Monsieur le voisin
[ Home ]The neighbor of my friend in Paris is an old french monsieur. They have
been neighbors in this charming apartment building in the 15th
arrondissement of Paris for almost two decades. As my friend had sent
all her furniture and belongings back to her hometown in Thailand when I
visited her, we had to even borrow his kitchen to bake a cake for
someone’s birthday that day.
This monsieur, probably in his 80s,
has his hearing gone bad. I told him that I found his place very
charming, and he stood still on his balcony facing the street, giving me
his back. He was wearing a navy blue cardigan, quite washed, like a
disappearing rain cloud barely covering the light of that fair Saturday
morning from the living room, where aged wooden tables, chairs, shelves,
and thick carpets smelt like a forgotten garden. The sunburst lined his
fragile, bent figure behind the dancing curtains. I crossed the living
room, went to the balcony and said very loudly to him again: You have a
very lovely place, monsieur.
He backed off from the balcony, with
a look of old men that I don’t know how to describe. Their faces are
wrinkled like mist, content, excitement, nervousness, or sadness have
all mixed together, that I cannot easily tell them apart.
He took me
to a side room next to the sejour, it was in the process of renovation.
My wife died six months ago. He said, quickly moved to the main point:
since then my son has been working on this piece over and over again, so
far he has failed twice already, he said, smiling.
My friend who
was in the middle of her second trying of an unsuccessful cake sent me
to her place to pick up a few eggs. When I returned, I was followed by a
huge sullen cat of black and white. It was monsieur’s cat. This
mysterious creature is a must have in almost every charming apartment in
Paris. They look neither friendly nor interesting, yet they integrate
so naturally as if they were a part of the design, like window frames,
or iron railing of the balcony.
He called him, trying to reason with
him, and the cat sat down staring back at him without an reaction. This
poor thing became enormous ever since I had his thing cut off. Monsieur
explained. I smiled, and went back to the kitchen to help with cleaning.
I
looked at the sink as if I was looking into someone’s life, or mine
own. We are all different, yet so similar, I wonder if God can tell us
apart, I wonder if our joy and pain, in the end, sound all the same to
him.
I have a thing for old people. Old people and children have
something in common, I think, they all have that clinging to certain
things, such as fantasies of children, and convictions of old. It is the
same clinging to what they believe. That certainty in their attitude
together with the fragility of their bodies make their existence
incredibly affecting.
To be happy woman with your family
The justification of one crime, or another
Connect the world, connect people, with a better
You still will be saying nothing