Neighbors

The day before, someone had buzzed our apartment from downstairs. Since this didn't happen often (or ever actually), it caught me off guard. Geoff was at work, so I tentatively picked up the intercom phone and mumbled a cross between "allo" and "hello." At that point, the woman on the other end began babbling in French and all I caught was something about a kitchen and bathroom. So I said, "je ne comprends pas." She asked if I spoke English and I said yes. Then she babbled in English and was equally incomprehensible. She kept saying "it's very important," but that was all I got. Figuring she must be trying to sell something, I simply hung up the phone and went back to my computer. At this point, she somehow had managed to get buzzed into the building and rang my doorbell which I ignored for several minutes. I figured that eventually she'd give up and go away. Considering I couldn't understand her at all, that really seemed for the best. Several minutes of ringing was followed by a brief silence. But within seconds, she returned to buzzing the downstairs intercom. So instead of my polite Franglish 'hallo' I now barked into the phone "What on earth do you want!?" Again, she just said it was very important but nothing else. So I said, "Ugh. I'll come down." On my way out, she was on her way up the stairs.

Only face-to-face could we properly communicate. I finally learned the two most important bits of information - she was our downstairs neighbor and she had a leak. The petite woman was in her late 30s and had long black curly hair. Quite flustered, she rattled on quickly as if she were running out of time. She explained about the leak and wanted to show me. I went and looked - sure enough, a leak. But wait, I said, our apartment is not above yours, and we don't have any leaks. Still you never know, she said. Presumably she thought French pipes could defy gravity. I didn't rule it out either. I said, perhaps the culprit was the apartment directly above her. There was clearly someone living there because I had started to hear ridiculously loud music pumping out into the stairwell each time I crossed our apartment threshold. She said whoever lived there (he, she or it) wouldn't answer the door. She was nearly in tears. Her electricity had stopped working and her walls were ruined.

Ok, I sympathized, but I still was confused. I asked, what exactly would you like me to do? She said she needed me to call the plumber to make sure he could get in all the surrounding apartments when he came. Maybe I had misunderstood but it appeared that she was asking me to call the plumber for the leak in her apartment. I repeated this back to her in disbelief. She nodded. No, you should call, I offered. But her phones were dead due to the leak. What about a cell phone? But, she responded, I am French and I don't have a cell phone. I felt badly but there was no way I was going to test my French on a plumber for someone else's apartment. So I told her, no I couldn't do that but I would give her my cell number and promise to try and be here when her plumber arrived if I could.

This was when I realized that perhaps the self-sufficiency of apartments in Paris wasn't ideal for the tenants. When you had a problem, there was no management agency to call - it was simply your problem and you had to fix it. Our Paris apartment did seem unusually self sustaining. It even had its own individualized on-demand hot water system. When you turned on hot water in the apartment, a gas flame turned on inside a device tucked in the kitchen cabinets. This flame heated up the pipes through which water ran, causing the water coming out to be hot. When you turned the water off, the flame turned off. As we also learned the first time I took a shower, when you turned the water down too much thinking that lowering the water pressure would increase the heat of the water, the flame also shut off. So the water never got to the scalding temperature I preferred for my showers but it did get hot and presumably it never ran out. The heat, being electric, was also self-sufficient.

Anyway the next day, as I left for class, I heard the music thumping from the loud hermit next door and imagined some crazy French person blasting the music and overflowing the bathtub into that poor woman's apartment. When I returned later, I found a postcard under my door saying "NEWS from waterwork-trouble. According to the first investigations, the leak probably comes from the studio occupied by the man who is listening to loud music. I put a note under his door because he doesn't want to open it. The leak is still worrying. I hope it will not provoke a fire. My electricity is cut and I will not be very often at my place the next few days." I didn't know much about fires but I was fairly confident they didn't begin with water leaks.

Meanwhile that day in class, we got back the tests which we had taken on Tuesday. Apparently, one had to pass to proceed to the next level of classes. What had amused me most about our test was that as soon as our teacher had left the room, the Lebanese student started inquiring (in French) to others if they understood part of the instructions. Although he seemed a friendly guy, I couldn't warm up to him because he made a point of saying something sexist anytime the opportunity arose, which was often. Anyway, the whispering of students seemed comical to me so I started laughing at which point he asked me if I understood what the instructions meant by "particularités." I gave him a French shrug, a smile, and a "j'n sais pas." This was followed by more loud whispering at which point the Mexican girl in the class, shushed them. Thankfully, the teacher returned so we had some quiet time to complete the test.

After such hubbub, everyone passed the test. Although the teacher did ask the Japanese guy if he wanted to continue or if he'd prefer staying on in the same level. Maybe that's as much as anyone could fail, who knows. I liked our class. We would have political and theoretical conversations in French which I thought was hysterical since I still didn't know the best way to say "nice to meet you." Clearly, my teacher also found it disturbing that the Lebanese student believed women an inferior breed. Our conversation always drifted to equal rights. One day, we discussed women in politics at which point the Lebanese guy said there weren't too many women in politics because they were too emotional. Our teacher wanted an alternate opinion and no one chimed in, either because they didn't care or because the French eluded them, I wasn't sure. So not being one to let things slide, I popped my hand up. I started down a path of saying something like "I think that the teachers in school..." hmm, what was the word for discriminate. I shook my head and told my teacher, "Je ne sais pas le mot." But she knew I was her only hope to defend the rights of women, so she encouraged me to press on. So I came up with some other very simplistic way of stating what I meant - something that translated to, "The teachers do not think the girls can be politicians." Clearly I had hit the mark because she quoted a study that had been done on school discrimination. If this class was graded, I would have just landed my A.

I found it amusing that my teacher kept egging on this chauvinist guy. One time we did this exercise which featured a picture of a man rollerblading and carrying a child. Of course this prompted a conversation about women's roles in the home versus careers. The Lebanese guy predictably expressed where he thought women should stay. Knowing me to be her new ally, the teacher turned to me for my response. But I couldn't resist teasing her so I said "Vous pensez que vous pouvez changer sa tete" (you think you can change his mind) which brought laughter from all the students, even my nemesis.

That night, I did some food shopping and went back to our apartment with a load of five full grocery bags. The door to our apartment building was tucked next to a raw seafood stand manned by rotating crew of Senegalese men. One of them clearly had a crush on me since the first day I arrived, at which point Sylvia scolded him that I was married. This didn't deter him much. Each time he worked, he eagerly tried to make conversation even though I made it pretty clear I had no idea what he was saying.

But this night, I stopped. I had been in my class for nearly two weeks and was interested in seeing if we could have a conversation that made sense. Since he spoke no English, there was no opportunity to slip into the native tongue. So we chatted. He said he was trying to learn English and showed me a learning tape. He asked where we were from. I told him I was American, but really Italian too. I didn't know how to say Jewish. He corrected me on how to say I was from New York but originating from Italy. After a few minutes, the bags in my hands were getting heavy, so I said I must leave but perhaps some day when he was working we'd eat at the restaurant. He said we could go out afterwards dancing which I thought was funny. He asked if I went out at night ever. I asked, with my husband? He said, no alone, and laughed. I smiled and answered, "Non parce que je ne suis pas française " and waved aurevoir which he thought was hysterical. I laughed too. I had definitely decided that there was nothing more fun than making a joke in French.