my next-door neighbors

On December first, a guy moved into the studio apartment next to mine. On move-in day, I heard a child's noise and I assumed that the child was a friend. I assumed just the one guy had moved in.

A few days ago, there was a knock on my door. It turned out to be the wife of the guy I saw moving in. She had propped open the storm door to her apartment, she could not get it to close and she sought my help. The door can be propped open by some kind of springload. In order to close the door after you have locked it open, you have to turn a little doohickey. As this woman explained to me, she is new in this country, from India and she could not close the door. You will help me, yes?

After I performed the small task, she asked me into her apartment. The room was empty except for one metal folding chair. I could not see inside the kitchen cupboards, into the closet or into the bathroom but in the main room, there was nothing but that folding chair. There was also a dancing dolly scampering around the room. A very tiny girl, no more than two-years-old but very small by my standards.

"You don't have any furniture?" I exclaimed. I guess I was rude but I was shocked. I had figured out, during the past month, that the apartment was occupied by a couple and a child. The child is noisy. The mother seems to lack confidence in her parenting. I don't know exactly why but I have a sense that she is overwhelmed. The kid is up at all hours. The kid is very noisy a whole lot of the time. I don't mind the noise. This is not a complaint about the child. I love the sound of children, the sound of the human racing leaning into the future. It's just that during the past month, this child has sounded way stressed and the mother seems to do odd things to cope. The mother takes the child outside the apartment, out onto the landing. Maybe the father wants a moment of peace inside the apartment? Our landing is not heated. It is cold out there. It just seems like an odd thing to do, to take a small child out into the cold night, into a dimly lit apartment landing, at midnight, especiallyl if the child is crying.

So. I've known for the past month that this family was living next door. I've been aware that they were recent immigrants. And I've made other assumptions. The guy probably has a high tech job. This is Silicon Valley and tech companies love to hire tech-savvy employees from India, to pay them less than they pay Americans. Silicon Valley is full of Indians. I've been told that osme of the best Indian restaurants in America are right here in Mountain View.

Even if we assume the guy next door is paid less than his American counterpart, we can also assume he is earning enough money to live on in America.

When I realized three people had moved into the one-room apartment next door, I told myself