He sits on the landing between the first and second floors. Below him the arguing at first muted, grows increasingly louder. The sounds of anguish and discordance chase the little boy further and further up the stairs, overcoming his small body like a runaway train gaining steam down a mountain. The yells cacophonies off the halls as the arguing turns into screaming, He hears a scream that is his mother, her pain. He does not totally understand what is happening but to his young mind it is terrifying
He retreats to the second-floor apartment. He opens the door that is never locked and runs into his grandmother’s arms. His grandmother is crying and says to grandpa in Yiddish; Vi azoy habn mir aoyfgevaxn aza zun. The young child does not understand as he is only beginning to grasp English, but the sorrow on her aged and wizened face tells him everything.
Grandma turns on the television to help drown out the sounds from below. She is trying her best to protect her grandson. She goes into the kitchen and makes potato latkas and sprinkles them with sugar. It is the recipe she learned from her mother in Vienna, before the Nazis made their intentions known.
The young boy returns hours later to a darkened apartment. It is a small one-bedroom apartment. Frightened and with great trepidation, he enters the apartment. She is weeping softly in her bed. She turns to him and the young boy recoils seeing the bruises and scratches marking her beautiful face. She hugs him and tells him to go into his room and stay there. Outside his window, he sees his father sitting on a lawn chair, smoking one cigarette after another. He grabs Jo-Jo a rubber cowboy that is his go to friend and climbs into bed.
He wakes up the next morning. His father has gone off to work and his mother is acting like nothing has happened. She is sad and seems resigned to her fate. This has been played out before and no doubt will be cycled out again. He knows from experience that he can count on it.
The young boy finishes his breakfast and races up the stairs to his grandparents’ apartment. Grandpa is already dressed and waiting for him, takes his hand and they leave the apartment for the bakery where the nice woman behind the counter always gives him a cookie and the butcher always gives him a slice of bologna.
They return home, and his grandma tells him that when he gets older, she is going to buy him a red sports car. In his four years on this earth, he has never heard either grandpa or grandma raise their voices, even once. This humble second-floor apartment is his sanctuary, his escape, and his safe space.
He stays with grandparents all day and for dinner. His mother cannot figure out for a long time why he is never hungry when she makes him dinner. It is upstairs in that tiny apartment that is his refuge from the tumultuous life of the first-floor apartment. He misses them to this day.
