye, that I’d see him when he got back to Kraków, but Steve said I should stick around—in the afternoon he’d be going to his father-in-law’s apartment with Piotr, a local activist who had talked to the group earlier, and I should come with him. We talked it out a bit. I asked if he was going to try to get to the attic. Steve shrugged. I don’t know, he said. I’ll have to play it by ear. But what’d you tell Piotr, I asked—did you say anything about the eggs? No, Steve said. I just told him that this was the apartment my father-in-law had lived in before the war, that I wanted to try and see it, that it would mean a lot to get inside, which is all true. You have to tell Piotr, I said, or at least you have to tell him something. It’d be a lot to spring on him in the middle of the visit. Like, Hey this is going well, can you ask her if we can go upstairs and poke around for ten golden eggs? Steve conceded the point. He said he’d tell Piotr—if not about the eggs outright, then at least a heads-up that there was something in the attic. Something sentimental, maybe, if not necessarily all that valuable. Maybe like a prayer book, I offered.
Steve was uncomfortable, I could tell. It wasn’t about saying something to Piotr—who was an admirably dedicated protector of Jewish history in Będzin—it was more that, after he’d guarded this information for decades, the secret was starting to come undone.
A few hours later I had just put in an order for lunch when Steve and Piotr found me and told me it was time, we were going to the apartment now.
We walked up a hill and around the corner and found the address. It was a plain two-story building on a main street, a couple of hundred meters down from the Góra Zamkowa castle. (This is as specific as Steve is allowing me to get.) Steve recognized the building immediately from his father-in-law’s description. We walked a little farther down the street in order to get a better view of the roof: there were the two attic windows, facing west. This is it, Steve said softly. Oh my god. Piotr and I stood by, respectfully. Piotr had done this before, had accompanied sentimental Americans to the homes their parents/grandparents had lived in before the war. It’s profound and meaningful and at the same time very ordinary. Piotr knew, as I knew, that we probably wouldn’t get in. It was lunchtime on a weekday; there was a good chance no one was home. And even if someone was home, there was a good chance they wouldn’t let us in. Perhaps they’d say no politely, perhaps not so politely. Steve knew it, too, if a little more abstractly. But Steve was on his mission. Getting turned away is not at all the same as never visiting.
Before we went into the courtyard Steve turned to Piotr and said, nervously, I have to tell you something—it could be that there is something in the attic. Like an heirloom. It might come up, I might say something, depending how it’s going I might ask if I can see the attic. (I remembered the soft lies Larysa, Jason, and I practiced before heading into Małachowskiego 12.) Piotr shrugged. Sure, he said, no problem.
The door to the courtyard was open, as was the door to the building, which meant we wouldn’t have to buzz, which was good, usually you’ve got a very small window of opportunity to explain who you are and what you want—if it’s too confusing they’ll usually just withdraw—and it’s easier to do this face-to-face, people are more sympathetic to a person than they are to a disembodied voice. (Also, for similar reasons, I think it’s easier to lie, and also to get away with your lie.)
We walked up to the second floor; the stairs continued up to the attic. It was blocked by a padlocked wooden door, but it wasn’t much of a deterrent, it wouldn’t have been all that hard to climb over the banister.
There was only one apartment on the floor. Piotr knocked and a woman in her twenties opened right away, she must have been standing right there, and beside her was a three- or four-year-old boy pulling on her pants, trying to get her attention. The woman looked exhausted, impatient. Not unkind, she just had her hands full. Piotr began his spiel and the woman blankly stared at him, at us, and it was clear there was no way she was going to indulge us. We attach such high stakes to our memory-journeys, and apply such strict binaries to the people we encounter along the way—they either help or they frustrate, they either care and are open-hearted or they are fearful and closed-hearted. But often it’s so much more banal. It was easy to see that this woman would beg off, politely or not so politely, because she couldn’t deal with this right now, these three men, three strangers, including two from another country, who’d knocked on her door and were chattering on about World War II.
But in fact that’s not what happened. Without saying anything, she turned inside and called for her mother, who came quickly. Piotr began his spiel again. The mother was confused, and in a very hoarse voice she talked quickly,
