Love Habits (a lockdown story) — Part 1
Hartley hated her flat.
She found nothing wrong with the place. The living room left her space for dancing without bumping into the furniture. The bed was big enough to share with three or four friends. The mirror in her bedroom gave her a clear view of her hazel eyes and her messy dark hair. Her workshop was equipped with useful tools and useless junk. Her balcony overlooked a lively area of Madrid.
Only one thing bothered her a little: every week she would hear the guy next door have sex with a new woman. During those moments, Hartley would go into her workshop and start her chainsaw, settling the noise competition for the night. For the last few months, she had missed this little game.
If Hartley hated her flat, it was because the lockdown had turned it into a prison. Staying inside bothered her almost as much as following orders. Her only consolation was the spontaneous 8 PM applause in honor of Spain’s health professionals, with the whole street coming out to their tiny balconies to celebrate these people’s hard work. Only the guy next door, who would wear a suit and tie every evening, ruined the moment a little.
At the other side of the balcony, Paul, the guy in the suit and tie, itched to get not only out of his clothes but also out of his skin. His heart pumped restlessness to his lungs; his hands shook, asking him to sign contracts and loans, to push back the water of the swimming pool, and to unzip the dresses of his weekly visitors. There were tolerable substitutes for office work or the pool, but not for dating. He often ran his hands across his beard, trying not to pull any hairs.
Paul’s lockdown habits included working out, improving his cooking, and putting on his office attire. It did not matter that he had no calls that day: doing something when he was alone ensured he would do it when someone looked. He would leave the pajamas, the old tops, and the bikinis to his next-door neighbor.
That night, Paul tried not to stare, but after a month of lockdown his politeness was giving in, and he kept his eyes on her longer than necessary.
“You lost a bet,” Hartley said.
“Pardon?” Paul said.
“You lost a bet and you have to wear a suit until the lockdown is over. Is that it?”
“Yeah, I lost a bet. Did you lose all your mirrors?”
“I’ve worn suits and I’ve worn bikinis,” Hartley said. “And a suit jacket would never let me raise my fist in anger, so I’ll take the bikini any day, thank you.”
“Just to frame our discussion, taking care of yourself is out of the question, yeah?”
“You woke up today and put on a few pieces of fabric. I danced, wrote, sculpted, and talked to my friends. And I’m the one who doesn’t take care of herself?”
“You’re giving me nothing to believe that,” Paul said. “My suit, on the other hand, is showing you I can dress well and adapt to society.”
“Because adapting to society is such a wonderful thing.”
“Wonderful or not, it’s something. I’m not cleverer than the rest of humanity combined. So, I follow their tried-and-true conventions.”
“OK, do this with me,” Hartley said. “Look left, right, up, down. How many suits do you count?”
Paul glanced at the balconies on the other side of the street. He only spotted sweatpants and old T-shirts. “People are good at setting standards, not at following them. They do everything by the book for a day, and before you know it, they’re watching stupid series and hardcore porn.”
“And you watch…”
“I watch the classics,” Paul said. “I stick to my system and follow the experts’ recommendations. And you know what? When the next movie on the list is a two-and-a-half-hour Japanese film, I’m tempted to watch the American remake, but I stick to the classic, and it pays off, because it’s been tested before. If it works, I copy it.”
“Didn’t your school teacher tell you that copying is bad?”
“Why? It’s stupid not to copy. If you don’t copy what people eat or you don’t copy not jumping off the balcony, life’s pretty short.” Paul shifted on his feet, thinking that jumping off the balcony would at least take him out of this conversation.
“So, you copy everything that’s good,” Hartley said.
“Not everything. Never online. Digital copies are always exact and unnatural. We’re supposed to copy and mess up the copies. That’s how we evolve. The Internet allows us to make identical copies, which ruins the whole purpose of copying. I hate it.”
“Aw,” said Hartley, leaning on the handrail. “I hate the Internet, too.”
“You do?” Paul estimated the distance between the balconies. They were two meters away. There was no need to worry about social distancing.
“Yes. It makes us all go to the same places and watch the same things.”
