The Tenant (5 page)

The landlord glanced at him coldly. “I should hope not. You waked up both my wife and me, and we couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night. And all of your neighbors have complained. What was the meaning of all that?”

“We were celebrating . . .” Trelkovsky hesitated. “. . . my enormous good fortune in having found this splendid apartment. Just a few friends and myself—we thought we could have a kind of—well—a kind of housewarming, without bothering anyone else. Yes, that was it—it was just to be a little housewarming celebration. But you know how things happen—with the best will in the world, and never dreaming of disturbing anyone else, you get to talking, you’re having a good time . . . and then everyone starts talking at once, and before you know it you’re talking louder than you should . . . But I’m terribly sorry about it, and I assure you it will never happen again.”

The landlord looked Trelkovsky straight in the eye now. “I’m glad you told me that, Monsieur Trelkovsky, and I hope you mean it, because if not . . . I don’t mind telling you that I was thinking seriously of taking steps to correct the situation. Very serious steps. I cannot permit a tenant to come into my building and spread disorder and confusion; I cannot permit it. So—we’ll forget about it this time, but it is once too often. Don’t let it happen again. Apartments are hard enough to find these days, without being foolish enough to lose the one you have. Just remember that.”

In the days that followed, Trelkovsky was careful to furnish his neighbors with no pretext whatever for complaint. His radio was always turned down as low as he could get it, and at ten o’clock at night he got in bed and read. In future, he would be able to go down the stairs with his head held high; he was now a full-fledged tenant, or almost so. But he could not escape the feeling that, in spite of his present behavior, he had not yet been forgiven for the regrettable incident of the party.

Although he seldom saw any of his neighbors, he did occasionally pass someone on the staircase. He had no way of knowing, of course, whether it was a genuine neighbor, or a visiting relative or friend of a neighbor, or simply a door-to-door salesman of some kind. But rather than run the risk of seeming impolite, he said good morning to everyone he saw. If he were wearing a hat, he would lift it and bow slightly, and if he were not wearing one his hand would sketch the movement of lifting it. He always moved to the side of the stairway or the landing as soon as he saw anyone approach, and then smiled broadly and waved, saying, “After you, monsieur” (or madame, if the case required).

In the same manner, he never failed to say good morning or good evening to the concierge when he saw her, but for her part she continued to return his greeting with a blank stare which contained not the slightest sign of recognition. She invariably just studied him curiously, as if she were surprised every time she saw him. But apart from such brief encounters on the stairs Trelkovsky had no contact at all with his neighbors. He had never again even seen the tall, pale man in a bathrobe who had come to his door to complain. Once, when he went to the toilet, the door had not opened when he turned the handle and a voice from inside had called, “It’s occupied!” It had seemed to him that it was the tall, pale man’s voice, but since he had not waited—because he didn’t want to embarrass the man when he came out or make him self-conscious about the rustle of the toilet paper—he was never sure.

5
The Mysteries

F
our nights in succession, the neighbors knocked on the walls.

Whenever Trelkovsky’s friends saw him now, they immediately began making fun of him. And when his colleagues in the office learned of the situation they joined in the general hilarity over his panicky conduct.

“You’re wrong to let them intimidate you this way,” Scope kept telling him. “If you let them get away with it, they’ll never stop. Believe me—just act as if they didn’t exist, and they’ll soon get tired of bothering you.”

But in spite of all his efforts, Trelkovsky was incapable of “acting as if they didn’t exist.”

Never at any moment when he was in the apartment could he rid himself of the thought that there was someone up above, someone down below, and others next door. But even if he had succeeded in forgetting them, they would have made a point of reminding him of their presence. Not that they made any undue amount of noise, of course; no, it wasn’t that, it was just a succession of discreet rustling sounds, of almost imperceptible creakings, of muffled coughing, of doors grating softly on their hinges.

Occasionally, someone knocked. Trelkovsky went to open the door, but there was no one there. He went out on the landing and leaned over the railing. Then he might glimpse a door closing on the floor beneath, or hear an unsteady footstep begin to descend the stairs from the floor above. But it was never anything that directly concerned him.

