Still continuing on my spontaneous visits with my neighbors, I walk along a corridor of one of the upper floors. From one of the doors reach me the sounds of Schubert’s Serenade. Hearing music come through a door, means that someone is home listening to music and I can knock and be invited in. Although it is not always so. Once I heard the powerful voice of Placido Domingo emerging from one apartment and I arrived to the same conclusion. Music, someone is home and I can visit..I knocked on the door. No response. I knock again and once again, well Placido is kind of loud so maybe my knocking is overheard.. Finally I hear someone approaching the door which opens.
In front of me stands a man with a furious face, wrapped in a towel, water dripping from his hair, face and whatever else which was not covered.
“Are you crazy, he shouts at me, what is so important that you have to take me out from my shower? And knocking once was not enough for you? You practically tore the door down! ”
What a creep! Can anyone imagine me tearing a door down?
I turned around quietly. Seems that this man will hate me for a while.. But what a pity that I had no camera with me!
Getting back to the lady who listens to Schubert. I knock at her door and I hear a languorous:
“Come in, it’s open!”
The lady, whom I shall call Naava, leans back in her comfortable armchair with her legs up.. She wears a pink negligee, her make-up looks perfect, a glass filled with golden liquid stands next to her on a small table. All together she looks like a beautiful Renoir painting.
“Come in, come in, I have to talk to someone about my depression!”
“What’s wrong?”
“Well, you know that Saul and I were a couple for the last 4 years, we were just made for each other, we had the most wonderful time, I gave him the best years of my life (really, I thought, she must be around 85, were the last 4 years the best years of her life? How sad!) and now, she continues, he left me! My heart is broken, I will never survive this! Having dinner again to-night without Saul will kill me!”
“Why? How? Another woman??”
Of course not! What nonsense! No woman could be better than I am! No man would ever leave me for another woman! It’s just that…he went and died on me!!”
“When? How?”
Friday. After dinner. A coronary. Ambulance, hospital, and Saul is no more! It’s only three days and I simply cannot stand this loneliness!”
I sat with her for five minutes or so. I have enough handling my own depressions.
The next three or four doors were closed solid and after my adventure with the almost naked man, I had lost the courage to knock. But then I heard some noises from inside one apartment and I knocked gently. Shoshana invites me in. She is busy cutting vegetables for a salad.
“Why are you here, did you come to interview me for one of your articles? I won’t say a thing, I hate reporters and writers and now you have joined a group of people who dig into private lives without mercy. You used to be a nice woman, and I don’t know what happened to you!”
I am quite surprised by this unexpected attack.
“Shoshana, I am not a reporter, and I don’t do interviews. I just came to say hello and spend a minute or two with you!”
“Oh, yeah? It’s all yellow, yes, yellow! And I know why they call this kind of thing yellow, yellow is the color of cowardice, and the media are all cowards!”
“Please Shoshana, I am not ‘media!’ I am your neighbor, remember?”
“I don’t trust you! I don’t trust my son, I don’t trust my sister and I don’t trust the government! I don’t trust the government least of all! Liars, cheaters, wait till I get to the polls again to vote!”
Stealthily I leave her home while she is still talking and cutting vegetables. I think I am done for the day.
Lucca