By the time I finish my story it’s dark in the little room.

Abi didn’t think to turn on the desk lamp. She didn’t move once, the whole time I spoke. She might as well have been a statue.

Only now does she decide to turn on the light. She moves slowly, wearily, as if the lamp was too far away, even though it’s only a few centimetres from her. The view outside the window—a scrap of sky, of blue, has turned to grey, then black—fades, and now there is only the reflection of the interior of the room, in particular my face. I can see it as clearly as in a mirror.

It’s been a long time since I’ve looked in a mirror. I check to make sure I’m still as blond as I was. That my eyes are as blue as they were. Nothing has changed.

No, one thing has: I’m crying.

I’m crying for the first time. Does that mean I’m now like other children?

Lukas cried, too, that day at Kalish, when I told him my story. The first part, before knowing him. That day, he said to me, ‘We both have to bear witness. Me, for what the Nazis are doing to the Poles and to the Jews; you, for what they have done to you.’

I have kept my promise.

I didn’t understand why Lukas cried when he heard my story. I didn’t understand the meaning of the words ‘bear witness’.

Now I do. I suppose that’s normal. I’ve grown up. I’m nine and a half.

I guess, for a child, the years count two for one in times of war.