At night, the sound of snoring would jerk him suddenly awake. But there was never anyone else in his bed. The sound came from somewhere else; it was one of the neighbors who was snoring. Trelkovsky would lie awake for hours, motionless and silent in the darkness, listening to the sleeping noises of the anonymous neighbor. He tried to call up a mental picture of what sort of person it might be. A man or a woman, with a mouth opened wide, the sheet pulled up so that it covered the bottom half of the face, or perhaps thrown back, leaving the shoulders and chest uncovered. One hand hanging over the side of the bed, perhaps. He would fall asleep again at last, but a few minutes later he would be awakened again by the ringing of an alarm clock. Then, somewhere else, a fumbling hand would restore silence by pressing on a little button. Trelkovsky’s fumbling hand, automatically searching for a little button of his own, served no purpose at all.

“You’ll see,” Scope said, “you’ll get used to it in time. You had neighbors in the place where you used to live, but you didn’t worry about them like this.”

“If you stop making any noise,” Simon added, “they’ll think they’ve won. And then they’ll never let you alone. Suzanne told me that when they first moved into their apartment the neighbors tried to make trouble for her because of the baby. So her husband bought a set of drums, and whenever anyone said anything to her about the baby he got out the drums and played for hours. No one bothers them any more.”

Trelkovsky genuinely admired the courage of Suzanne’s husband. He thought that he must be a big man, and strong. He would have to be to act the way he did. Unless, on the contrary, he was small and puny, but determined not to let himself be pushed around just because of his size. But in that case, the thing that puzzled Trelkovsky was why the neighbors hadn’t simply beaten him up. Of course, if he were big and strong, they wouldn’t dare try. But if he were small and puny? Perhaps they had just decided it wasn’t important—and in fact, it wasn’t. The problem was whether all neighbors would feel the same way. In his own case—what would happen with his neighbors if he were to behave in the same way? He suddenly remembered a clause in the lease which forbade him from playing a musical instrument.

Whenever he did anything in the office like dropping a penholder or something of the sort, his colleagues would pound on the wall with their fists and call out, “You’re not going to let us sleep again?” or, “How long are you going to keep up this racket?” They laughed like children when they saw the terrified expression on Trelkovsky’s face. He knew that it was just a joke, that this wasn’t real, but even though he tried to be calm his heart always began thumping against his ribs. He smiled, as if it were all very amusing, but he was miserable.

One night, Scope invited him to his apartment.

“You’ll see,” he said. “I don’t worry about these things.”

He turned on the phonograph as soon as they entered, and set it at its maximum volume. In mortal terror, Trelkovsky listened to the rumbling of the brasses and the explosion of the percussion instruments. He had the impression that he was sitting in the very center of the orchestra. And everyone else must have had the same impression, especially the neighbors. Trelkovsky felt himself going scarlet with embarrassment. There was only one thing in the world he wanted at that moment: to turn the dial and restore peace and quiet to the room.

Scope laughed maliciously. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Are you shocked? No, leave it alone—you’ll see; I know what I’m doing.”

Trelkovsky was forced to call on every ounce of will power he had just to remain in his chair. What a way to act! What must the neighbors think? It seemed to him that the music was nothing but an enormous, unseemly belching—an infernally noisy display from an organism that should have been silent.

Finally, he couldn’t stand it any longer. “Turn it down a little,” he suggested timidly.

“No, leave it alone,” Scope shouted, above the din. “Why should you worry about it? I told you I knew what I was doing.” Then he added, laughing, “They’re used to it by now.”

Trelkovsky put his hands to his ears. “But it’s too loud, even for us.”

“You’re not used to it, eh? Then why don’t you enjoy it while you can—you can’t do it at home!”

At that moment, someone knocked at the door. Trelkovsky jumped.

“A neighbor?” he demanded anxiously.

“I hope so. You’ll see how these things should be handled.”

And of course it was a neighbor.

“I’m sorry to bother you, monsieur,” he began. “I see you have company . . . I wonder if you could turn down the sound a little; my wife is ill . . .”

