"There's a lady who wants to talk to you," he was told.

Jurek was waiting for a chance to get away again. He didn't want any more questions. He had been asked enough of them. They were always the same. What was his name. Where was he from. What happened to his parents. Did he have brothers or sisters. He couldn't answer any of them and he was tired of them all. His name was Jurek Staniak. Yes, he knew he was Jewish. Yes, he had brother and sisters. How many? He didn't know.

"My name is Pani Rappaport," she said.

"I'm Jurek Staniak. I guess you know that."

"I do."

She took his hand and stroked it. He didn't pull it away.

"Jurek," she said, "I meet lost children like you all the time. They don't know who their parents are, or where they came from before they wandered in the forests or the villages, or hid with kind people who protected them. We've found children in convents and in orphanages. Mostly girls. I suppose you know why that is."

"Yes."

"I know it's hard for you. I understand."

She kept talking in the same quiet, musical voice. He wasn't listening to the words. Their separate syllables ran together in a single, soft melody. The warmth of her hand spread through him and became a lump in his throat. He didn't know why his eyes filled with tears. She stroked his face. He was making strange, groaning sounds. It was as if something had opened inside of him, leaving him defenseless and exposed. He tried to close himself off again but couldn't. It was no longer in his control. Suddenly all the dams had burst. He was overcome by a feeling of helpless loss that flowed out of him with his tears. Pani Rappaport held his head and cried too. Then his head was in her lap and he was talking. He told her everything he remembered, everything he had forgotten.

"Do you remember your name now?"

"No."

"You had brothers and sisters, didn't you?"

"Do you remember where you're from?"

He suddenly recalled the name of the town. He could picture the bakery and his father standing in the glow of the oven. There had been a smithy next to it, and then their home, and Pani Staniak's little grocery across the street. And now he saw his grandfather with a long, white beard, and his mother. He strained to make out her face. He thought he caught sight of his brothers and sisters, too, although they remained hidden in darkness. He remembered his father lying in bed, snoring with a funny sound like a train whistle's. And himself climbing onto the bed and tickling his father's mustache with a plant stem. Then the face was gray and covered by stubble. They were in a potato field. His father's eyes burned into him. He could feel his breath and hear him saying, "You have to stay alive, Jurek." That wasn't the name he had been called. But he had stayed alive. It was in order to stay alive that he had forgotten his name and the names of his brothers and sisters and even the name of his mother. It had all vanished into the great emptiness that opened inside him on the day she disappeared.

Jurek wiped away his tears. In bits and pieces he tried telling Pani Rappaport about the scenes flashing through his mind.

"You say the town was called Blonie? Would you recognize it?"

"Yes," he said. "I'd recognize our house and the bakery. There was a smithy next to it."

"Would you go with me there now?"

She didn't laugh. She just gave him a big hug.

They crossed the Wisla. It took over an hour to reach Blonie. Little farms with thatched roofs stood on its outskirts. As they neared its center, these changed to low wood and brick houses. Suddenly Jurek shouted, "There's the bakery!"

The truck stopped. The door of the bakery was locked. Jurek ran to the smithy. No one was there, either. The place looked deserted. He grabbed Pani Rappaport's hand and pulled her after him. Soon they were standing in front of a half-destroyed house.

"This is where we lived," he said with a sinking heart.