In December, a Hindu family from Southern India moved into the studio apartment next door. It is unusual for three people to live in one room, at least in middle class America. I am aware that sometimes whole families live in one room because of poverty.
My new neighbors, however, are not destitute. The guy came here on one of those high-tech worker visas. He probably gets paid less than a typical American doing the same job but I am pretty sure he earns a middle class wage.
Husband, wife and two-year-old girl, all in one room.
When I first met the young mother, she had knocked on my door for help. She had propped open her storm door and was unable to get it to close. After I shifted the knob that held her storm door open, she invited me into her home. It was completely empty.
She must have seen the surprise in my eyes as I looked around that empty room.
"I must wait for my husband to decide what furniture we will have," she said, shrugging in, I suspect, a universal resignation. All wives, and all husbands, must sometimes accept the judgements of their mates, eh?
A few weeks later, she came to ask me for another little challenge. She could not get her bottle opener to open a bottle of soda. Again, I was happy to help. Again, she invited me into her home.
Again, the one-room home was empty, except for a pile of blankets and pillows.
Again she watched my eyes travel, noting the lack of household goods.
"My husband has decided that we will not guy furniture," she said, her arms folded, hugging herself, shrugging again. "We will live here three years. We do not want to take furniture home. So we will not buy."
"Three years without furniture is a long time!" I burst out, regretting my exclamation, but it was already out.
The decision to live without furniture for three years was not the only sign of trouble.
The little girl cried a lot. From the first moments I heard her wailing, I thought they were stress sounds. I know the sound of a child in need, needing some adult attention. I know the sound of a child having a tantrum, demanding things her parents will not give her. This child, her sounds were almost always simply stress wails. Before I knew they had no furniture, I had concluded that the young mother next door had almost no confidence as a mother and I thought that the child was weirdly stressed out.
I concluded that the mother had no confidence in her maternity because she never seemed to sooth the child. She seemed to do nothing, just let the child wail. If I had ever thought that the little girl was in distress, under any kind of threat, I would have stuck my nose in and checked things out. Instead, I got the impression that next door was a young, stressed-out family.
Of course, I thought right away, it must be very stressful to move from Southern India to Silicon Valley. In optimal circumstances, with a table and chairs, with a bed, a family would be stressed out. Put three foreigners in an empty box and ask them to make a life for three years, well, you got a lot of stress, eh?
The father was almost never home. I've seen him around town, too. Hanging out with other young guys that also look Indian. I got the impression that he lived a bit of a double life. Outside the empty box, he was a happy-go-lucky single guy, enjoying the Disneyland of living in Silicon Valley. Back home in the empty box, he was a cheap control freak.
He did not allow the mother to have a phone. She came over and asked to borrow my cell phone once. When I realized she wanted to make a local call, I handed her my land line. She turned the phone over and over in her hand, marveling that I had a phone connected directly into my apartment.
He did not allow the mother to leave the empty box.
Can you imagine being cooped up, all day, every day, in an empty box with a two-year-old?
Sleeping on a floor. Eating on the floor.
She said that life where she comes from is very hard. I couldn't resist asking if they used furniture in this hard life back home. Yes, she had furniture at home.
She began to come over to ask me to help her unlock the security on her laptop. As far as I could tell, her husband locked that laptop. At first, she would spend a long time trying to get me to figure out how to unlock the security. I don't know much about computers and I use a Macintosh. This was an IBM-compatible. I kept explaining to her that I didn't understand what needed to be done. I tried to do what I could think of. I did things over and over because she kept pleading with me to go on trying.
After we would spend an hour or so trying to unlock the unlockable (her husband must have locked it, he's a software engineer, he knows about stuff like that, right?), she would ask to use my laptop for five minutes. Five minutes would become an hour, sometimes more. And while she was using my laptop, her little girl would be bouncing around, requiring supervision. As anyone who has ever cared for a toddler knows, they require attention.
Gradually, we migrated to my apartment. So we could sit on chairs.
She would sit at my desk, using my laptop and her wound-up-like-a-top child would careen all over my place, moving all my things around, climbing, curious. Checking all my things out. A kid this small needs lot of supervision. It is adorable to have her pull everything out of my desk but she can, like, break stuff.
And the adult shouting. I could not understand the shouting, it was never in English, but the guy yelled at lot. And sometimes, late at night, the young woman cried, with her kid wailing in the background.
I got to the point where I began to say no when she asked for my computer help. I knew, by then, that what she really wanted was to use my laptop. She would knock on the door, I would get off the computer to answer the door. She would say "I see you are not using your machine, please, I can use it for five minute?"
