He came to me fully grown as a seven-year-old boy about to turn eight, so that’s how I always saw him, as the boy who lived below us in my building and was a year and a month younger than me. There were three of us on our side of the building, so that there was a kid on every floor. The other side of the building remained childless. An elderly man on the ground floor, who was taken care of by a younger woman, the twenty-something couple on the next floor up, and then the couple with the teenage soccer player who was playing for one of the important teams six towns or so over and was technically a star. I never cared for soccer, so I was pretty blase about that, other than he was a teenager and already at the tender age of nine teenagers deeply fascinated me. He seemed pretty chill in that he’d nod and say hello when he saw me or my parents, which in that building was a huge deal. 

Most of the neighbors hated us because we were different (and not German), saying hello was not a given by any means. Except for the couple with the soccer star on our floor (he was really talented according to the articles written about him) and the twenty-somethings the hate was palpable. So when Adrian moved in with his older sister, mother and stepfather it was a relief to have neighbors that weren’t bothered by our presence. Who wouldn’t hit their ceiling with a broom when I practiced the violin for an hour or so in the afternoon and undermine us while still using our washing machine in the basement (as foreigners in Germany were known to do, at least according to their narrative).

I don’t remember how he first pinged on my radar but the girl living on the ground floor was my elder by six months (and a few weeks) and while she and her family were card carrying Nazi atheists from Poland I never understood how that worked when Poles were among the least favorite minority group where we lived, yet everyone I met seemed to have some sort of Polish heritage they kept hidden, as did my neighbor and tormentor until we moved out. And good thing too. They had a ban dog and considering how scared I was of dogs at that time (thanks in part to my mother making fun of my fear and “jokingly” pointing out how every dog I came across would “grab you by the ass” while “playfully” pretending to grab my butt), I am absolutely sure they would have found ways to use the dog to intimidate me.

Here’s the thing about the (secret) Poles I grew up with. Many of them belonged to the German minority in various regions of Poland, most notably Silesia (speaking of the ones I met). My mom being from the south of Poland by birth and North Pomerania by virtue of having been raised there always impressed three things on me: 1) that Poles were horrible people who should and could never be trusted. 2) That the only Poles worth anything were from near Krakow and 3) that Warsaw was the cesspit of Poland (and also most of the civilized world) surpassed only by the cesspits in the Third World (which pretty much meant everything outside of Western Europe). And on top of that I was never to admit that I spoke Polish, because “Germans hate Poles and will treat you like dirt if they find out” and in the US, “because if the cops hear you speak Polish, they will deport us and then you can never come back.” I learned much later that many of us with (secret) Polish parents were raised with the same – or at least a very similar – narrative.

Adrian’s mother was from Poland, that we knew. But when we interacted we all spoke German. So my bully from the ground floor (who also spoke German at home) and I sussed out that there was a little boy living between us, we promptly rang their doorbell to ask if he could come out to play. Or rather I did the talking. Babette (let’s call her that) told me to and her being older I followed along. It was a pattern, I’d tell her about an interest I had or something I wanted to pursue and she’d jump on it and do it herself. Since it was only an idea that hadn’t even taken shape yet, I usually didn’t get to see it through.

A lady in blue denims and a pukka shell necklace opened the door. She was wearing a T-shirt, had blonde curly hair and was barefoot. She looked glamorous in my childish eyes. I was super shy back then, so I’m not sure what made me ask her, maybe it was Babette standing next to me and not wanting to lose face with her yet again (we would always fight and make up until one time we just stopped speaking altogether and have not spoken since. I might look her up but wanting to put that part of my life firmly behind me has always kept me from doing so). The lady must have smiled when I asked her if her son could come out to play with us, because I remember quickly amending, “I mean the little boy.” Turned out later she was actually his sister and seventeen when we first met. She seemed to be working somewhere because I never really saw her around much. Then again, their home situation was as volatile as mine, so she was probably spending her time outside of work either at a boyfriend’s house she didn’t want her mother and stepfather to know about or else she was spending time with some friends to avoid coming home too early, or having to come home at all. With a mother who was quick to yell, shame and use corporal punishment and a stepfather who put drinking above all else, it was practically a no-brainer.