Rain streamed down the windows as if someone had hung a curtain of water behind them. Common Street seemed empty, although Lena knew that cigarettes were smouldering somewhere in the gates, that spoons were clattering in the rental kitchens. The cage itself smelled of dust, old soap and tea - exactly as she remembered it. Maybe only the silence was heavier, too dense, obscenely lingering, as if someone had told her to make herself comfortable here. She pressed the key into the lock, turned it twice, entered. Grandma Irene's flat greeted her with twilight and the warmth of the radiators, which were beginning to take on a life of their own in October. The same carpet with a trampled centre. The same sideboard from whose handles cloths dangled. The same plant in the corner - a horsetail whose white calyxes had dimmed and faded. Lena smiled until she remembered how her grandmother used to name it and speak to it when no one could hear. She put her backpack down on a chair. Her fingers brushed the edge of the table, then she stopped at the shelf where the clock with the black face stood - the one that had tinkled when she was five and in front of which she had learned to count. The ticking was now like a silent reminder: there is time that goes, and there are things that are over. She was not ready for this greeting, though she had chosen it herself. She preferred to walk through it at night, in the rain, when the city closed its eyelids. Easier to negotiate with memory then. Easier not to look in the mirrors. Easier to pretend it was just a tour of duty in a strange flat, rather than returning to a place that knew her every move. - 'Hi, Grandma,' she said quietly, and the echo took the word deeper into the flat, into the room with the sofa bed and into the kitchen where there was always a jar of sugar and another one of mint leaves. She slipped off her coat, hung it up and glanced at the envelope lying flush on the table. It had her name, written in a thin pen: "Lena". The paper was thick, slightly creamy, with a tiny spot near the corner. Next to the envelope lay a key ring - a tiny metal heart, smoothed by the touches of so many years that it had almost ceased to have edges. She squatted down and touched the edge of the envelope, but did not open it. Her fingers, still cool from the rain, trembled in a way that betrayed the lack of sleep of the last few days - the phone call, the condolences, the paperwork, the flowers, the stories of relatives she hadn't seen since high school. And something else: that uncomfortable, embarrassing feeling of relief that everything now had a name. The funeral. "It's over." Words that rolled too smoothly down her throat, yet stopped inside like a seed. She stood up, walked to the kitchen. The cupboard creaked familiarly. She set the water on, moving the kettle away from the corner where crumbs always accumulated. In the mirrored glass of the oven she saw her reflection - her hair tied up messily, the denim jacket she hadn't managed to shed, the dark circles under her eyes. She also saw the chair at the table and the space beside it - empty, no felt slippers, no grey jumper, no hand with suddenly stopped patience. From the kitchen table she reached for a casket she remembered from childhood. Wooden, with an embossed motif of twigs. Her grandmother kept in it photographs from a time completely unknown to Lena: a girl in a dress with tiny flowers, a boy with a serious look, a foreign landscape in which the Vistula never once flashed by. The casket was lighter now. Inside, instead of photographs, lay an old micro-cassette recorder and two tapes. One described: "For L. - just in case". The other without a label, bare, like an unspoken sentence. Lena laughed under her breath - without joy, more with disbelief. A grandmother and a recorder? Her grandmother, who wrote letters for years and then put them between the pages of books because "it wasn't time to send them yet"? It must have been an impulse. Or perhaps something that was meant to leave a mark when words said face to face would crumble into thin air. The water in the kettle began to hiss. She poured the tea and returned to the table. She gently slid the cassette tape into the recorder. With her finger she found the play button. The equipment, to her surprise, responded - a quiet hum, a distinctive crackle, and someone's breathing. Someone took in a breath, the way one does just before uttering an important sentence. - 'Lena,' said the voice. And then he added, as if with an effort: - Treasure. She sounded like Grandma Irene, only more fragile than Lena remembered her. There was a soft warmth in this 'treasure' that she recognised without hesitation, like the smell of mint and tart apple. The voice spoke of trifles: that the winged flower needed to be moved from the window because of draughts, that there was soup in the freezer, that letters to her neighbour Basia lay in a drawer if Lena wished to carry them. The words formed an ordinariness from