our apartment building is in the østerbro district of copenhagen, a quiet, moderately upscale part of town where the streets and boulevards are broader than most other areas of the city, the shops are less au courant and more antique chic, and the apartments tend to be more spacious than your typical copenhagen dwelling. conversely, neighbours are much less inclined to interact with each other than in other parts of copenhagen and i’m not certain if there is a correlation between the two.
in our building, on the ground floor to the left, lives a slender woman in her mid twenties, who one often sees jogging on the promenade around the series of lakes that pass in front of the apartment building. i don’t know what she does for a living, but she wears very conservative clothing, her hair is often tied in a ponytail, she seems to have a few gentlemen callers from time to time, and she has orchids in her windows.
to her right lives the welfare family, a working class danish family, which we presume are living on welfare because they are always around. the wife and husband are both in their late fifties and they have two children who may be in their late teens or early twenties, it is hard to say, but the offspring are always around as well. on occasion, one would find the man of the house in front of the apartment building, on the sidewalk, seated on a plastic fold-away chair, a bottle of beer in hand and his head (crowned with a boyish cut of thin silvery tufts of hair) turned towards the late afternoon sun; but most of the time, one would find him sitting in an open window, watching the changing colours and shapes of the chestnut trees that form a line along the lakes, a forlorn gaze from a face that has aged through many years of grim endurance. he wears clogs and dark shorts and dark socks, even in the colder months, and for years, we never heard a word escape from his lips, until last summer, when we seized the responsibility to introduce ourselves, and then discovered that he was a soft-spoken, friendly fellow whose voice resided in the upper registers, and since then, we have wondered what events have transpired to prevent this man from gainful employment, for he seems so bored.
above the welfare family, on the right side of the building, lives a couple that no one has ever seen or heard. there is a name tag on the door, neatly typed on white tape from a labelling machine, but that is the only evidence that the apartment is occupied.
behind the door to their left is the source of many powerful, pungent aromas that, through ruthless domination, provide for the defining olfactory profile of the entire apartment building. a filipino family lives in this apartment, and it seems as if there is always a flurry of activity emerging from the kitchen. whenever the door opens, the heady, almost intoxicating scent of curry, adobo, stewed meat, and cheese escape from their hallway, filling the canyons of the stairwell, from the ground floor to the top. regardless of the time of year, the whiff of their culinary escapades is inescapable, though it is, of course, much more prominent during the summer months. an educated guess says that there are five who live in this apartment, but it’s hard to ascertain because on the rare chance that one might steal a glimpse beyond the front door into their hallway, one is stunned to discover that there must be at least twenty-five pairs of shoes scattered on the floor. it is, however, safe to assume that one of the parents works in the embassy, for that particular apartment is routinely subletted to employees of the various embassies that populate this part of town. the family is rarely seen, though they are frequently heard, and we are quite certain that they like to keep a watchful eye on things. whenever we descend the stairs from our apartment on the fourth floor, one can hear their door opening, then slamming shut just before we reach their floor, only for the door to open again sometime after we have passed.
above them, now on the second floor to the left, lives an elderly couple who are frequently visited by a social worker who brings them prepared meals. i have heard that he is well known academic, the font of many progressive papers on immigration policy, but i have never had occasion to speak with him. he is short, with greyish hair, wears plaid button down short sleeve shirts and old fashioned, tortoise shell glasses which squarely frame his elongated face. he drives a weathered, faded red citroen, vintage 1980s, which he parks in front of the apartment building and cleans with a vacuum cleaner on a regular basis. the only times i have seen his wife is when she waits for him, standing just inside the doorway in front of a wall bearing ancient floral wallpaper. she holds the door for him as he returns from his saturday errands. otherwise, one might see her when the red citroen is packed with a weekend’s worth of supplies, as her husband holds the faded red door open for her, and one might see them drive away, presumably towards their summerhouse or garden allotment outside of the city.
