“If you insist,” he said. “You should know about the roaches. We have an agreement, see. I leave them alone, they leave me alone, and everyone is happy.”
He took my hand and led me up the stairs since the building was too old for an elevator. We went up a dark, narrow staircase to the fifth floor where children loitered in the hallway, chattering and laughing while their parents yelled at them in Yiddish, Hebrew, or German from inside the flats. There was an iron sink in the hall that served four families, and the only bathroom for the tenants was a clapboard outhouse behind the building and a toilet in the hall on the sixth floor. We reached the flat Adam was looking for and he let us in the open door.
“Pop?” he called. When there was no response Adam looked around the sparsely furnishe