which one gets a little calmer. Lena rested her elbows on the table, holding her mug of tea with both hands, as if it could be a small fireplace. She listened and felt her body slowly reminding itself that it didn't have to stand at attention. And then the tape squeaked - someone interrupted, maybe the intercom rang, maybe the old radiator was turning on - and the voice came back, different, as if suddenly more adult, harder. - 'If you're listening to this after I've gone,' Grandma said, 'take a breath and don't rush. Not everything has to be understood at once. Lena felt her heart take an uninvited tumble. Ants passed along her spine. - There are things - her voice hesitated - that I didn't know how to talk about, and I should have. My fault that there were confused looks instead of conversation. Your name... - Here the tape snapped, as if fine sand had got between the gears - I chose your name not by accident. Someday I will tell you why. Not now. If it's night, if you're alone, turn on the light in the corridor and don't stand at the door. This is important, Lena. Don't stand at the door. The clock in the living room ticked, as if impatient. In the kitchen, the under-cabinet light was casting golden spots on the countertop. Lena, unconsciously obeying, leaned out and turned on the light in the hallway. The bulb blinked and flared yellow. The corridor dived into that brightness like a quilt. - 'In the table drawer,' Grandma said, 'you'll find an envelope. Open it only in the morning. At dawn, if you can. At night everything grows, anxiety too. And what you have to do requires clarity. If someone knocks... Lena shifted her gaze away from the recorder, as if she feared the device could see her. She glanced at the door that led to the stairwell. Heavy, with a brass bolt. In her gaze she felt the tension she knew from those days when she waited for test results, for emails, for decisions. In her stomach - something between a knot and a void. - If someone knocks - repeated the voice slowly - don't open. Even if he speaks your name. Even if he knows words that only our own know. There was an unnatural, unabashed firmness in this sentence. Lena pushed the cup away, although her fingers were still conscious enough to put it down on the coaster. In her head she recalculated: did anyone know she was back here? She'd left her keys with the caretaker, after all, but she should have told him she intended to stay the night. Her phone vibrated - a calendar notification: "Call Kamil". She swiped it without reading. A quiet hum fluttered on the tape, like wings when a bird is trying not to rouse a whole tree. Then something rasped, followed by a second layer into the sound. Lena tensed all over. She heard... her name. Clear, like a whisper right next to her ear. - Lena. It didn't sound like her grandmother. It sounded like herself. As if someone had taken a sample of her own voice and spoken her name with it. The echoes trailed along the walls of the kitchen, even though, after all, it was only a tape. - 'If it's after twenty-three fifty-five,' said the grandmother's voice again, this time hurriedly, as if fighting against time, 'don't come to the door. There's sometimes a draught in here after midnight. It slams on the stairs. People come back, lose their steps. And sometimes... - pause - there are times when someone will stand behind the threshold and say they know the answer. You will hear your name. Don't believe it. Remember what I tell you, child. Lena looked at the clock in the living room. The hands were inexorably approaching twelve. 11:58 p.m. A sound came from the corridor, where the light spilled warmly, as if someone had placed a hand on the wooden panel of the door. Gently, checking. Lena held her breath, then almost angrily allowed herself to draw the air in deeper; she hated what the tension was doing to her - how it narrowed her vision, how it counted her breaths without her consent. - 'Grandma,' she whispered, unaware that she was speaking aloud. - 'What have you done? The dictaphone growled quietly. The tape had an ordinary sound, nothing supernatural. And yet the room seemed full of someone. Full of waiting. A knock came from behind the door. One time. A pause. A second, slightly bolder - as if someone was kindly letting him know he was in. A draught wailed quietly on the stairs; perhaps someone had swung the main door open, perhaps a gale had blanketed the courtyard. Plates on a shelf shook in the flat. - 'Lena,' said someone behind the door. Clearly. In a tone that knew her name inside out. The clock struck midnight - in a dry, serious tone that left a quiet tail after every hour. Lena rose reflexively before she had time to think. She took two steps towards the corridor. Three. Her hand found the brass chain on its own, the touch of cold sobered her like a sip of icy water. A phrase resounded in the dictaphone that could not be ignored: - Do not open. And then the handle on the other side vibrated and began to lower slowly.