This is very distracting. It might look to her like I am doing nothing. And maybe I am doing nothing. But I am over here, living my real life, doing what I want to do.
She had the idea that since I was a woman living alone, with no job to go to, that she was never interrupting me.
Or maybe she was desparate.
I think she was sending emails back home, desparate to communicate.
Three weeks ago, the day before I left for a trip out of town, she knocked on my door.
"Please," she began, "If you are to be traveling, you will do laundry, yes? When you do the laundry, I can use your laptop, yes?"
I stood there and thought her request over. It takes me five minutes to load the washers. Then I return to my apartment and resume living my private life, using my laptop most of the time. It wasn't a simple matter of letting her use it while I did laundry. She always had many questions. She never remembered how to manipulate my unfamiliar machine so I was always showing her how to point and click, how to scroll down on screens, how to surf the internet.
If she really would have come in, used the machine for the few minutes I was putting clothes in the washing machine and then left when I returned, sure, it would be no problem. But that is not what it would be. I was wrapped up writing something. I don't like to talk to anyone when I am writing. I lose stuff when I talk. Sometimes when I write, I am holding all kinds of energy and I have to listen, carefully, to many streams playing in me, like various instruments in an orchestra. I can't capture that stuff if I am interacting.
I need to spend lots of time alone. I always have. Yes, I am lonely. And, yes, I long for intimate companionship. But, also, my life actually is pretty much how I want it. I like to spend a lot of time alone. And I like to write. I am always on my machine.
When she asked me if she could use the machine while I did the laundry that day, she had been coming over every day for several days, soaking up an hour, sometimes more, of my afternoons.
I told her that, no, she could not use my machine while I did laundry. It is too distracting. I did not say much more. She looked pretty hurt.
I went out of town the next day, for a week. When I returned, she did not renew her visits. For weeks, I had been using the back entrance into my building so I wouldn't go past her front door. She seemed to lie in wait for me, pouncing on me as I came up the stairs or as I left for the day. When I returned, I kept using the back steps, to avoid her.
The noise from next door seemed to increase each day. The little girl, I swear, seemed to be wailing almost all the time. I've been around a lot of kids in my time. And I love children. I don't think I have ever before been worn down by a child's noise. I am lonely for kids. I love their sounds. Lots of people complain when kids noise reaches their consciousness. But not me. I like kids sounds much like I like bird songs.
But this little girl, her wailing was so grim.
The situation was leaving me feeling pretty oppressed. I know they have a three-year visa. I was beginning to think that I'd have to move because I couldn't put up with this situation for a long time. Maybe there is something wrong with me to be sensitive about noise that does not concern me. But I swear, from the first moments they moved in, I could feel their unhappiness. You know how some people can feel humidity in their creaking bones? Well, the unhappiness of that household was seeping into my home, into my being.
There was nothing I could do about it.
Suddenly, one week ago, there was silence. No more child noise. I thought they might have gone away for a weekend trip, to see some sights. After two days of quiet, I ran into my property manager and asked about my neighbors.
The mother and daughter have returned to India.
I am sorry that young woman is unhappy. I am sorry if I failed her. I don't think I did. I think was was a good neighbor.
She shared with me that she took antedepressant medication for what she termed post-partum depression. I have not heard of post-partum depression lasting two and a half years. She told me a few stories of her life, how her in-laws make the decisions of what is best for her. She told mer her husband will not give her money, in part, because he gives much money to his sister, who is a single mother. She told me some sad stories.
I know the world is full of heartache. Heck, my own heart is aching tonight. I have a boatload of sorrows. I have lost my only child. I am destitute. I have no friends in Mountain View. My doctor ordered me to get a colonoscopy last August and I can't get anyone to accompany me. They won't do the test without someone accompanying you and I have such someone to ask. I am fat and poor and bad. I drive away the people I love. I am human scum.
And, hey, don't get me wrong. My misery does not compare to other human misery. Women are watching their children die of starvation as I write. People without access to medical care, in the Third World and right here in Silicon Valley, are suffering because they can't afford to see a doctor. People are being slaughtered in Iraq. Genocide erupts here and there.
My miseries don't amount to a hill of beans.
And I can't do anything about anything.
If I had it in my power to solve that young woman's problems, I would have done it.
Sitting here, listening to their child keening the misery of that little family, I would have done anything to get that tension to stop. I got wounded by it. I was aghast as I imagined I was condemned to hear it indefinitely.
I am so glad she went back home to India.
