They’re called parrots. And Grandpa used to have a talking magpie.

Then Kaytek heard a parrot speaking human phrases.

Kaytek thought golden fish were only in fairy tales, but all of a sudden he saw some in a store display.

Truth and fiction are all mixed up in fairytales.

So maybe there really is a magic lamp that can summon up a genie?

Kaytek wants to have a lamp like the one Aladdin had.

There are so many different wonders in the world.

The grown-ups know, but they refuse to explain.

Grandma says Helenka appeared to her after her death. But Dad doesn’t believe in ghosts.

Grandma says you can read a person’s future in their hand.

“When I was a young girl, a Gypsy told me everything that would happen.”

“Gypsies tell lies,” says Dad. “They fool people.”

Kaytek wants to know what’s going to happen. But his father doesn’t like Kaytek to be told mysterious things because he has trouble falling asleep, and when at last he does, he has bad dreams and talks in his sleep.

That’s strange.

How can you sleep and talk all at once?

And there are even people who actually walk in their sleep.

They actually walk!

That sort of person gets out of bed on a moonlit night, goes out the window and onto the roof. He has his eyes closed, but he can see, and he doesn’t fall off the roof.

Kaytek has forgotten what the strange name for them is.

The world is strange and mysterious.

Why is that? His father was once a little boy, Grandma used to play with dolls, and Mom had a grandmother too.

Isn’t it strange that Kaytek will grow up and be a dad as well?

It’s hard to understand it all. One thing already happened, but long ago. Another thing has yet to happen in the future. And a third thing’s going to come about one day, but far, far from now.

There are faraway countries where the people are black. The children are black, and so is the teacher at school.

Kaytek once saw a black man in the street, but he wasn’t a cannibal.*

Grandma says there are eyes that can cast spells; if you cast the evil eye at someone, they fall ill.

Dad says that’s not true. But Kaytek once saw a man who had a glass eye, a real eye made of glass.

Dad says there aren’t any wizards, but there are Indian fakirs. You can bury them in the ground and they go on living. Dad read about the fakirs in a newspaper.

Sometimes even the newspaper tells lies.

If only Kaytek could know everything entirely for sure.

He thinks the world was more interesting in the past.

Where there are now houses and Warsaw, there used to be forests and marshes, and bears.

Robbers used to hide in the forests.

There were knights.

There were kings wearing crowns.

Six white horses pulled the king’s golden coach.

There was something to look at.

The Tatars were always invading. They took people prisoner. They kidnapped children and sold them to the Turks as slaves.

There were magic clocks.

At Grandma’s house there was a magic clock. It was big and it hung above a bureau. Grandma’s parents had that clock. They didn’t live in Warsaw.

“Tell me about the clock, Grandma,” asks Kaytek.

“Your father gets mad if I frighten you, and then you have bad dreams.”

“Just this one time, please, Grandma. I know it already anyway. And I’m not scared, am I?”

“All right then, the clock was old, very old.”

“It was gold,” Kaytek prompted her.

“No, not gold, but gilded. Made of wood. And gilded. It was carved.”

“And there was a hand on the clock, and under the hand there was a key,” says Kaytek.

“Yes, that’s right. The clock face with the numbers was below, and the hand and the key were above them.”

“And the clock didn’t work,” says Kaytek.

“It didn’t work and it didn’t chime. No clockmaker knew how to repair it. It just hung on the wall, biding its time.”

Kaytek moves up closer.

“Was it big?”

“As big as a picture. It hung above the bureau.”

“And was the hand big?”

“As big as yours.”

“So go on,” says Kaytek impatiently.

“Well, so there hangs the clock, it doesn’t go and it doesn’t chime. But whenever some misfortune was going to happen in the family, the hand took hold of the key and the clock chimed, striking the hour.”

“What time? Twelve o’clock?”

“No, I can’t remember. I was young then, and your mom was little. She didn’t have any teeth yet.”

“And then what?”

“One time the hand took hold of the key and the clock struck the hour of Grandpa’s death.