Scope’s face turned an angry, mottled purple. “So!” he shouted, “she’s sick, is she? Well, what do you think I’m going to do about it—stop living, just because of her? If she’s sick, why doesn’t she go to the hospital? You can keep your sob stories for someone else, they don’t mean anything to me! I’ll play my records if I want to, and as loud as I want to! I’m deaf myself, but I don’t intend to be deprived of listening to music just because of that!”

He pushed the neighbor back onto the landing and slammed the door in his face.

“And don’t try to pull any tricks,” he shouted at the door, “I know the superintendent of police!”

Then he turned back to Trelkovsky, smiling broadly. “You see? That’s the way to get rid of them.”

Trelkovsky said nothing. He was incapable of speech. An attempt to pronounce so much as a word would have choked him. He could not watch a human being humiliated in this manner. He could still see the expression on the neighbor’s face as he recoiled from Scope’s angry shouting. The depths of his confusion had been reflected in his eyes. What could he say to his wife when he went back to his own apartment? Would he try to pretend that it was he who had done the shouting, or would he admit his ignominious defeat?

Trelkovsky was overcome. “But if his wife is sick . . .” he murmured.

“So what? I don’t give a—for his wife. I don’t go looking for him to tell him to be quiet when I’m sick. And he won’t come back here, either—I’ll guarantee you that.”

Fortunately, Trelkovsky met no one on the staircase when he left. He made himself a promise that he would never go to visit Scope at home again.

“If you could have seen Trelkovsky’s face when I told that guy off,” Scope told Simon. “He looked as if he didn’t know where to hide!”

They burst out laughing. Trelkovsky loathed both of them.

“He may be right, at that,” Simon said. “Look at this.” He took a newspaper from his coat pocket and unfolded it. “How’s this for a headline?
DRUNK, HE SANG TOSCA AT THREE O
’
CLOCK IN THE MORNING, HIS NEIGHBOR SHOOTS HIM WITH A REVOLVER
. Interesting, don’t you think?”

Trelkovsky and Scope tried to snatch the newspaper from his hands, but Simon brushed them off. “Don’t be so impatient,” he said. “I’ll read it to you. ‘Last night was an active one for tenants of the building located at No. 8, Avenue Gambetta, in Lyon. For one of them, indeed, it was fatal. Monsieur Louis D—, forty-seven years old, bachelor, salesman for a manufacturing concern, had celebrated the successful negotiation of a contract with some friends, and had drunk more than was good for him. When he returned home, at about three o’clock in the morning, he decided to entertain his neighbors with a few operatic arias, since he was very proud of his singing voice. After several long excerpts from
Faust,
he had begun on
Tosca
when one of his neighbors, Monsieur Julien P—, fifty years old, married, wine broker, directed him to stop. Monsieur D—refused, and as an indication of his determination to go on with the concert went out to the landing, to sing from there. Monsieur P—then returned to his apartment and brought out an automatic pistol, which he emptied into the unfortunate drunkard. Monsieur D—was taken immediately to a hospital, where he died shortly after arrival. The murderer has been arrested.’ ”

While Simon was reading and Scope laughing loudly, Trelkovsky had felt an emotional knot forming in his throat. He had to clench his teeth tightly together to keep from crying. The same thing had happened to him often before, for the most absurd reasons, and he was invariably more embarrassed by it than anyone else. An irresistible desire to break down in tears swept over him, forcing him to blow his nose repeatedly, in spite of the fact that he had no sign of a cold.

He bought a copy of the newspaper, so that he would have the article himself and could reread it at home.

All through this period it had been impossible for him to see either Scope or Simon without being forced to listen to a flood of anecdotes about the conduct of neighbors. Even as they were telling him these stories, they would demand news of the latest developments in his own situation. They were dying to be invited again to his apartment, in the hope of causing an irreparable scandal, which would bring the whole thing to a violent end. When Trelkovsky categorically refused to invite them, they threatened to come whether he asked them or not.

“You’ll see,” Simon announced, “we’ll arrive at four o’clock in the morning and bang on the door and call you by name.”

“Or,” Scope intervened, “we might knock on the door on the floor beneath you, and ask for you.”