Quim Monzó - Guadalajara

She asks, “Why do you think things will be any different if I’m with you?”

He doesn’t reply, grabs her wrist, they walk towards the door, he takes a deep breath, turns the handle, opens the door, and they go out; in effect, they reach the landing as he’d predicted. He gives a sigh of relief. She looks at him, taken aback. He presses the button for the elevator. She says there’s no point because the elevator is out of order: she’d had to walk up. They walk downstairs. On the ground floor there’s a notice on the elevator-door: OUT OF ORDER.

They go for a stroll, look at the shop windows and the colored lights—shaped into stars, little birds, and bells—that decorate the street. She buys two presents for Twelfth Night. A truck and a cement-mixing truck, huge, plastic toys, for her nephews. With those presents for company, they dine out, drink tea in a café until she looks at her watch and says it’s time she was going. He takes her right hand in his left.

“Come home with me,” he suggests, “don’t abandon me. If you do, it will happen again.”

The woman laughs and acknowledges nobody’s ever used this line on her before, but it’s not ingenious enough to persuade her to spend the night in his apartment. They’ve often talked about doing it. She knows he wants to sleep with her, but for the moment she’s happy the way things are. She understands he’s frustrated: she knows men can’t usually accept the possibility of a straightforward friendship with a woman without sex. He finds her little homily rather tiresome, is annoyed and decides that in fact it would be better if she did clear off. They kiss each other on the cheek; she disappears down into the subway. The man walks on along the street. He can’t be bothered (he’s not afraid, just can’t be bothered) to go home because he knows the minute he’s back inside he won’t be able to leave. So he decides there’s no point rushing back. There’s a cocktail bar nearby that he particularly likes, with a wooden floor and ceiling and glass cabinets full of bottles mounted on every wall. He heads there. In the distance he can see the elongated light over the gold nameplate. He pushes the thick, heavy door open, pulls aside the red velvet curtain, and, hey presto!, he’s back in his hallway. He turns half around and opens the door again: every step he takes to leave is a step that takes him inside. He turns half around again, opens the door again, leaves again, and comes back in again. He’s back inside now.

He decides to try the window. He pulls up a stool, stands on it, opens the window, pulls himself up, and climbs out. It’s a narrow sill. The cars look tiny down in the street. In effect, he’s managed to leave his apartment through the window and is now precariously balanced. It’s cold. He stands there for a time weighing up his next step. It’s not that he needs to do anything special. It’s fine outside. If there weren’t such a wind, it would be even better: being outside means that at least he’s gotten out. So he’s not simply standing still, he walks slowly along the ledge, his back to the wall, looking out into the void until he’s level with the window of the next-door apartment. Inside, his neighbor is helping her son do his homework. Watching these scenes of daily life through windows always makes him feel sentimental. When he walks down the street, he’s always on the lookout for an interior in a low-level apartment. A light in a dining room ceiling, two heads around a table, a chunk of shelving, a painting, and someone sitting in an armchair. He doesn’t even consider the possibility of knocking on his neighbor’s window. He knows that if he does, the shocked, surprised woman will scream, even though she’ll recognize him as soon as she opens the window. Naturally, she’d let him in; she couldn’t do otherwise, she knows he is her neighbor and must have a very good reason for being on her windowsill. Besides, she is a gossip and wouldn’t want to fritter away such a splendid opportunity. But what good would it do? If she doesn’t accompany him, once he finally decides to leave his neighbor’s flat, he’ll only have to walk out of the door and he’ll return to his own place without even crossing the landing. He’ll only have to open her door to open his and be back to square one. He decides to walk back. He retraces his steps along the ledge, as slowly as he’d come. He’s soon close to his window. He’s about to twist around and climb back in when he notices a small group of tiny people looking up at him and pointing. He’s alarmed. If they’re looking at him and pointing like that, it can only mean one thing: they think he wants to commit suicide! Or that he’s trying to break into an apartment and steal something. It’s a reasonable assumption. Why else would anyone want to walk along that ledge? To steal or to commit suicide. Or take photos. He could be a detective trying to take photos of his client’s husband, catch him in the act with a lover. He’s been watching them for quite a while. He finds it amusing. More and more people are looking up at him. He’s excited to think they think he wants to commit suicide or steal. The traffic soon snarls up. Cars honk their horns, the municipal police arrive, look up at him for a moment, and then blow their whistles and try to restore order. The crowd gets bigger. Soon after, the firefighters arrive, siren wailing and revolving light flashing. Seven men get out of their truck. The seven spread out a safety blanket, to give him a safe landing. The man gets even more alarmed (they really do think he’s going to commit suicide!), he turns round abruptly, pulls himself up, climbs through the window, and is back inside his apartment. He closes the window and takes a deep breath. He looks around and back down into the street. The crowd is still there. He pours himself a glass of water. Sits on his sofa. Sweats. Switches on the TV.

A few minutes later, someone knocks on his door. He gets up and opens the door. Two firefighters stand there: one is extremely fat, making the other one seem comparatively thin, though he’s not. They are out of breath. The extremely fat one wipes the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief, folds it, still breathless, and makes a declaration, as if scolding the tenant: “The elevator’s out of order.”

The other firefighter takes a step towards him.

“Good evening. Number two on the eighth?” The man nods. “We have to write a report justifying why we came out. A moment ago a man was near your window, about to jump. Who was it?”

“No, he wasn’t going to jump. Let me explain.”

Now that the firefighters are here, there is a landing. Is it always like that? If there is someone with him, the landing is there; if he’s alone, the landing disappears and he finds his hallway in its stead. His neighbor’s door is on the other side of the landing (she’s straightening some paintings that are hanging in her hall), it’s open a few inches so she can see and hear better. The man invites the firefighters inside, and as he closes his door, he sees his neighbor close hers too. What would happen now, if he tried to leave with the firemen inside? Would he simply come back in or would he find the landing there? To check that out, he apologizes, leaves the firemen in his living room, goes into his hall, opens the door, and as he leaves, comes back into his hallway and shuts the door with a click. But the firefighters aren’t in his new hallway. He pokes his head into his dining room: they’re not there either. He opens his cocktail bar and pours himself a glass; sits down and watches TV once again.

Twenty minutes later, more knocks at the door. Three more firefighters.

“Good evening. Sorry to bother you. Two colleagues of ours came up to this apartment a while ago to fill out a report and haven’t come back down.”