My neighbours in Room 203 are noisy. There’s laughter, things rock at night and I hear too many languages. Sometimes, it’s a carefully sculpted snatch of Chinese and next, a chunky string of Japanese. Other times, I hear German accented English. Glasses clink, laundry is hung and lights flash on and off. Of course, I see nothing.
“We haven’t found tenants for 203 yet,” my landlady confesses a few days later, “It’s empty, so don’t worry too much if you make noise while settling down!”
“I see,” I mumble, “Thank you.”
The ruckus continues. Someone suggests ringing their doorbell and then waiting to see if someone (or something) answers their intercom.
“No way,” I snap.
“Why not?”
“Because…..what if they do?”
We look at each other. From that night on, I sleep with the covers pulled over my head.
***
The man in Room 205 is the bane of my existence. First of all, he’s built like a WWF champion and my eyes line up with his collar (that was an awkward encounter, let me tell you). And his hair color changes every week, from pink to orange to mint green. I complain about him so much that everyone I know is convinced that we are soulmates destined to fall in love.
He likes to host noisy drinking parties and bring ‘guests’ to stay overnight: the kind of visitors that make me pull out noise cancelling headphones and quickly build up a playlist of death metal songs that make my ears ring for hours afterwards. That’s a hundred times better than what I’m sometimes forced to hear in the middle of the night.
“Your eyes are red,” someone points out in school and I grin weakly.
“Play some really annoying music when he starts to get too loud,” another friend suggests.
The next time the ominous sounds begin, I blast “I’m a Barbie Girl” on my laptop at full volume and press the speakers to the wall.
The very graphic sounds are cut off and I don’t just hear, but feel the shocked silence emanating from the room next door.
I leave Barbie to howl her heart out and spend ten minutes convulsing on the floor, just laughing at the insanity of it all.
***
Saturday morning. It’s recyclable garbage day, also known as ‘Get-rid-of-any-and-all-evidence-of-alcoholic-encounters-from-the-past-week’ Day.
The first shamefaced householder stomps down the stairs to discreetly abandon a veritable crate of wine bottles…at two in the morning. A sure way to avoid social contact while engaged in this very delicate task.
But she’s not the only one who’s thought of this novel idea.
“Ohhhhhh, Sayaka san!” Someone trills and I groan as I’m dragged from sleep, “How are you doing?”
“Like hell,” I complain, but nobody listens.
“H-Hello! The, the weather’s…excellent these days, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it really is! The past few days were rather cold but now it seems to be getting warmer!”
Sayaka sounds on the verge of a hysterical breakdown at being so unceremoniously caught and if it weren’t still dark outside, I might have sympathized. For now, though, I relish in her squirming discomfort.
Someone giggles in the empty 203 and I flinch. On the other side, in 205, lights click on as the WWF champion decides that now is a good time to compile his own collection of beer cans with enough gusto to wake the dead.
I roll over and fall back asleep.
***
“Stalking is a real problem in Japan,” a worldly classmate lectures me as I try to keep up with his pace, “It’s important for people living alone to be alert about their safety.”
“What should I do?” I nearly beg.
“Sometimes,” he continues with relish, “Stalkers will jump into balconies…and steal underwear off their clothes lines.”
“Oh,” I say, “Well, my underwear isn’t anything beautiful enough to-wait, WHAT?”
“You can look at a person’s laundry and learn everything about their household,” he explains with a wise smile, “Whether they’re an entire family, a husband and wife….or a woman alone.”
I gape.
“There’s a way,” he throws out casually and I’m practically hugging his feet as I beg for his teachings, “Just hang some men’s underwear with your own to give them the wrong idea.”
I spend half an hour quibbling outside the men’s undergarments store while patrons going in and out give me concerned looks. I stand there as I wonder if my miserable life is worth the humiliation of carrying this task out.
***
A sweltering summer sunrise comes to life as I throw my garbage out. I’m wearing a heavy duty winter trench-coat to hide the fact that I’m still in my slip and sleep shorts.
I heave the bag into the bin and a disembodied scream of “Good morning!” nearly makes me fall right into it myself.
After whirling around, I find the culprit: a grinning old woman on the third floor of the apartment complex opposite to mine.
I have no idea who she is.
“Good morning,” I call back but it sounds more like a pained sob than a greeting.
She beams even harder and I wonder if I should start making “I talked to the foreigner and survived!” shirts to give out to more members of the general populace.
***
One AM.
Every night (morning?) at this time, the complex’s main door slides open and I hear formal shoes strike the floor as a man calls for the elevator. I wonder what kind of a job he’s at that makes him come home this late (or early?). Isn’t his sleep schedule completely messed up? Is there someone to wait up for him? Does the money justify his coming home at a time that makes the world feel like a cemetery? Or is his compensation coming from something else?
Is he happy?
Then, a more pertinent question hits.
What am I doing awake at this time?
I chase myself to bed.
***
The couple in the next house have a fight every mealtime. I’m never awake for their breakfast session, but during noon and late evening, I find myself tensing up as I know what is to come.
They argue in Cantonese, from what I can make out, and the issue seems to be that the husband is…not fond of his wife’s cooking, to put it lightly.
There are his scratchy screams of fury, her sobbing protestations, a child crying through it all and pots and metal pans go clanging to the floor. Once, I hear the thump of flesh being slammed against somewhere hard and my blood freezes.
Imagine an entire year of this.
One night as I leave the balcony door open for a few moments of fresh air, he goes at it again and even if his wife endures it thrice a day, I can’t take it anymore. A wild impulse completely wipes out any trace of rational thought and I hop outside into the gloom.
“Jia you!“ I yell to the unseen wife in Chinese. (Stay strong!)
Their argument ceases mid-scream and a man’s furious face presses up against the window, his raging eyes boring straight into mine before I can even react.
I yelp, leap back into the sanctuary of my house, whip the curtains shut and wait for death.
In the vacant 203, a light goes on.
***
They aren’t the only couple stuck in discord.
“Don’t leave me!” A woman shrieks in Japanese from somewhere outside and I nearly drop my dinner plate on my feet, “Please, Please, Don’t, DON’T DO THIS, PLEASE, I CAN’T LIVE-!!!”
A man shouts something back at her, a motorbike revs up and then blasts away, leaving her screaming her throat out in the middle of the road.
I sigh, pull on my headphones and get back to work.
***
My biggest connection to my neighbors is ironically, thanks to the earthquakes. When capricious tremors shake the entire building and all its occupants like a birdcage in the hands of a laughing child, I lie there, work out floor plan calculations and wonder which of us would survive if the house were to collapse on itself. To be buried alive in one’s own room is a death that is the quintessence of isolation and until I got used to the idea, it terrified me.
Needless to say, I don’t die that night and after checking to see that there are no further alerts, I slide back into sleep.
Something in Room 203 bumps against the wall, the WWF champion in Room 205 mutters in irritation and in the morning, my landlady will message to see if the quake affected me. It’ll be a useful conversation starter for when I throw out the trash and meet some equally tired looking householder. Cats yowl outside my balcony and I hear murmurs through the wall.
I say I live by myself, but here’s the secret truth.
No one really does.
Photo credits:
spinster cardigan http://www.flickr.com/photos/84906483@N08/28789525922″> via http://photopin.com”>photopin https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>(license)
Katerina Atha http://www.flickr.com/photos/92779182@N02/34304829662″>going back via http://photopin.com”>photopin https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/”>(license)