The New Gal Next Door

He noticed her the day she moved into the apartment building. She moved right next door. He was single and it seemed like so was she. He was excited that a pretty woman moved in right next door. How lucky was that? All he would have to do is strike up a conversation with her in the hall, or on the stoop, or at the corner store. Maybe they could go to a movie, or have a beer at the bar. Maybe they could become an item. But he was getting ahead of himself, she just moved in.

He also noticed her because she was one of the few women who wore face make-up in this neighborhood. Most women around here didn’t have enough money to buy food for their family, let alone have money to buy face make-up.

The new woman didn’t have any children that anyone could see. She didn’t seem to have a man either. She left her apartment every day at sun down and came back around dawn. She always dressed nice, not sexy, just upscale. The gossip was she must be a high paid sex-worker to have those hours, but other neighbors dismissed that theory because men would have sex any time of the day if they had the chance. Also, there were less expensive looking working-girls available in the neighborhood, girls whose grandmothers we all knew.

Older women, sat on the stoop, shaded their eyes from the sun, as if to salute death’s oncoming, and offering no resistance. The older women speculated the new woman worked a night shift at a downtown hotel. For how else was she able to afford face make-up and the nice clothes she wore.

Other old women would reply if she made good money, why was she living in our neighborhood, it’s a poor part of town. The apartments were shabby and need of repair. The slumlords only cared about collecting the rent and never fixed anything.

The new woman didn’t exchange greetings with her neighbors. If others gave her a greeting she would nod her head, without a smile, and said nothing in return, which some felt was rude. Some thought she might not speak their language.

At first people thought she might feel shy, being new to the neighborhood, but after months of this behavior some people thought she might be a deaf mute. But the neighbors who lived close to her apartment would hear music coming from her window. Classic Japanese music. Sometimes they swore they heard soft singing.

“That singing must be from the tapes or CDs she plays, because I’d hear the singing from one window and see her moving around the kitchen. The drapes were always drawn so I could only see her shadow as she moved around, but the sound of the singing wasn’t coming from the open kitchen window.” One attentive neighbor said.

Some people just lost interest in the new woman, the unfriendly new woman who couldn’t give anyone the time of day. She didn’t cause any trouble, no visitors coming and going at all hours, no loud noises, no trash thrown out of the window, nothing anyone could point to as being anti-social, she just didn’t talk to her neighbors. As one old woman said, “She’s a bit too rich for our blood.”

One of the old women asked the slumlord of that building, “Who is that new woman? What’s her story?” The slumlord just blew cigar smoke in the old woman’s face and said, “What’s it to you? She pays in cash and is never late, not like some of you old timers.” No one tried to find out any clues from the slumlord after that exchange.

“Aren’t you curious as to where she’s from?” One old woman asked the curious man who was the new woman’s neighbor. “Maybe it is part of the culture she’s from that she doesn’t speak to strangers. Maybe she is waiting for family to join her so she could have a chaperon to be with her when she spoke to strangers.”

The man who was curious replied, “If she needed a chaperon to talk to her neighbors then why doesn’t she need a chaperon to go to work at night and return before dawn.” He said. He was so curious that he would put his ear to the wall to try to hear her talk on the telephone. He heard nothing but the music and some singing that must be from the recordings. He could hear her moving around the apartment. He could hear water running, the toilet flushing, the sounds of cooking, normal sounds. Just no talking.

The curious man stopped keeping the TV on for background noise, no radio, no music recordings in his apartment so he could hear something, anything coming from her apartment.

If he couldn’t figure anything out about the new woman from noises in her apartment then he would find out where she goes each and every night. That was also an odd thing. Most people had a day or two off from work. Speculation on the stoop was that she was working two jobs and that’s why she didn’t have days off. If that was true then why was she living in our run down part of town, where most people were on the dole or disability?

He decided to follow her to work one evening. He dressed in black so he could blend into the shadows if he had to. Also black clothing fit into any part of town as long as it wasn’t too raggedy. He polished his shoes earlier in the day so he would fit into a nice district if he had to. He put on a knit cap to hold down his curly hair. In his pockets were folding money, a mini flash light, a small bottle of water, and a bag of trail mix. He ate a good sized meal before the sun started to go down.

The new woman kept her hands in her pockets and her face down when she walked. Her long straight black hair fell as a curtain around her face so it was difficult to see her, or see if she was watching anyone. She didn’t speak to anyone on the street on her way to her work, not even if someone bumped into her.

Her route to work was long and winding, going through the neighborhood, into downtown, out to the industrial district, and down to the docks. Clouds under lit by yellow city lights were coming in from the ocean with the threat of rain. She walked faster as the wind picked up.

The curious neighbor felt uneasy, even as a man, he wouldn’t go into the industrial part of town in the night. But he was determined to find where she went every night and why did she have to put on fancy face make-up to go to such a place as this. He expected her to go to a hotel downtown, a place filled with noise, people and lights, where traffic clogged the street.

She got to the docks where rusty cargo containers were stacked like the blocks of a giant bored and careless child. She took a turn and went between some containers. The curious man followed, trailing at a distance because it was getting harder to hide that he was following her. There were no other people, no traffic, no open businesses that would be any reason for him to be there. He turned down the same lane between the containers and she was gone.

The dimly lit lane went straight on for many container lengths. The path was covered with puddles reflecting the dock lights, like rivers of mercury. There were no ripples in the puddles of the woman having walked through them.

He went quickly to the first intersection that was bathed in light and peeked out right and left to see if she went down another path. No sight of her. He couldn’t figure out where she could have gone.

Then he heard something above him. He looked up and saw the hem of her skirt going over the top of the container stack to his right. His curiosity was so great he just had to follow her. What sort of work could she be doing down at the docks, on the top of a stack of cargo containers, in those clothes, with a full face of fancy make-up? He just had to find out.

He climbed up the side of the cargo containers. Some of the hand holds were damp and rusty. Some of the foot places were slippery. He had to be careful but he wanted to hurry. He got almost to the top of the stack and stopped to catch his breath before lifting his head to see over the edge. It was cold enough to see his breath plume away as he was breathing heavy. Drizzle began to fall on his face and hands.

He could hear the wind moaning between the stacks, the fog horn far away, the sound of a metal object monotonously hitting a hollow pole, maybe a flag clasp on a rope. Then he heard the woman sobbing. It was so piteous it almost broke his heart.

He pulled himself up to the top of the stack, climbed over the edge, stood up, leaning into the wind and rain. The woman sat on her knees at the edge of the stack across from him, her shoulders hunched over, shaking as if with sobs. He approached her, to comfort her, and as he touched her shoulder she turned around.

She had no face. It was smooth as a hard boiled egg. Her weeping eyes were on a white hankie, in her hand, her mouth contorted with grief was off to the side of those eyes. Her sobs were coming from the disembodied mouth in her hand.

It was at that point that he stepped back in horror, his shoe heel hit the edge of the container, and he fell off the stack to his death.

He fell and landed on his face on the concrete. He was identified by the papers in his wallet. There was no way to recognize his face that was a mash of hairy strawberry cream. No one knew why he was up there at night. He lived across town. His neighbors said he was behaving oddly for days before he met his untimely death. He seemed obsessed with a vacant apartment next to him. He talked about a new neighbor that no one had seen or spoke to. That’s all they knew.

In the afterlife: I don’t know what happened to the woman after I fell. All I know is I’m now a part of the group of ghosts that haunt the docks, some of whom do not have faces either. The faceless ones dream of a beautiful woman that they followed. A woman who had no face.

Inspiration for the story: The Noppera-bō – Aunty Alias