I started to think about our day-to-day life — were we doing anything wrong, anything which could be seen as inappropriate? Did we keep ourselves out of sight when we changed our clothes? Did my wife always shut the bathroom door before hitching up her skirt when she was going to the toilet? Was I still doing up the belt on my trousers when I came out? Life was full of difficulties. If I met someone when I was leaving the flat, I found myself turning away from them as if I had something to hide. That couple strolling in the garden were always smiling as I watched them from our balcony. Were they laughing at me? I couldn’t shake the feeling that eyes were boring relentlessly into my back. I tried spying on the flat opposite, but the windows were always tight shut — it was as if they had never been opened. That made them even more sinister. I was sure there was someone standing behind them but I couldn’t see the expression on his face. What was he thinking? Was he smiling? What at? I didn’t know. Dammit, I didn’t know! I only knew he was watching me. It was unbearable.
One day — just like that — I went across to the building opposite and took the lift to the seventh floor. The flat had no security grille, as if no one had ever lived there. I broke in through the bathroom window to find the place empty and deserted. It had grey walls and a concrete floor thick with dust. Mine were the only footprints. I looked across to our flat. I could see our silvery aluminium window frames, the blue panes of glass and the pale blue curtains. Our bedroom. A bed. Someone lying on the bed. A man. For a moment I thought I was looking at myself. How many times had I warned my wife to keep the curtains closed? The bedroom door was shut and I saw myself lying there covered with a big red counterpane, like an offering in a temple. But of course it wasn’t me, it was another man, and it wasn’t our flat — it was the flat above. His hand was doing something under the covers and his eyes were shut. His face became more animated, his eyes glittered and his hand started jerking. I could almost hear him pant and smell his breath. The breath of a male, just like me. I felt as if something was gripping my crotch, a hand, a man’s hand, warm and moist. I was appalled…
I didn’t tell my wife what I’d seen in the upstairs flat. I didn’t tell anyone. I guess it’s hard to talk about that kind of thing. It’s OK to talk about assault, robbery, murder or even rape, but not wanking. We’ve all done it, after all, but what if people started talking about that? So I just kept quiet. But I couldn’t forget what I’d seen.
He was always whispering sweet nothings into his wife’s ear as they strolled in the garden. My wife always said they looked like a courting couple, but I just smiled and said nothing. All that whispering was quite unnecessary — they had been married for years. They moved in at about the same time as us, and they were already married back then. Couldn’t he have kept all that whispering to the bedroom? They didn’t have any children after all — maybe because of what he’d been getting up to.
He must have been worried his wife would come barging in. He couldn’t very well lock the door, because that would have made her suspicious straight away. Just imagine if she pushed open the door and caught him at it. No use her backing out of the room. No use him covering up. There was no getting out of this one. He’d had it. It would have been less embarrassing to have a bad fall, or to go bankrupt, or even to get hacked to death. This was worse than dying — at least if he died his wife might miss him. But if she caught him wanking it would be a stain he could never erase. His wife wouldn’t punish him. There would just be a wall of silence. He wouldn’t even know if she still remembered. Fuck! Was this man so desperate for a wank that he was prepared to risk everything?
I began to pay more attention to what was going on upstairs. Everything was heavy with significance: a tiny vibration, a clunk, the click of a door shutting, the smell of hot cooking oil, of rice wine being poured into the pan. I followed every minute detail and was delighted at even the slightest clue about their movements, gloating at my secret knowledge. Their footsteps were quite different, one a slow, heavy tread, the other light and quick with the sharp rap of high heels — these were obviously the wife’s. She moved around a lot more too, going from the bedroom to the kitchen, and from the kitchen to the sitting room. Her chores were never-ending. Eventually the footsteps would stop, with a clop, and another clop, as first one shoe then the other dropped to the floor by the bed. The sounds faded into the quietness of the night, but still I listened. I imagined them in bed, him stifling a yawn to show how tired he was. Night-night, turn out the light. Nothing doing tonight. It was deathly quiet. I kept listening. I couldn’t sleep, didn’t dare sleep, I was afraid of missing anything. I forced myself to stay awake. Then in the early dawn, the sounds upstairs started again. She started by the bed, then went to the bathroom. The toilet flushed, then she came out and went to the kitchen — I imagined her bleary eyed — and started clattering pots and bowls. She was alone. I knew where he was: behind the thinnest of plywood doors, playing with himself.
Did she have any idea what he was up to in their bed? It must still have held the warmth of her body, the scent of her perfume, maybe even a strand or two of her hair. Did she have the slightest suspicion?
Once I tried to catch him at it. I went up and knocked on the door. She opened it in her nightgown, obviously surprised to see me. I had to come up with some pretext, so I said ‘There’s water dripping from your balcony.’
‘No, there isn’t.’ she said, even more surprised. I gave her a sceptical look. ‘We haven’t washed it down,’ she added, opening the door a bit wider, as if asking me to see for myself.
At last I was in the home I had spent so much time wondering about. Was that a whiff of semen? The dining area was in the corner of the sitting room, as I had guessed, on the north side. There was a plate of toast on the dining room table — those clunks must have been the toaster. And the floors were parquet — no wonder I could hear everything so clearly. The bedroom door was made of Manchurian ash ply. It was shut, but I knew what was going on behind those flimsy panels. I couldn’t believe I was so close to exposing him. But she held back. Then I realised that you had to go through the bedroom to get to the balcony — what a brilliant excuse I had come up with.
‘If you want to sluice down the balcony, can you just let us know?’ I said. ‘Then we can put our stuff away. We’ve hung things out to dry downstairs.’
‘But we didn’t,’ she protested. ‘My husband’s still asleep.’
Huh! I thought to myself. Some sleep.
She went back into the kitchen and carried on making breakfast. She lit the gas and broke two eggs into the frying pan.
‘We were late to bed last night.’ She sounded embarrassed. She came back wiping her hands on the dishcloth as if she was the maid. She looked like a complete innocent, so vulnerable. She had absolutely no idea. I had a sudden urge to lunge at the bedroom door and kick it open. There he’d be in the throes of ecstasy, his penis standing up straight, semen pearling on the tip like snot. The veil would be torn from her eyes. She’d be shocked to discover she’d been living a lie, she might even try to kill herself in a frenzy of despair. The idea brought me up short. At that moment, she shouted and rushed back to the kitchen. She grabbed the smoking frying pan in a panic and lifted it high above the hob, where the gas still flamed. She didn’t know what to do, just looked at me for help.