I had never been to a house like this. It was a splendid kamienica, an apartment building from before the war, one of the few that had survived. The entrance hall was high and vaulted, the ceiling covered in stucco flowers. A carpet led toward another set of doors, revealing a staircase, old and curved, with iron railings. You called the lift. We got in and rose weightlessly in the little silent box. In the glow of the single light bulb we inspected ourselves in the mirror. We looked serious and strangely put together, more grown-up than I’d ever seen us. The lift came to a halt and we got out, and you rang the bell by a wide double door. Subdued music and chatter emanated from behind it. Footsteps approached, the door opened, and a hulking figure appeared.

“Janusz!” He opened his arms wide and you embraced, kissing each other on the cheek. It took me a moment to realize it was the friend I’d seen you with at camp, Maksio Karowski. He wore a velvet jacket and a shirt with a big collar and had the same confident and indifferent way about him that had struck me before. We shook hands, his almost crushing mine.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, his hand strong and warm, something about his momentary attention making me feel strangely charmed.

We followed him through a wood-paneled corridor into a large room filled with smoke and people. Music blasted throughout the place, hot and loud, rockingly hypnotic. Couples danced in the middle of the room or lay spread out on a white yeti carpet. The only light came from lamps on the floor, one by a large television, another behind a pair of giant palm trees in pots. Maksio led us to the end of the room, where grand bay windows looked out onto the dark and seemingly infinite treetops of the park.

“Help yourself,” he said, pointing to a table covered in bottles and plates. “I need to check on somebody.” He winked at us and disappeared in the crowd.

There were vodkas and whiskies and gins and vermouths and bottles I had never seen before and colorful plates of aspic meats and pineapple rings and cheese cubes. I wanted to taste everything. I ate some grapes and downed some whisky, feeling the liquid’s journey through my body, earthy and sweet and unburdening. The music and the laughter of the people all merged in my mind, spinning me into its net. I didn’t recognize anyone in the dim light of the room; every silhouette seemed equally important and glamorous: girls in dresses and clogs and hair piled high, boys in high-waisted blue jeans and tight shirts and jackets.

“This place is out of this world!” I cried into your ear, over the sound of the music, and you nodded, and your mouth formed the words I know.