I worried about so many facets of the situation that once again I wound up taking no action.
And then one evening I woke up in the middle of the night. I lay still in my bed, my eyes closed, asking myself what it was that had awakened me. A few minutes passed, and then I heard her voice. It was very soft, a whisper from the depths, each word seeming to erase the one that came before it. I slid out from beneath my blanket and quietly got to my feet. I followed the sound to the living room, then into the hallway. I paused a moment inside my door, leaned against the wooden frame, and tensed in order to better capture the faint whispering from downstairs. It was so hushed that it would have been easy to ignore. I cautiously unlocked my door, careful to make no noise, and peered out into the stairwell. It was pitch-black except for a narrow strip of light that came through the window in the front door down on the ground floor. I pushed my own door open a bit wider and inched my head through the crack. My attention was drawn to a movement one floor below me. It took another second for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, and then I realized that it was the owner’s wife. She was lying on her stomach, crawling on hands and knees up the stairs toward me. She seemed to be pulling herself upward with her arms, as if her legs were no longer working. Her hair stuck to her face in wet stripes. She breathed heavily but almost without sound, as if she didn’t want to be overheard. Then she apparently became aware of something behind her and stiffened, just for an instant. Her features froze in an icy fear that crackled through her, and I suddenly saw that her hair wasn’t wet but drenched with blood. It streamed from her hairline, trickled down her face, pooled at the bottoms of her eyes. She couldn’t see me, I knew. She shivered and sighed, her fingers clawing the steps to pull her more quickly upward.
And that’s when I saw him. He was leaning against the doorjamb, his arms folded across his chest, watching her in utter silence. Then he leaned forward and, without a word, grabbed her by the ankles. He dragged her down the stairs and, in continued silence, back into their apartment. Her eyes and mouth gaped wide open, but still she made no sound. Just before she disappeared from my sight, it seemed as if she stared straight up into my face. He shut the door noiselessly, and the quiet of the night was absolute, as if it had swallowed her whole.
The next few days, I was immersed in a somberness inappropriate to a person of my years. For some time, I had observed my surroundings with a sort of lighthearted resignation, and I was quite satisfied with that attitude. But now this darkness, this violence, had penetrated my walls. I sat in my armchair for long hours and watched the crowns of the tallest trees swaying gently in the wind. I remembered how, only a few months earlier, the older ones had been cut down, had vanished from the park after living there for decades and had quickly been forgotten, and how their disappearance had offered light and air to those that remained. This park, I thought, just like this house, just like this city I know so well... everything changes, but at heart it remains the same.
Everything is irreplaceably what it is. Nothing yields. Nothing bends to the world’s violence.
The following day, I waited for the owner’s wife. Each time I heard the front door open, I hurried to the stairwell to see who it was. The third time, it was her. She was coming up the stairs, a blue-and-white shopping bag in her hand. I started down, holding carefully to the railing. Although I moved as quickly as my tired legs permitted, she reached her apartment door before me. She glanced up at me for a moment, surprised, and offered me a slight nod as she slid her key in the lock.
“Ma’am?” I said, inwardly cursing my old bones for not being faster.
She hesitated, visibly reluctant, the knob in her hand. “Yes?”
A few steep steps still separated us. It seemed to take an eternity before I reached her, but fortunately she waited. When I finally got there, I had to catch my breath. I leaned a hand against the wall, held up the other in a gesture that pleaded with her to grant me a moment to compose myself.
“Yes?” she said again, and she sounded irritated. Much of her face was concealed by large sunglasses, which I expected her to remove now that she was indoors, now that we stood side by side. But she kept them on and wore no visible expression. Her skin was as pale as I remembered, her lips pressed tightly together, leaving no room for emotion.
“Is your husband home?” I asked when I was able to speak.
She shook her head and turned to go inside.
“No, wait, it doesn’t matter. I mean — I actually wanted to talk to you.”
She seemed distracted. I got the strange feeling that she anticipated I would strike her.
“I wanted to tell you that I know. I know what he does to you. Is there anything I can do to help?”
Her mouth opened very slightly, but she promptly closed it again. I still couldn’t read her expression. She swallowed and said, “He can’t help it. It’s his heart.”
“He has a heart condition?”
She nodded. “He takes medication, and it has side effects. Sometimes... sometimes he’s not himself.”
“Why don’t you leave him?”
She lowered her head and whispered, “I don’t dare.”
“But you want to?”
She nodded without saying anything, then turned away from me abruptly, as if shocked by her own response.
After that conversation, I was determined to help her. I had done nothing in my life for which I needed to be embarrassed, but also nothing to be proud of. This, as I neared my finish line, would be my gift to the world. I devised a plan, and practiced the appropriate expressions of hysteria before the mirror. It wouldn’t be easy, but I hadn’t felt so keyed up in years.
The next day was a Saturday. It was ten minutes to six in the morning. I sat on the edge of my bed in pajamas and robe. I stood up and took off the robe, examined myself in the hall mirror, then went back to my bedroom and put it back on. Between the trees, the park outside was a dark gray. It wouldn’t be long before the light would shift and daybreak would come. I checked the clock on the windowsill. Eight minutes to six. The owner would be fast asleep. It was time to act.
I picked up the telephone receiver and waited for the trembling of my hand to subside. Then I dialed his number. It was awhile before he answered, his voice hoarse with sleep. “Hello?”
I took a deep breath and screamed, as loudly and hysterically as I could, trusting that, newly awakened, he wouldn’t recognize the sound as rehearsed: “Rats! Rats! There are rats in my apartment! You have to come up!”
“What? What are you... do you know what time it is?”
“They’re in the attic! I can hear them scuttling around all night long, and now they’re in the walls! I’m scared!”
“Can’t it wait? It’s—”
“No! No, it can’t wait! Please come now, I can’t stand it!”
“All right, calm down. I’m on my way. Jesus!”
He hung up. I set down the phone and waited, shaking with excitement, until I heard his apartment door open below. I took a breath and burst out into the stairwell with all the emotion I could muster. “There must be five or six of them!” I screamed at him, while he was still climbing the flight of stairs between us. He looked at me with irritation tinged with suspicion. I must have appeared crazy, with my white hair sticking out in all directions, my wrinkled pajamas, my unkempt robe hanging off my shoulders. “It’s horrible! Disgusting! I’ve always been terrified of rats. And now they’re in the ceiling. I can hear their nails scratching the wood, they probably have a nest of babies by now. The filthy beasts must be everywhere, and they eat everything. What do I do if they come into my apartment? What do I do?!”