But it wasn’t the phone ringing that woke me later that night. It was pounding from the wall right behind my bed’s headboard. In those first moments of jolting waking consciousness, I couldn’t identify the sound and immediately was afraid. I had never heard any sounds in this apartment, which was perfectly still and quiet at night all of the time that I lived in it. I had assumed that the walls were thick, solid and soundproof or that I had no neighbors living on the other sides of them. The sound was rhythmical, pounding, banging against the wall. When I listened closer, I imagined that it was the sound of sex, the pound of a headboard against the wall. But I wondered how there could be a headboard just on the other side of the wall where my headboard was. After all, didn’t most people in Uzbekistan, or at least the Muslims, face the head of their beds towards Mecca? I didn’t even know what direction was Mecca from here, and my landlady, an ethnic Korean who was deported by Stalin’s deportations, and was a devout Christian, and most likely put the head bed wherever she saw fit. The pounding was unmistakably sexual. Tashkent was full of empty apartments. People bought up property for cheap from the hordes of people emigrating, holding on to apartments for their children for when they grew up, to rent out to foreigners, or for places for men to tryst with mistresses or prostitutes, and for women, who had a secret smoking habit, to smoke out of public view, as in some circles, a woman who smoked could be considered a prostitute. I imagined that on the other side lived a couple in which the man would go on long trips for work, like a labor migrant or a lorry driver, only returning home to his wife every few weeks or months, and returning with a great passion for her. But I heard no voices, just pounding and I despaired to never fall asleep through the noise, feeling miserable that other people were having sex and not me.

Perhaps jerking off would relax me, exhaust me into sleep, I thought. But the room was hot, I was bathed in sweat and the bed sheets stuck to me. I determinedly tried with little enthusiasm to arouse myself, even to put some movement into it so that my bed shook from top to bottom and the headboard banged against the wall in response to the neighbors’ thrashes. I’d occasionally pause to listen and they carried on, oblivious to me, who either they never heard, or they did not care about, absorbed in their own passions, or perhaps just bad neighbors, unconcerned about the disturbance they may be making. Eventually, I gave up, losing interest in my “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” attempt and their noises subsided as well.

I sat up in the stillness and quiet that I was accustomed to in my apartment, waiting for them to start up again, but nothing. I wondered, why isn’t what’s happening on the other side of the wall my exciting life – as it should be. I was single, living in an exotic country, on my own, free to do as I please, take risks that I’d probably not take at home, where things like concerns about propriety, reputation, fitting in, parental disapproval, HIV, and a world full of various dangers held me back. Here I had no responsibilities, I was as far an outsider as an outsider can be, and played by my own set of rules.

My phone rang and I scrambled in the dark to reach for it on my night table. I didn’t recognize the number calling – I imagined that perhaps it would be Jason calling, as I had wished. But it wasn’t. It was a man’s voice, accented, which I didn’t recognize at first, and which didn’t begin with any polite greetings, just barking the question, “is Henny with you?”

“Ali?” I asked sleepily, slowly registering who it was. “She’s at Alyssa’s party, but I left early.”

“I know she’s with you,” he said angrily.

“What time is it?” I asked, trying to read the clock in the dark, seeing that it was only 10:30, realizing that I hadn’t even been home for very long, but the descent into sleep, the hazy wakefulness through the sounds of noisy coitus from next door, and the endless moments since, made it feel like hours had passed. “Is everything OK? Did something happen?”

“I’m sorry for waking you,” he said and hung up. I was a little more awake now, confused, and didn’t know what to do with myself. I sat up in bed, the phone on the sheets beside me. It rang again. It was Henny, calling from what sounded like a speeding car.

“Did Ali just call you, looking for me?”

“Yes, he woke me up. What’s going on?”

“Shit! I’m sorry. What did you say to him?”

“I just said that I left you at Alyssa’s.”

“Ok, good boy!” Before I could even ask her what was going on, she said she’d call me the next day, told me that she loved me and the connection went dead.
I felt tired, turned off the phone ringer, lay back down, looked up at the ceiling in the pitch dark. The apartment was back to its usual familiar stillness. There was not a sound from the other side. And I fell back asleep.  ¶ 11:21 AM 0 Comments