next to them, on the right side of the building, live two young men who project the studied, dilapidated appearance of university students. that or they work in internet start-ups. they both have english last names, but we assume that they are danish. occasionally, they have parties, and their guests loiter on the stairwell smoking cigarettes or marijuana joints, and on the following day, the only remnants of the party from the night before might be a crate of empty beer bottles placed in the stairwell and a few stubbed out cigarette butts, but otherwise, they keep to themselves.
to their left, is an empty apartment that serves as a final resting place for newspapers, until by the end of each week, somebody comes by to collect the week’s worth of deliveries. it is also possible that the newspapers are not collected at all, but merely stuffed through the mail slot, in which case, the entrée must certainly be knee deep with the daily musings of local journalists, pull-out advertisements, and sunday sections that are slowly turning brittle, in various states of yellowed decomposition. the apartment has recently been renovated, and we’ve seen a moving truck pull up to the building, unload a small band of movers in green jumpsuits, who then emptied the contents of the truck into this particular apartment, but we’ve never seen proof that anyone currently resides here. there’s a woman’s name (of scandinavian origin) on a simple sign posted on the door but one would hazard a guess that she is most likely living somewhere else, biding her time until she can move in for good. perhaps she has a lover in a foreign city whom she can’t tear herself away from, or perhaps she works in covert operations and only comes home every now and then under cover of night for a fresh change of clothes. perhaps she is an artist, finishing her opus in berlin, or perhaps she bought the apartment and then experienced buyer’s remorse, refusing to acknowledge the apartment’s existence, hoping that it will go away by itself.
without a face to assign to this particular space, one is compelled to reflect upon the apartment’s previous occupants: a finnish couple with a baby that cried incessantly and cardboard moving boxes that never left the living room window. from our apartment right above, we would hear the baby every morning, afternoon and evening, and though it didn’t bother us, the young finnish couple felt compelled to leave us an apologetic letter written on a pink post-it note, which they had taped to our door, to which we responded in a folded letter sized paper, taped to their door, that an apology was not necessary, but we thanked them for the consideration that they intended to show us. a few months later, they moved out and the sounds of their crying baby boy left with them.
before them, there lived a croatian family with the name of sunko. like the woman who presumably lives in the apartment today, the man of the house seemed to have a cloak and dagger air about him, often seen quietly descending the stairs in a dark trench coat and briefcase. he always seemed surprised when we greeted him in the hallway, and though he never verbally responded, at least his eyes registered our presence. he didn’t have much hair, but what there was stood attentively on top of his head, and he drove a mercedes with blue diplomatic plates and tinted windows, and his wife wore silk scarves and heavy eyeliner and whenever we said hello to her, she would stare right past us. occasionally, one might hear their pre-teen son practicing on the piano, and on rare occasions, one would hear them argue, but like the finnish couple, they moved out, and now the apartment is empty except for an enormous pile of newspapers.
to the right, still on the third floor, lives an ancient widow: a frail, dignified woman with a gentle smile and a very soft voice. to quote faulkner, her voice would not cease, it would just vanish, a trickle of a voice that meandered and returned, slowly unfurling stories of her deceased husband, her absent son, observations about the heat during the summer months, the cold during the winter, or her struggles with navigating the stairs. when we would see her in the lobby, we would always hold the door for her, and i like to talk with her, though i know that it might come at the expense of punctuality to an impending appointment. the hushed sound of her voice, the voice not ceasing but vanishing into and then out of the long intervals like a stream, in which time stops and other things must find it within themselves to wait, and one feels that she is owed the time of day, since one sees her so rarely and she has lived so long. she keeps mostly to herself in her apartment, with the many plants that occupy the window sills and, like the elderly couple on the second floor, a social worker visits her on a regular basis, as evidenced by the occasional delivery of meals packaged in styrofoam boxes, stacked on a serving tray left on her doorstep. a day later, the empty boxes would be neatly stacked by the wall next to the door.
