Page 45 of The Storyteller of Krakow

I looked out of the window and kept repeating the phrase under my breath, watching as dusk settled over the streets, shadows lengthening the further we drove between sandstone houses and shops.

The air was laced with the fragrant scent of freshly baked bread, mingling with the sharp, spicy notes of street food being prepared by street vendors.

Women walked with children, wearing long robes, some with their heads and faces covered. Men in white long shirts and trousers sat outside shops, sharing a long, strange pipe.

‘A hookah,’ Arthur explained to me. ‘Tobacco. Flavoured stuff. Nice if you like that sort of thing.’

I was sure I wouldn’t like it but nodded anyway.

‘Here we are.’ He stopped in a narrow lane, barely big enough to fit the jeep, so I had to squeeze through a small gap in the door.

‘You be careful now, eh? Can’t have you going missing on my watch. I’ll be back in three hours, no more, no less, understood?’

I checked my watch: 6 p.m. He’d be back at nine. ‘Understood.’

‘Good chap. See you soon.’

I watched as he rumbled away in his jeep and knew he would be back for me. There was no doubt in my mind. Sometimes, and I had said this to Piotr in our early years when he had tried to make friends with the wrong sort of person, sometimes you could just tell if someone was bad or not. Whether you could trust them. Arthur, you could trust, I knew it.

Yet, where had that intuition been about Janek? I wondered. Why had I not picked up on who he really was? Was it that I was so scared, so hungry, so desperate, I had simply not wanted to see what was right in front of my eyes?

‘Was-sa-ee!’ A man came towards me, pushing a cart in front of him that was covered by a red cloth.

I pushed my back into the building behind me while he squeezed past, then fussed around in my pocket to look at the address that Anka had given me. The street, I assumed, was correct, but then she had given directions to walk towards the archway, turn left, left again, and then I would see a walled courtyard, with a light blue door. I was to knock three times and wait.

‘Someone will come,’ she had said. ‘And remember, don’t go until the sun has completely set.’

The light was fading, but there was still time for me to do one quick thing, and that was to see the pyramids.

As Arthur drove us here, I kept getting glimpses of the tips of them, but then we would rush past, and I never saw the whole thing.

I needed to get up higher, I needed to see them; this was my only chance.

As I walked towards the archway, I saw that most of the houses had flat roofs, some had washing drying on a line, and others had pretty pots of flowers. If only I could get up there!

I stopped for a moment and saw my mission was futile. I couldn’t just ask to sit on someone’s roof to watch the sun set over the pyramids.

‘English?’ A woman came towards me, wearing a black dress with black lace covering the bottom of her face, a headscarf wrapped around her head with small golden coins dangling from it.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Polish.’

‘Ah. You come, you hungry, yes?’ she continued in English.

Was this one of the hawkers Arthur had told me about?

‘No. No,’ I said. ‘I just look at the pyramids.’

She cocked her head to the side like an interested robin. ‘Pyramids. You want see?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes. Yes. Come. Come.’

I wasn’t prepared for her to grab my arm roughly, and I certainly wasn’t prepared for how strong she was.

‘No – I—’ I tried to wriggle free, but by God, she was fierce.

‘No. You come. Please, I am to show you.’