Brownlow Hill, Liverpool.

My earliest memory is darkness. The first night I can remember, I was sitting in my backyard, alone, and it was so dark. How come we were always last to get light? The grass was dry. I had an easy time uprooting it, one by one. And it was quiet. Except for a huff from neighbour Ben’s horse.

Mummy would open the door and say “Berle, come inside, it’s late.” I know, Mummy, it was late; those nights I kept you up.

She would watch me, with a worried face, calling me back. “I don’t like it when you’re outside, Berle.”

But it was only against the starry bare sky that I felt secure. I saw the houses past the white oak fence.

“You see, everyone is sleeping,” Mummy would tell me when she caught my gaze.

Yes, Mummy. Everyone is in bed and I’m here. I could not lie in my bed when it was so dark, I had to wait for Donny the lamplighter.

“Mummy?”

“Yes, Berle, I’m waiting here.”

“How come there’s light in our neighbourhood last?”

“I will light a candle for you, it’s late.”

“Mummy, the candle will go out.”

“I will be there to relight it, Berle.”

The mornings were much easier for me. There was light. I could see the flowery swirls that decorated the walls of my room, and I could look up at the blue corbels. I would tell Mummy about them and she would smile.

And breakfast. There was only one kosher brand Totty would buy from the grocer’s, Eden’s Roundies. On the back there were designs of gardens, and blue water. It was just like the painting of the river that hung on our wall. Whenever I passed it, I would stop and look at it for a long time.

And then I would leave for school. I would turn around and see our house. The arched doorway’s fanlight and the pattern of the surrounding bricks. The dark red web of bricks against our grey roof.

“Mummy? Who made our house?” “An architect.” “What’s his name, Mummy?” “I don’t know. Your elter zeidie was an architect. Maybe he would know.” “Mummy, where is elter zeidie?” Mummy was quiet for a moment. “He passed away last year, Berle.”

Last year. I could’ve asked the same question last year. I would’ve met elter zeidie. Why, why did I have to ask now, and not a year earlier?

“Mummy, I want to be like elter zeidie.”

The door knobs at school were glass. I remember the first time I felt one. It had complicated bumps and streaks all around it toward the inside, and each handle was different.

In class, I would raise my hand and go to the drinking fountain. And I would go down the stairs with my finger on the wall nudging like the needle of a gramophone.

“Berle, don’t look into the chandelier too much,” my Totty would tell me. He said it would hurt my eyes. But my eyes wanted to see the plate-shaped object underneath it and the nicely twisted metal coming from the sides.

Once near my classroom I noticed a new light fixture. This one was odd, it had two plates. I stood under it.

“What are you doing here, little one?” It was Reb Leib, my teacher. I said nothing. It was the third time he found me in the hallway that day, and the third time he asked me the question. Reb Leib looked me in the eyes. “What should I do?” he said.

I didn’t expect you to know, Reb Leib. I didn’t know myself. What should I do? I couldn’t get enough of the canopies and collars, the coffered ceilings, the door knobs. And how do they make them?

When I came back from school, I asked Mummy. She seemed to know everything.

“Mummy, how do people design things?” “First, they draw it on blueprints, Berle.” “Mummy, I want to make blueprints.” She paused. “Have you ever seen a blueprint, Berle?” I shook my head. “Come.”

She brought me to the attic. She moved the big container of books, and pulled out an old-looking chest. It was worn-out brown leather on the top and the sides, and the edges had rusted steel. Mummy inserted the key and it clacked open.

There lay a thick stack of aged Prussian blue papers. I couldn’t quite see what was written on the top paper. When I think back I see a faint glow around them. Elter zeidie’s blueprints. I reached for them. But a hand pushed mine back. It was Mummy’s.

Of course she wouldn’t let me touch those blueprints. I would have to look at them later.