"What if there are peepholes?" She started accusingly, lowering her voice in mid-sentence. This hadn't yet occurred to me. "I'll turn off the light -- you go close the door and watch your step coming back down." It was so dark that we couldn't see a thing. No light leaked through the walls but the voices seem more subdued. I couldn't see Marie's face but I was guessing that she wasn't hugely reassured. I was also betting she wouldn't be taking any baths here. Other problems presented themselves as I began to settle in. The lack of a sink meant I had to go upstairs to wash my hands. Soon I was washing my hands in the tub. I didn't mind leaving the door ajar to take a pee but if I had serious business to attend to I preferred to close the door. And who knew what might be going on upstairs? Had I locked the apartment door? Was that noise someone coming in? And voices, I could always hear voices from the downstairs space that the bathroom invaded. I wondered what the room looked like to the people downstairs. Was my bathroom a freestanding mystery space inexplicably present? I hated flushing the toilet imagining clerks looking up from their work with a snicker. The uncomfortable feeling of being on display persisted. I even became piss-shy, aiming for the side of the bowl so as not to make too much noise. And taking a bath was nearly as traumatic as a shower at the Bates Motel. Sitting on the toilet, reading the newspaper and occasionally glancing up the darkened stairway, I felt as if I were in the King's chamber in the great Pyramid. The cavalier term "Throne Room" had taken on a new significance. | ||
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