That Saturday you and I met by the Łazienki Gardens. It was my favorite park in the city and the only place I remember visiting the one time I’d come to Warszawa as a child with Mother and Granny. We’d taken a boat on the lake, fed the swans and the squirrels, had seen the other, complete families—mothers, fathers, and children. We’d visited the white palace on the island of the lake, the same palace that had been part of the king’s pleasure gardens and now served as a distraction for good workers and their families. As we were leaving, climbing up a gentle slope, we’d seen a man stacking blocks of hay under a small thatched roof. “Who is this for?” Mother had asked him. She was so elegant that day; I remember the moss-green hat she wore, the matching gloves. “The deer,” he’d said, and continued working. That had seemed incredible to me, that deer should live in the park, hidden from everyone’s sight.

That Saturday night, when it was already dark and the gates of the gardens were locked, I imagined them, the deer, racing unhindered through the grounds, across the untended meadows, up and down the hills, along the tree-lined paths, their hooves clattering on the gravel and stirring the sleeping swans. What freedom to live like that, protected and boundless at once.

You were waiting for me in the light of a streetlamp. You wore a brown corduroy jacket, and your hair was combed to the side, like that time you’d stopped me in the street in your suit, the day of the flyers. Like that day, you looked like a different person, and this both scared and excited me.

“Very chic,” I said, clicking my tongue, hiding my discomfort.

You smiled. “You look great too.”

I’d worn my only jacket, a white shirt, and my good shoes. “Are you sure it’s not strange for me to go to her party?”

You laughed briefly and placed your hand on the back of my neck. “There’ll be lots of people there. You’ll blend right in.”

We walked the avenue along the park, past the tall government buildings patrolled by soldiers in berets. Only some windows were illuminated, the rest dark and dormant. You led us into a side street, lined by prewar buildings with large balconies on each floor. In front of us a woman in a fur coat and high heels was walking a sausage dog, her coat as shiny as her pet, a cigarette burning lazily in her gloved fingers. We stopped by a large entrance gate.

You pressed a button on the domofon, and a crackling man’s voice came from the grid, asking who it was. You said your name. There was a buzzing noise, and you pushed the massive door open with the weight of your whole body.