When I am six years old I have to go to school. Antonia comes with me on the first day. She speaks with the teacher and then leaves me there alone. When class is over I run home to see if everything's all right and to take Sarah for a walk.

We go farther and farther afield, and it is because of this, completely by chance, that I find myself on my street, the street where I lived with my parents.

I don't mention it to Antonia or anyone else. But each day I walk by the house with green shutters, stop for a moment, and cry. Sarah cries with me.

The house is abandoned. The shutters are closed, the chimney makes no smoke. The front yard is taken over by weeds; in the back, in the courtyard, the nuts have almost certainly fallen from the tree and no one has gathered them.

One evening when Sarah's asleep I leave the house. I run through the streets noiselessly and in total darkness. The lights in the town are out because of the war; the windows of the houses have been carefully blacked out. The light of the stars is enough, and all the streets, all the alleys have been engraved in my head.

I climb the fence, go around the house, and sit at the foot of the walnut tree. In the grass my hands touch nuts that are hard and dry. I fill my pockets. The next day I come back with a sack and gather as many nuts as I can carry. When she sees the sack in the kitchen Antonia asks me, "Where did these nuts come from?"

I say, "From our garden."

"What garden? We don't have a garden."

"The garden of the house where I lived before."

Antonia takes me on her knees. "How did you find it? How do you even remember? You were only four years old at the time."

I say, "And now I'm eight. Tell me, Antonia, what happened? Where did they all go? What happened to them? Mother, Father, Lucas?"

Antonia cries and squeezes me very tight. "I hoped you'd forget about all that. I've never spoken to you about it because I wanted you to forget everything."

I say, "I haven't forgotten anything. Every night when I look at the sky I think about them. They're all up there, aren't they? They're all dead."

Antonia says, "No, not all of them. Only your father. Yes, your father is dead."

"And my mother, where is she?"

"In a hospital."

"And my brother, Lucas?" "In a house of rehabilitation. In the town of S., near the border."

"What happened to him?"

"A bullet ricocheted into him."

"What bullet?"

Antonia pushes me off and stands up. "Leave me alone, Klaus. Leave me alone, I beg you."

She goes into the room, lies down on the bed, and keeps sobbing. Sarah starts to cry too. I pick her up and sit on the edge of Antonia's bed.

"Don't cry, Antonia. Tell me everything. It would be better if I knew everything. I'm big enough now to know the truth. Asking oneself questions is worse than knowing."

Antonia takes Sarah, lays her down beside her, and says to me, "Lie down on the other side. Let's let her fall asleep. She mustn't hear what I'm going to tell you."

We remain there, the three of us, lying on the bed for a long time in silence. Antonia strokes Sarah's hair and mine by turns. When we hear Sarah breathing regularly we know she has fallen asleep. Antonia, looking up at the ceiling, begins to speak. She tells me that my mother killed my father.

I say, "I remember the gunshots and the ambulances. And Lucas. Did my mother shoot Lucas too?"

"No, Lucas was wounded by a stray bullet. It hit him right next to the spine. He was unconscious for months and it was thought that he'd be crippled forever. Now there's a hope that he'll heal completely."

I ask, "Is Mother in the town of S. too, like Lucas?"

Antonia says, "No, your mother is here, in this town, in a psychiatric hospital."

I ask, "Psychiatric? What does that mean? Is she sick or is she insane?"

Antonia says, "Insanity is an illness like any other."

"Can I go see her?"

"I don't know. You shouldn't. It's too sad."

I think for a moment and then ask, "Why did my mother go insane? Why did she kill my father?"

Antonia says, "Because your father loved me. He loved us both, me and Sarah."

I say, "Sarah wasn't born yet. So it was because of you. Everything happened because of you. Without you the happiness of the house with green shutters would have lasted through the war, even after the war. Without you my father wouldn't be dead, my mother wouldn't be insane, my little brother wouldn't be a cripple, and I wouldn't be alone."

Antonia says nothing. I leave the room.

I go to the kitchen and take the money Antonia has set aside for groceries. Every night she leaves the money for the next day's groceries on the kitchen table. She never asks me for receipts.

I leave the house. I walk to a big wide street trafficked by buses and streetcars. I ask an old lady who is waiting for the bus on a corner: "Excuse me, ma'am, which is the bus that goes to the station?"

"Which station, my little one? There are three of them."

"The closest."

'Take streetcar number five, then bus number three. The conductor will tell you where to transfer."

I come to an immense station filled with people. Everyone is jostling, shouting, swearing. I get into the line waiting in front of the ticket booth. We move slowly. When at last it's my turn I say, "A ticket for the town of S."

The man says, 'The train to S. doesn't leave from here. You have to go to South Station."

I get on more buses and streetcars. It's night when I reach South Station and there are no more trains to S. until tomorrow morning. I go to the waiting room and find a seat on a bench. There are a lot of people, it smells bad, and the pipe and cigarette smoke stings my eyes. I try to sleep, but as soon as I close my eyes I see Sarah alone in the room, Sarah coming into the kitchen, Sarah crying because I'm not there. She is left alone all night because Antonia has to go to work and I'm sitting in a waiting room on my way to another town, the town where my brother, Lucas, lives.

I want to go to the town where my brother lives and I want to find him; then we will go look for my mother together. Tomorrow morning I will go to the town of S. I will.

I can't sleep. I find ration cards in my pockets; without them Antonia and Sarah will have nothing to eat.

I must go back.

I run. My gym shoes make no noise. In the morning I am near where we live; I line up for bread, then for milk, and go home.

Antonia is sitting in the kitchen. She takes me in her arms. "Where were you? Sarah and I cried all night long. You must never leave us again."

I say, "I won't leave you again. Here's the bread and the milk. Some of the money's not there. I went to the station. Then another station. I wanted to go to the town of S."

Antonia says, "We'll go there soon, together. We'll find your brother again."

I say, "I would also like to see my mother."

One Sunday afternoon we go to the psychiatric hospital. Antonia and Sarah wait in the reception room. A nurse leads me into a little visiting room furnished with a table and a couple of armchairs. Under the window is a small table with green plants on it. I sit and wait.

The nurse comes back holding the arm of a woman in a bathrobe whom she helps sit down in one of the armchairs.

"Say hello to your mother, Klaus."

I look at the woman. She is fat and old. Her half-gray hair is pulled back and fastened behind her head with a bit of string. I notice this when she turns around to take a long look at the closed door. Then she asks the nurse, "And Lucas? Where is he?"

The nurse answers, "Lucas couldn't come, but Klaus is here. Say hello to your mother, Klaus."

I say, "Good day, ma'am."

She asks, "Why are you alone? Why isn't Lucas with you?"