The Apartment Across the Hall*

***

This happened about six years ago. I had just returned from the army, my head full of plans for the future. First thing I decided to do was move in with my father in a bigger city and start a new life with new opportunities. The only problem was my stepmother.

Can you imagine the stereotypical evil stepmother from movies and books? Well—that was her. I know it’s hard to believe, since she had no objective reason to hate me, but there it was. So my search for housing became even more intense.

Finally, success! I found a place that suited me in every way. There was just one snag: the landlady asked me to wait two weeks before moving in. Everything was agreed upon, the deal was basically done—except that I’d have to endure the spawn of hell (my stepmother) for two more weeks. I decided to move somewhere—anywhere, really. At that moment I would have gladly moved into the ninth circle of hell if they could guarantee my stepmother didn’t work there.

I quickly found an ad and went to see the place. *We* went—because my stepmother decided to take the initiative, eager to get rid of me no less than I was to get away from her. We wandered through some side streets and arrived in the right district.

Three floors, two stairwells, two apartments per floor. Houses like that. Externally they looked utterly miserable. As you can guess, I didn’t care. One side of the building faced a sidewalk and an empty road, the other looked onto a park and an improvised little yard with tiny fences. The stairwell smelled of damp basement air but was very clean. Young people clearly didn’t live there at all. The walls, painted green, were surprisingly spotless—no graffiti, no burn marks from matches. The two apartments on the first floor were completely bricked up—a tiny grocery store occupied that part of the building from the other side.

We climbed to the third floor, where the landlady was already waiting for us. A nice, welcoming woman around forty showed everything quickly. There wasn’t much to see.

A single room that served as a living room: a bed with a sagging metal spring base and a wardrobe that looked like it had seen Lenin himself. A toilet in a tiny nook. A kitchen with a homemade shower right there. Bathrooms weren’t provided in this building at all. Apparently it was assumed people would wash at the factory or at the local public bathhouse. Honestly, I have no idea what the builders were thinking, but that’s what it was. My enthusiasm dropped a bit, but seeing my stepmother looming nearby, I immediately agreed. Just two weeks to endure it.

For the landlady, my short stay was a blessing—it was clear she wasn’t spoiled by tenants. I didn’t see a single neighbor. I decided to myself that no one but ancient old women, quietly living out their final days, could possibly live here.

I unpacked, took out my laptop, put on some quiet music to make things feel less bleak. Made the squeaky bed with the spring base. Grabbed some beer and chips and sat down online, enjoying the solitude. The day’s fatigue finally caught up with me. By midnight I was nodding off, but I only managed to put the beer on the floor—I couldn’t even be bothered to go turn off the kitchen light. I fell asleep unnoticed, lulled by the soft purring of the laptop player.

I woke up to a crash. Barely opening my eyes, I didn’t even understand where I was at first. Reality returned in waves. For a second I thought the noise was part of a dream—then it came again. Someone was pounding on the front door, so hard there was no doubt: this wasn’t some sweet old lady asking for salt in the middle of the night. Completely stunned and half-asleep, I rushed to the door. I didn’t immediately remember how the lock worked and fumbled with it longer than necessary. For some reason, it never even occurred to me to ask, “Who is it?”

The moment I opened the door, something burst in from the dark stairwell—it turned out to be a girl, about twenty years old, disheveled and wearing only underwear. To say I was confused would be an understatement. She closed the door behind her instead of me and, breathing heavily, leaned against the doorframe in the entryway. Then she had a hysterical breakdown. I, meanwhile, remained in a state of total stupor.

Finally, my brain kicked in. I grabbed a shirt and loosely wrapped it around her. Honestly, she looked like a rag doll—so limp and powerless. I took her by the shoulders, guided her to the kitchen, and sat her down on a stool. Every attempt to get her to talk was met only with sobbing. Then she started hiccuping in a funny way, and I almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of it all. Apparently I was in shock too. I poured her some juice and gave it to her. Her hands were trembling.

That’s when my now-awake brain began assessing the situation. What if her husband got drunk and chased her with an axe or a knife? How long would my flimsy door hold before the police arrived? No ring on her finger. Maybe a boyfriend? While these grim thoughts ran through my head, she finally began speaking coherently.

She turned out to be my neighbor from the apartment across the hall. She was renting the place alone. She said that in the middle of the night she started hearing something strange. At that point she broke down again, sobbing and hiccuping—it was clear enough. As a man, I was expected to go check it out. In that moment I finally understood all those stupid Hollywood characters who go straight toward the place where, by every rule of the genre, a killer is hiding—yet they go anyway.

