An early autumn night descended on the tenement on Ogarna Street where my grandmother lived. She was lying in hospital, so I kept an eye on her flat, where time sounded different. I left a checkered letter on her desk, in which I feigned courage and calm. The corridor smelled of wax and old paper, and under the window the sea snored, though it was far away. In the living room stood a heavy sideboard left by my great-grandfather, full of porcelain, brass and riddles. When the lights went out throughout the neighbourhood, the flat vibrated, as if breathing more deeply than usual. First the blue cranes cup rang out, creaking like a little fiddle: "Don't add sugar, man, we've got enough cracks here." Then the chiming clock stopped its hands and grunted in a low tone: "You're three generations late, Klara." The door knob groaned, as if dragging itself out after a nap, and added: "Don't open the pantry until you listen." I was immobile, holding the phone, which, without electricity, pretended to be a black rock in my hand. From the kitchen, the basement smell of potatoes returned, as if someone had opened the door of coolness. I didn't run away, because curiosity had always been my trouble and passion at the same time. I leaned against the sideboard, feeling the intarsia under my elbow like a map of rivers. "What do you want from me?" I asked, having the feeling that I was asking a room full of students. The gramophone moved the needle, though it had no record, and whispered: "The Change has come, when the lights go quiet and things regain their voice." The clock added more quietly: "Look for the key that remembers the salt before someone comes back for the end." As I moved my hand over the door, the wood sighed and a secret compartment opened. Inside lay a brass key, dull as amber in the rain but icy. The mirror above the sideboard murmured like water and warned: "Do not look where memory does not ask permission." The cup trembled with the rim until the teaspoons clinked: "If you go, don't cry later over a chipped day." The gramophone purred cheerfully: "Open it, otherwise it'll bring back the one that really shouldn't." I moved the sideboard centimetre by centimetre until a low flap by the slat was revealed. The paintwork glinted in the semi-darkness, and the key in my hand grew heavier and heavier. The clock began to count backwards, mumbling numbers I didn't know, as if it was reversing not minutes but someone else's decisions. "Not allowed" and "Open" clashed in the air, like two winds over a canal. I pressed the key into the lock and heard three audible knocks from inside, and then a voice I knew from childhood whispered my name.