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TIME TO TAKE OUT THE TRASH
The lady from the real estate agency who showed him the apartment, after extolling the balcony overlooking a park, the high ceilings, and the light-filled rooms, opened a metal hatch located on one of the inner courtyard walls, next to the kitchen, and told him it was the garbage chute. You can drop your garbage bags here and voilà! she exclaimed. While she talked, Ricardo turned his attention to a Bach piece that was coming from the adjoining apartment and asked who lived there. The woman didn’t know. It was the music, more than the balcony or the high ceilings or the garbage chute, that made him want to rent the apartment, because having cultured neighbors promised peace and harmony.
He ran into the woman one afternoon when he opened the metal hatch to throw out the previous day’s garbage. She had just opened the hatch on her side, and in that way, through the garbage chute, they met. They were both a little shocked seeing each other like that, and she was the first to snap out of her surprise. She asked him if he was the new tenant who had just moved in and Ricardo said yes, he was. Welcome, she said, and he thanked her. The hatches were large enough so they could see each other’s face and part of their bodies. The woman was in a wheelchair, holding a garbage bag, and she was wearing a night-gown that closed around her neck. Ricardo guessed that she must have been about seventy-five years old. With her there, on the other side of the garbage chute, he hesitated to throw his garbage bag in, and the woman sensed his reluctance, because she told him he should just drop it in. He dropped the bag, which plummeted to the basement floor four stories below. Then the woman stuffed her bag into the chute and let it fall. There’s a strange smell today, she said. She sniffed the duct, making a noise with her nose, and backed her wheelchair up a little, leaving the hatch open, apparently ready to continue conversing through that meter-wide gap that connected the two apartments. They fumigate every fifteen days; it shouldn’t smell like that, she said. Ricardo noticed her foreign accent and asked her where she was from. From Ireland, she replied. He told her that he was learning English online, because he was supposed to go to Australia in three months and he would be there for six weeks. His company’s headquarters was in Melbourne. The woman, who hadn’t understood him very well, wheeled closer to the garbage chute and asked him to speak louder. Ricardo repeated what he had just said. She sniffed the chute again. It smells so sharp today, she said, adding: Don’t mind me, I have a sensitive nose; I’m going to call the fumigator and ask him to spray again, and she asked him how good his English was. He replied that it was spotty, especially his grammar. Forget about the grammar, what you need is conversation, she said, and Ricardo agreed. The woman had backed away again to get away from the stench. I’m going to call the man who sprays, she repeated, and after wishing him a good day, she closed the hatch to her side of the garbage chute. Ricardo closed his and stood there but didn’t move. He’d lacked the courage to suggest that she could give him conversation classes. She was clearly an educated woman and English was her mother tongue. Besides, she lived on the other side of the wall and all he would have to do was cross the landing to attend his classes. He heard her open her duct hatch, most likely to toss in another garbage bag, but instead he heard the sound of her nose sniffing the chute. She’s obsessed, he thought. He opened his duct hatch and the woman pushed back with a start. Ricardo apologized for scaring her and, without preamble, asked her if she would be willing to give him some conversation lessons. She looked him in the eye, inhaled, and pushed back again. She seemed to be considering his proposal. Ricardo added that he would pay her, because the classes would be paid for by his company. He looked at her hands, furrowed with thick veins and laden with rings, and he thought that she must live alone. The woman came out of her musings and told him that she would have loved to, but her husband was a difficult person, he was sick and didn’t like to have anyone in the apartment; he didn’t like her going out either. I understand, he said, and he asked her to let him know if she changed her mind. My name’s Ricardo, he added. I’m Caroline, she said. Nice to meet you, Ricardo said, and gently closed the duct hatch.