The Lives of Others

We all live on top of each other in Paris.  Romain and I are crawling around together in apartment of 33 square metres – which was about half the size of our living room in Port Vila.  There are 6 like ours stacked on top of each other in this building.  Our friend who share-houses in the next quartier has lived in a room for 4 years that is not even big enough for his bed.  The sides of the mattress curl up the walls.  Not surprisingly he is craving his own space and is trawling the market for an apartment.  He’s found one for 15 square metres (that’s the whole apartment – not the bedroom) that he’s seriously considering buying.

Paris is packed with people.  In fact, it is one of the most densely populated cities on the planet – comparable to Hong Kong and New York – with some really squishy areas cramming 100 000 people into each square kilometre.  By comparison, the population density of Sydney is 2000 people/ km²  and Canberra:  400/km²

With all the closeness, you become acutely aware of your neighbours’ habits.  We are very aware that our neighbours above us like to stay up late, tap-dancing on the hard wood floors in stilettos and giving piano recitals to their drunken friends at 1 am.   The people who share our bedroom wall laugh a lot (at us?).  We have two loud but lovable Americans living in the building who haven’t quite figured out that the conversations they have in the stairwell are clearly audible to everyone.  We’ve recently carved out an identity for ourselves as ‘the leaky dudes’ as our shower has been leaking directly into the apartment below, instigating a lot of visits where we stand around together in our neighbour's living room watching water fall from their light fittings.  It has been a great bonding experience.

But even more interesting than guessing at people’s lifestyles based on the noises coming from their apartments or brief glimpses into their soggy lounge rooms, is actually watching people in their apartments.  Which we do a lot.  It’s great!  Directly facing us are dozens of great big windows full of people living their lives.  And everyone leaves their curtains wide open as a tacit invitation to look on.  It is so much more interesting than television – especially at night time where everyone turns their lights on.

The old man across from us pretty much passes his whole day in a flannelette shirt at the kitchen table doing crosswords.  There is a gay couple next door to him who spend a lot of time cooking together in their undies.   The apartment above them is full of piles of clothes and one tired looking house maid in a proper maid uniform who seems to wander around amongst the stacks not achieving a great deal.  There is another apartment on the top floor that looks to be at least 10 times the size of ours.  It has an awesome floor to ceiling book case, great big paintings and fancy lights.  The very groomed and coiffed middle-aged lady who lives there often comes to peer (a bit forlornly) out the window or water her geraniums.  Above her in the attic is a creepy dude who often sits, slack-jawed with his head pressed against the window, watching something further down the street.  We suspect he might be the posh lady’s son who she has kept locked in the attic since he was a kid.  In another attic window there is a tiny apartment with an old grandfather clock and canvasses stacked up everywhere.  A youngish student-type girl lives there – probably with her mattress curling up the wall too.

It's all very entertaining.  IAnd in an act of generous reciprocity, we also leave our curtains wide open.  To keep things interesting for our neighbours, I occasionally moon the crossword man and Romain has taken up nude break-dancing.