I was six or seven around the time, not long before my sister was born. He must have been my age, or perhaps a year or two older, with sparkling dark eyes, dark brown hair cut fairly short, a boy of small build, but agile, full of life. We lived on the 8th floor, he lived on the 10th floor of the same building. My mother used to joke how he and I would spend hours escorting each other home. We'd walk up two floors, then down to my apartment, and up again, and on the way we would sometimes sit on the steps and talk, or run several floors down, and hide at the smallest noise lest people would see us. Though forbidden, we sneaked up the roof a few times just to go downstairs on a different staircase. I remember we used to play indians and sometimes he helped me with my homework, and once, when we put up stickers on the door of my room, and by doing so sent my father to a fit, he helped me scratch them down, making sure we took our time. During the autumn he was my partner in crime, accident after accident, and later that year, shortly before Christmas as my grandmother from the village who paid a visit only at yule tide or my birthday, was making Christmas ornaments out of colourful strips of paper with me that day, he and I were playing in the playground after dark. We were crouching behind a little hill, freezing cold in the snow in the playground farther from my house, where I was not supposed to go in the dark, giggling, when just a second or two before I heard my father's voice calling me, he kissed me. I do not recall much of that night, except for the fuss at home for 'getting lost in the dark', but even looking back I think his friendship was worth it all.


We moved to a new place next summer, and I haven't thought of him or the old apartment for a long time. In fact, I might have forgotten completely, had the astrologer not asked if I was first in love at the age of six.


Memories of that apartment are exceptionally warm, with tall Christmas trees, an old Singer sewing machine you could sort of swing on, the rare visits from my godparents, warm lights, the bare sky you see from the 8th floor, blue floral bedclothes I liked and an easter bunny who chewed holes in my carpet and who, I am still convinced, liked watching tv, black and white at the time. If I had the photographs, there would be a skinny girl in them, with tousled short blonde hair and the careless smile of childhood.

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