The Quiet Mother

1

And there by the living-room window stood the young woman, looking out into the evening darkness. She was smoking a cigarette and exhaled the smoke leisurely, her outline clear in the dim gleam coming from within the flat. Her hair fell about her shoulders and her thin body filled out her tight dress as she took a sip from a glass she’d placed on the windowsill. Maybe she’d just come home from a party. She looked stately, standing there at the window with her cigarette. Behind her appeared a man of her age, who went to her and took a drink from the glass. Then he put his arms around her, and they kissed.

Most of the people were watching the quiz show that was on telly. In the lower-floor apartment of the house next door, a middle-aged couple was sitting on a couch, watching telly. The man was bald, and wore glasses, a shirt and loosened tie. The woman, whose hair was in a ponytail, sat close beside him and yawned. She got up and went to the kitchen, pottered a bit at the sink and put dishes into cupboards. Suddenly, at the same moment, they both looked up.

In the flat above them, kids were playing in the living room, two boys and a girl. They’d spread a large collection of Lego blocks over the floor and were building something out of them, but suddenly stopped and looked at the kitchen door, which was closed.

Their parents were in the kitchen and seemed to be arguing. The woman said something and the man shouted back and slammed his fist on the table before stepping menacingly towards her as if he was going to hit her.

In the living room, the older boy stood up from the Lego and led his siblings into the bedroom hallway.

In the kitchen, the two people continued to argue, and suddenly, the man hit the woman.

Downstairs, the man stopped watching television, stood up, and looked at the ceiling. Apparently, the noise of the argument in the kitchen upstairs had carried down to him. At the same time, the woman stopped what she was doing, went to the man in the living room and exchanged a few words with him. The woman seemed to be encouraging the man to go up and calm down their neighbour. Judging by their body language, this wasn’t the first time such a thing had happened.

The man in the kitchen kept yelling and hit his wife a second time, knocking her to the floor.

The well-dressed young couple in the house next door kissed more passionately and the woman started unbuttoning the man’s jacket. He hesitated a moment and looked at his watch as if they had limited time, were late, had to get going. Not about to stop, the woman started unbuttoning his shirt. A moment later, her dress fell from her and she pushed the man down onto the sofa. The man lay stretched out on the sofa with his trousers around his ankles and watched the woman undo her bra before she had second thoughts, stopped what she was doing, went to the living-room window and drew the curtains shut. Shortly afterwards, the light went out.

The man in the kitchen stood threateningly over the woman, yelling at her. The children were nowhere to be seen. The man abruptly stiffened and listened. Something had disturbed him. The woman lay there on the floor and now he pulled her up and fixed her tousled hair, then ordered her with hand movements to stay in the kitchen. The woman was wearing a grey skirt and white blouse. She smoothed out her skirt and the man opened the door and went into the living room. Glancing around, he saw that the children were no longer there, only the Lego blocks, abandoned and scattered over the floor. Then he looked at the front door and went and opened it. His wife stood dejected and motionless in the kitchen.

The woman downstairs stood in her doorway and listened. She seemed very worried. The man had gone upstairs to the neighbours’. There, the woman hid in the kitchen, seemingly unsure of what to do. Help was so near. Maybe this had all happened before.

At the front door, the men were speaking to each other. Finally, the woman inched her way to the kitchen door, opened it, and came out. The men turned and looked at her. In the hallway, the older boy was looking to see what was going on. His siblings stood behind him. The man from downstairs said something to the woman, but she shook her head as if to say he needn’t worry. The husband, apparently having had enough of his neighbour’s nosiness, started to shut the door. His neighbour wasn’t about to leave it like that. The two men appeared to argue while the woman and children watched.

The thick curtains concealing the couple in love remained in place.

Having lost his patience, the man shooed his neighbour and tried to push him out the door. The woman stood there silently, doing nothing. The children went to her and put their arms around their mother. The woman downstairs remained standing in her doorway, listening to what was going on. Finally, the man succeeded in pushing his neighbour out into the hallway and slammed the door in his face. He turned to his wife, standing there surrounded by their children, and stared in turn at her and them before disappearing into the corridor.

In a block of flats across the street, a scantily clad woman sat at her dining table, her face buried in her hands. She seemed to be feeling poorly. She looked regularly around the flat and appeared to be speaking to someone, and soon a man walked into the room and kissed her on the mouth. He was wearing dark trousers and a sweater, and now slipped on a jacket. The woman followed him to the door and the man stepped hurriedly into the hallway. It was as if they wanted to keep things secret and no one to see him. Left alone in the flat, the woman sat back down at the table, but was restless and stood up and looked at her watch. She grabbed a mobile phone, checked it, and put it back down.

Above her, an older woman sat in front of the telly. She was illuminated only by the light from the device. She looked in the direction of her front door, stood up and walked hesitantly into the hall.

She opened the door, and before she could react, a man attacked her and knocked her to the floor. Indistinct in the darkness, the man crouched over her.

Soon afterwards, the shadowy figure rushed around the flat with a plastic bag in his hands. The man dashed at lightning speed from one room to another, pulling open drawers and tearing out the contents of cupboards before running back out into the hallway, making sure to shut the door behind him.

The living-room curtains of the couple in love were drawn open and the young woman stood naked in the darkness, looking out the window and smoking, with a soft glow falling across her peaceful face.