The true horror stories in Paris-Part 8

Leila immediately started badmouthing her French landlord lady as if she knew her personally.  The fact that I was an Asian seemed to have relaxed her attitude.  She casually threw into the conversation that she had many international friends, a lot of them black people.  

Well, I had seen it before, a white person posing to be humanitarian by surrounding herself/himself with the minorities.  

A lot of them truly are so, but there have been cases where their motives were to numb the pain of rejection by their own peers.  The latter would try establish their superiority over the weak and in Leila’s case, she had already driven out Mr. A, my previous resident who was aged and weaken. 

I mentioned in my last post that violence is not the only mean to hurt people in Paris.  It goes without saying that the infrastructure of the buildings here is ancient, but still the outside walls are usually built with solid rock or sand stones.  However, due to rapidly increasing demand for accommodation, the apartments were divided into smaller segments, partitioning with flimsy walls.  The noise that travels through the thin indoor walls is incredibly disturbing.  Thus it is crucial that all residents observe the social decorum of keeping the noise down after 22:00.  All electrical appliances must stop before it.  It is anti-social and even deemed crass to wash on Sundays in Paris because of the infrastructure.

When Mr. A first heard the washing machine going after 22:00 upstairs, he hoped it was one of thing.  But then it continued all week and then on Saturday.  He could not believe it, but still Mr. A. expected Leila to refrain from washing on Sunday.  No such luck he was woken by the tumbling vibration.  By this time his sleeping pattern had been disrupted and he was starting to feel sick.  He plucked up his courage to knock on Leila’s door.

Mr. A. retained politeness and made a note of mentioning to her that no washing on Sunday was norm among the Parisians who lived in the building within the respectable Marais district.  His voice was soft by nature, so any women would feel compelled to oblige.  Leila smiled but offered no apology.  Still, M. A. expected that his trouble was over.  Little did he know it was just beginning.  To be continued.

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