on the fourth floor, above the woman whose voice would vanish, lives an unassuming englishman by the name of lawrie who, within days of moving in, scribbled his name on a white paper picnic plate and pasted that onto the front door. he always leaves a pair of shoes outside his door, which is not unusual for the post hippy generations in denmark (one can always tell how many danes live in an apartment building and how old they are, by the number of shoes placed outside of doorways: the higher the number, the groovier the apartment building, and in our building, there are only two units whose inhabitants employ this practice – the stoner academics and the jogger on the ground floor). we very rarely see him, and hardly a sound emanates from his apartment, and for a while, we noticed that his shoes were joined in the evening hours by a pair of women’s riding boots, and on one occasion, we encountered a primly dressed woman with a freckled face during her ascent of the stairs while we were in descent, and in the delayed reaction that sometimes occurs after two people pass each other, we wondered if the boots belonged to her, but she vanished around the corner before we had a chance to identify her footwear. we paused to listen, hoping to hear a door furtively open and close on the upper floors, but out of shame, we hurried on before a positive identification could be established. not much else is known about the englishman next door, except that he keeps a decorative ecuadorian gourd in his kitchen window, and above that hangs a handmade bongo, so one can assume that he has spent some time in south america. the previous tenants of that particular unit were also travellers, coming from australia. they liked to throw cocktail parties, the very last of which we were invited to, which also happened to coincide with a thanksgiving celebration taking place in our apartment. my better half disappeared next door, floating on a sea of manhattans, and sometime before all of our guests sat down for dinner, i had to go next door to release her from her bourbon-infused glee.
above us lives a caffeine junkie from finland who works as an i.t. consultant and also keeps a blog that provides obscene details about his coffee obsession. every morning before dawn, for months on end, we would awaken to the sound of heavy pounding on wood coming through the floor, causing great speculation over what our upstairs neighbour could be doing. added to the fact that during all hours of the day, he keeps high pressure sodium iodide lights on, typically used for plant cultivation, which cast an eerily achromatic glow, the color and temperature of a green ghost, clearly seen from across the lake during our evening walks; thus, all factors considered, a theory emerged that he was an eastern european drug dealer with nefarious intentions. after contacting him, we learned that he was beating the day old grinds from out of the filter to his espresso machine, vigorously thrashing the solid brass filter holder on a wooden knock box which, rather than absorbing the force, simply sent the unruly reverberations downwards, through the kitchen cabinet and his kitchen floor, directly into our bedroom below. relieved that his morning activities were free of wicked and violent intentions (though we didn’t press for further details of his apparent interest in indoor horticulture), we asked him that, in the future, should he feel an inclination to practice the mystical rituals of a barista before six a.m., would he also be so kind to make an extra cup for me, and thereafter leave it by my door, and in so doing, he would have our blessing to hammer away to his heart’s content. i have yet to receive a cup of java, but the early morning disturbances have also come to an end. during the holidays, he often hosts finnish friends and they make quite a racket in the late evening hours – we presume that they are drunk and, with their buck knives, they are playing william tell and the apple tree. that, or they are pulling apart his furniture with far-fetched dreams of reassembling them in wholly new configurations.
before the finn, there lived an american i.t. consultant whom we called party boy because he too would make all sorts of noise in the wee hours of the night, listening at high volume to club music produced by second rate acts such as safri duo, which no doubt amused any number of the underaged women who could be seen doing the walk of shame as they stole away from his apartment in the early morning hours. party boy played amercian football, a detail that was made clear to all as he kept a football helmet prominently displayed in his poorly maintained range rover that was always parked out front – the helmet would hang from a coat hook above the rear passenger seat. he also kept a transparent university of virginia sign posted on the rear window. he moved out and the finn moved in, but the party never stopped, it merely passed from one hand to another.
no matter which direction one draws a line in the apartment building that is my home, my neighbours and i all live within sixty feet of each other. we pass by each other in the stairway, we can hear each other (especially at night), and we share several wifi internet connections (i know that at least one or two neighbours are freeloading off of mine) yet, for the most part, these people are complete strangers to me, and even after describing them in the details that i can provide, i know very little about them. i have been living in the same building for over four years, and while i occasionally converse with a few of them, it is rather astonishing that the world just beyond my front door is so far away from my everyday existence.
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