I felt for my slippers in the hallway and opened the door. A dark stairwell, and the door opposite stood ajar. Soft hallway light spilled out of it. Apparently, while running away, she’d turned on the light—or maybe she slept with it on. I walked to the middle of the landing and looked down. There was no light on any floor. The first floor was bricked up—no residents. On the second floor, at best, two old women lived there. Why would they need light in the middle of the night? And no one had come out to see what the noise was.

The girl peeked out from my apartment door—probably afraid to stay alone, or afraid something would happen to me. That was when I first felt truly uneasy. With an exaggeratedly confident stride, I walked to her apartment and went inside.

Inside, there was already a sense of girlish coziness, a sweet smell of perfume and clothes—but beneath it all, that elusive scent of old age. You know it? Ever been in old people’s apartments? That smell. Silence. Somewhere very faintly the girl hiccupped, and somewhere a million kilometers away, barely audible, my laptop player was playing. I noted to myself that although she had run out into the stairwell, she hadn’t gone back into the apartment. What exactly had she heard?

I entered the living room. A rumpled, messed-up bed. I didn’t know where the light switch was, but the hallway light was enough to see everything. The furnishings were far better than mine. I picked up a robe and belt—she’d need them. Obviously she wouldn’t be returning here before morning. I couldn’t remember whether she’d run out barefoot or not. Probably she didn’t have time to put on slippers, but I didn’t see them here either.

I froze, trying to hear something—anything. Somewhere in the distance, a car passed, tires rustling. An old refrigerator hummed in the kitchen. Otherwise, absolute silence. The house was old, with no soundproofing. Most likely an old woman downstairs had woken up to take some medicine and stepped on her cat or something like that.

The layout here was different. A long corridor ended at the toilet. Kitchen to the left, another room to the right. I quietly went to the kitchen. My legs buzzed with tension. I peeked inside. There wasn’t much light, but enough to see it was empty. Everything was clean and tidy. An ancient teapot sat on the table. The outline of the rattling fridge was visible. I didn’t bother checking the toilet.

I turned the handle and gently pushed the door to the second room. It opened with a long creak. In the light of the streetlamps, little could be seen. A wardrobe, a bed like mine with a neat stack of pillows, and a large chest in the corner. The room was full of junk left behind by the old man who had lived there before—things his relatives hadn’t bothered to throw out. Empty.

I took a couple of steps into the darkness, crouched down, and looked under the bed. Empty too. I left the room without turning my back to the darkness and closed the door behind me.

I checked the kitchen once more and quietly headed toward the exit. Probably just street noises—the girl had panicked, and—

That’s when I heard it.

The door to the room creaked open slowly. I must not have closed it properly. A draft, that’s all. I didn’t even consider going back to close it—instead I hurried toward the exit. Keys. The keys should be in the hallway so I could lock the apartment. I frantically scanned the hooks and hangers.

The old bed with the metal springs creaked. No, that was just my imagination.

The keys were on the dresser. I grabbed them easily—and immediately dropped them. Quickly picked them up and rushed to the door. Suddenly it occurred to me that the front door was half-closed. What if it slammed shut now?

Then I heard shuffling.

Someone wearing slippers was hurrying toward me from the far room.

That shuffling sound is unmistakable. Goosebumps covered my arms. I slipped out the door without bothering to turn off the light and tried to insert the key—which wasn’t easy, since there was now no light in the stairwell. The footsteps were getting closer. Someone was hurrying after a guest, before he could leave. If the door hadn’t been closed, I would already have seen it.

A turn of the key, and the lock slid into place. Something lingered on the other side of the door—maybe even watching me through the peephole. Astonishingly, while I could explain the earlier shuffling as an old woman waking up downstairs, I couldn’t deny the unmistakable feeling of being watched. From behind the door came a soft, insinuating whisper. Something was whispering in a hoarse voice. Words I couldn’t make out—but I recognized the tone.

That’s how you coax someone. Coax them to do what? Open the door? Stay?

In two steps I crossed the landing and locked myself inside my apartment.

Putting on a mask of calm, I went into the kitchen, where the girl sat with a guilty expression. The hysteria had passed; now she felt bad for barging in. I shrugged.

“Probably mice,” I said. “They can make so much noise it feels like a whole platoon of soldiers has moved in.”

She smiled weakly. And I thought about mice putting on slippers to see off late-night guests.

Lena—that was her name—tried to justify herself, but I stopped her. She could stay here as long as she wanted and decide what to do in the morning. That ended the discussion. I never did find out what she had heard.

She moved out the very next day. And I spent those two weeks sleeping with the lights on and music playing. I tossed and turned until morning, getting up sometimes to check the front door lock. And when I looked through the peephole into the dark stairwell, I wondered:

Was someone from the empty apartment across the hall watching me?