Love Novel

2

PEOPLE SHOULD LIVE IN PEACE AND HARMONY; those were their neighbour's first words. He didn't even say hello, he just launched into his lecture as if afraid the door might be slammed in his face before he'd finished saying what he rang the bell to say. And he'd been ringing it for five minutes at least - which seemed like an hour to him. They'd even managed to start a fight, assuming the third-floor neighbour was there to scold them for not having paid their share for the staircase lighting, or for shirking their turn to clear the snow at the entrance. He hadn't been too keen on freezing his arse off in the parking lot, and she'd forgotten to put the money in the neighbour's letterbox. So she forgot, so what? They stood silently in the hallway, staring each other down.

The bell went quiet for a moment.

Maybe he's gone?

Maybe he's.

Then it buzzed again, and she just shrugged and disappeared into the kitchen, as if it was his job to make amends for her mistakes. He took another look through the peephole and mussed up his hair. He wanted to look like he'd just woken up.

So, he finally opens the door. The neighbour's standing there in his slippers, skipping polite hellos and going straight for the line about peace and harmony. He mentions neither the snow at the entrance nor the unpaid bill but goes on to say how in these difficult times people should foster good intentions and take more responsibility for their actions. So that things don't get even worse. He nods in agreement with everything the neighbour says, hoping to shut the door as soon as possible. But the neighbour is faster; he steps into the hallway with his slippered foot and gets into his face, warning him he's not done yet. He doesn't raise his voice; he just starts talking faster.

We should all be more responsible and conscientious, he says; not you personally, of course, not you, I mean in general, because you are, no doubt, already conscientious. The neighbour has noticed his habit of leaving deposit bottles near the waste containers. People have started loitering around the rubbish containers, understandably, since they find something by the bins every day. And now they come regularly to collect the stuff left there, and when they don't find anything, they go searching inside the containers, digging and diving. you've got them used to it, the neighbour tells him. And undoubtedly, it's very admirable for him to have in mind how much the deposit money might mean to some people, but the rubbish is right next to the kindergarten fence, and the children see what's going on, all that human despair and deprivation.

Shouldn't we be protecting them from it?

The neighbour repeats the question, almost rhetorically, so he naturally doesn't answer it. He shields himself with sleepiness while thinking his own thoughts, completely uninterested in other people's children and utterly unaffected by the sight of human despair and deprivation. These are everyday scenes. He's seen worse on television. His only worry right now is this neighbour's fucking slipper stuck in the door. He wants to tell him to back off, to get off his fucking case; he wants to remind him it's 8 a.m. and to suggest he come back in an hour, or never, but he will refrain - he's way too polite, even though she keeps claiming the opposite. He's leaning on the door handle, rubbing his eyes.

This will pass.

Last night your wife left a bag with a coat in it out there, the neighbour continues, that red coat she wore when she was pregnant, and this morning, just a little while ago to be precise, two guys were at each other's throats over it, you'd think they'd kill each other, while the children could see it all through the fence; the men cursed and yelled until one of them punched the other on the chin, kicked him in the gut and shoved him against the containers, and then dumped the stuff he was carrying in his bags on top of him. There's now rubbish scattered all across the car park, and I wonder if it's really worth it, exposing children to violence and misery for a few plastic bottles and an old maternity coat. you tell me.

Well?

Is it?

The neighbour should be thankful he's not responding to any of this; he's been trained to endure such crap in silence. He can handle vast amounts of stupid and tone-deaf sentences without a single twitch of a nerve, without actually hearing them. He can listen to one thing and think of another; for instance, he can imagine the neighbour having a cup of tea with bread and margarine, observing the fight outside the building, then resolutely wiping his mouth and heading off two floors down without even putting his shoes on, with the ferocity of a man who feels it's his duty to do something. And the neighbour knows exactly which doorbell he's going to be pummelling, it's not his first time, no it isn't, he'd come making demands at this doorstep before, and so he remembered he had to be persistent because, sooner or later, a bleary-eyed face would open the door, the same face that doesn't obey the house rules, doesn't clear the snow, doesn't pay electricity bills or recycle bottles, and instead - as he plainly described it a moment ago - lays out his rubbish to fuel violence and misery, enough to spoil your breakfast. The neighbour keeps tabs on all the tenants, and he has undoubtedly already added up all this tenant's thrown-away wine bottles, divided them into glasses and figured out he's drinking too much. The neighbour could also tell from the label that he'd bought the wine on sale at a nearby discount store, a whole case for the price of a regular bottle, meaning it was either totally disgusting or toxic, and no one would drink it if they had a choice. And he didn't. But he had no intention of justifying himself as to why. The neighbour has already made up his mind about his bad habits and his own noble intentions, and it's way too late to try to make a good impression. He doesn't even need to wash his face. Maybe he could rub his eyes a little more. Out of sheer defiance.

The neighbour already thinks sleepiness is an expression of laziness, rather than exhaustion.

The neighbour also thinks exhaustion is a sign of weakness, rather than a side-effect of honest work.

The neighbour believes an honest day's work nets an honest day's pay.

But that's not how it goes.

Nonetheless, the neighbour knows him better than he knows himself.

And surely remembers what he himself would rather forget.

He thinks of his wife with the smooth ball under her red coat, throwing away the portable TV she thought was responsible for their communication breakdown. At least that's how she phrased it. After pointing out that him watching the evening news on three different channels in a row had nothing to do with being better informed and everything to do with wanting to escape from what was going on, mostly from her and the ball under her coat, she'd pulled the cord out of the socket, lifted the set up against her stomach and carried it out. He was afraid she'd go into labour. He sat on the couch all that night, staring into the silent gap in the place of the TV set, trying not to smoke a whole pack. She sat right there with him. She was waiting for them to start having fun. In vain. She stroked her stomach and faked a cough, growing increasingly unhappy. He was seeing static. He told her it was being decided right then whether Greece would still remain a member of the monetary union if the country failed to pay off its debts. He was trying to make conversation. She retorted that she didn't give a fuck about Greece, and that they were in debt, too. Then he blew a fuse. He roared, why the fuck does she always make it about herself, that is, about him? can't she look around and see what's going on in the world, what kind of pressure people live under and what kind of shit they have to take? She shouted him down, saying she had zero interest in other people's crap as she was suffocating in her own, and she demanded he tell her why he was constantly zombified in front of the TV since none of it concerned him at all! Why was he counting strikes in Spain? why was he calculating Romanian emigration quotas? why was he bothered about the amount of unpaid taxes in Italy? and why on earth did he have to convert into kilograms all the cash, diamonds and watches the former prime minister got for selling off this motherfucking country before he ended up behind bars?

Why!!!?

To get some rest.

She didn't ask from what. Resolutely, she locked herself in the bathroom and left him alone with the wall. He wanted to smash it. She returned during the late-night news. The TV was back in place. Greece was approved for a new loan on the condition they implement austerity measures, at the expense of their citizens. She burst into tears. He said it was just her hormones, and she grabbed the red coat off the hanger and ran out. For the second time that night.

Where are you going!?

To Greece! To fucking hell!

He...