What Is Still Kept | Noir Jazz Playlist

Описание: I moved into the building in early March, when the days were still short and the radiators clicked in uneven bursts at night. The apartment was small but clean. The paint was new enough to smell faintly sweet when the windows were closed. From my kitchen window I could see the alley and the back doors of the shops on the street. Delivery trucks stopped there in the mornings. At night it was mostly empty. Nothing about it stood out.

Each morning I left at the same time. I set my watch by habit, not necessity. I took the stairs because the elevator was slow and often stopped between floors. On the third floor I passed the door of the woman across the hall. Her name was on a strip of white paper taped to the frame. It had been typed and cut unevenly, as if with dull scissors. The tape was yellow at the corners and lifted slightly where dust had gathered.

She had a routine. When I came home in the evenings, her radio was on. It played talk shows with low voices and long pauses. The volume never changed. Sometimes there was the sound of dishes touching lightly. Sometimes a cough, dry and brief. The door stayed closed. I never saw her in the hallway.

On Wednesdays she put out her trash early. The bag was always tied with a neat knot, the handles folded down. There was a faint smell of coffee grounds and something sweet I couldn’t place. On Sundays she watered the plant by her window. It was a fern in a plain brown pot. The leaves were dusty, but alive, and leaned toward the light in a careful way.

I noticed these things without thinking much about them. Buildings encourage this kind of noticing. You learn patterns so you can ignore them. It makes the days pass more easily.

In April the radio stopped. The silence felt ordinary at first. People change habits. A week later the trash bag did not appear on Wednesday. I assumed she was away. The fern remained by the window. The leaves began to pale, curling at the edges.

A package arrived for her and stayed on the shelf by the mailboxes. Then another. The labels faced outward. The dates were close together. The paper name on her door curled slightly at the edges. The tape loosened. I could see a darker rectangle beneath it where the light hadn’t reached.

One evening, as I was unlocking my door, I heard the radio again. It was faint, as if turned low or coming from farther away. The voice was not a talk show. It was music with a steady rhythm, something repetitive and slow. I paused on the landing without meaning to. The sound ended before I reached my door.

After that, the music returned once more, always brief. It never overlapped with the usual times. It did not grow louder. The fern was no longer green. Someone had watered it recently. The soil was dark and smooth, as if pressed down by a careful hand.

In May a smell came into the stairwell. It was not strong. It reminded me of old books and damp cloth left too long in a drawer. The superintendent put out a small bowl of white powder near the trash room. He placed it against the wall and straightened it when it shifted. He said nothing about it.

The packages were removed one afternoon. The shelf was empty when I came home. The next day the paper name was gone from the door. The tape remained, pressed flat, catching the light.

I began to take the elevator more often. It stopped on the third floor more than before. The doors would open to an empty hall. The light above her door flickered once and steadied.

In June the fern disappeared. The window was bare. The curtain behind it was drawn halfway, the same as it had always been. The radio did not return.

By then it was warm enough to keep the windows open. At night I heard footsteps in the alley. Bottles clinked. A cat cried once and then stopped. The building settled and shifted in its usual way.

On my last morning before a short trip, I took the stairs again. A new strip of paper was taped to the door across the hall. It was blank. The tape was fresh and clear, without dust.

I went down without stopping. The building felt the same as it had in March. Only later did I realize that the routines I had learned were still being kept, just no longer by someone I could hear.
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