“My complaint is about value, not originality,” Paul said.
“Well, you know what? If I can make you do something different, I’ll consider I’ve done something valuable with my time.”
“You may try for ten minutes a day. I start cooking at quarter past eight and I’m regular with my meals.”
“I’d have never guessed,” Hartley said.
Paul walked back into the kitchen and played his Tuesday podcast. Mixing with the interviews he listened to, the image of Hartley popped up in his head and asked for a bit of room to play. Paul paused the recording, leaned both his hands on the counter, and let his smile divert the flow of onion-induced tears.
The following morning Hartley dragged her feet from her bed to her workshop. She uncovered her latest sculpture and chipped wood before her consciousness could have a say in the process. She soon realized her hands were following an external will, a monotonous rhythm that came from the other side of the wall. She pressed her ear against it and distinguished a piece of repetitive electronic music.
She knocked on the wall.
“What?” Paul asked.
“Balcony,” Hartley said.
They met outside. He was shirtless.
“Ha! Where’s a suit when you need one?” Hartley said.
“What’s up?”
“I’m just thinking how pretty you’d look in one of my bikinis. You want to borrow one?”
“Anything else?” Paul asked.
“Duh, you’re gonna need a sarong to go with it.”
Paul headed back in.
“Seriously, well, you know what I mean,” Hartley said. “What’s that infernal noise at the other side of my wall?”
“My dumbbells?”
“I meant the music.”
“I can check it for you,” Paul said.
“Please, don’t. Just give me your phone number.”
Paul recited the nine digits. “What’s this for?”
“To send you music that doesn’t damage your soul,” Hartley said, making sure she got the number right. She sent the first playlist that popped up, so she could get back to Paul.
“There’s no such thing as a soul,” he said.
“I’m gonna take care of yours anyway.”
“You do you,” he said, going back in.
After all the tried-and-true nonsense from the night before, Hartley expected to finish her sculpture before hearing her playlist coming out of the wall. But no sooner had she picked up her chisel than she heard the violins of Romántica Milonguera rocking her table. She also noticed Paul’s breathing; it sounded faster.
That evening during the applause, Paul and Hartley examined each other from the corners of their eyes, like people who want to chat at a party but are stopped by drunk and friendly strangers. The end of the clapping left a warm silence behind.
“Convince me that you took care of yourself today,” Paul said.
“So, my friends and I had a call, and we decided everyone would speak just one sentence at a time, as improv actors do to form a story. Only there was no story. One friend spoke about a painting in the middle of a book review, a romantic story, and a family piece.”
“Sounds tricky.”
“It was fun!” Hartley said. “Did you do something as cool as that?”
“I worked out, did my analyses, and read my book.”
“Sounds… What are you reading?”
“The best 100 novels of the English language, as recommended by The Guardian,” Paul said. “I’m on number 32: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”
“Such an old thing.”
“You’ve read it?”
“I know about it,” Hartley said.
“So, you prefer second-hand information about a work of art rather than the experience of it.”
“Isn’t that what you do with your life?”
“No. I eventually try things myself,” Paul said.
“But what about all those books that speak to you much more than to the critics? Those books that are more unique because they only speak to you, like you’re sharing a secret with them.”
Paul clenched his teeth. He was better at replying after doing his research.
“Dinner time,” he said.
“Don’t follow the recipe!” Hartley said.
Paul came in and did not bother playing a podcast.
“The risk of disliking a book that’s not on The Guardian’s list is probabilistically higher than the risk of disliking a book that is.” That is what he should have said. He had used that argument in discussions many times before.
Exhausted as he was after the short conversation, he still nodded to himself. Discomfort was nature’s way to make progress. There was nothing wrong with being tired. The romantic tradition had done a lot of damage, portraying people as invincible when infatuated. All too well he knew one can be too exhausted or hungry to feel love.
A few days later, Hartley came out to the balcony wondering if she could tell Paul all about her day in just ten minutes. But before she could speak to him, the old lady across the street waved at her.
“Are you two friends?” Paul asked.
“As of today,” she replied.
“How did you get in touch? She doesn’t look very active on Twitter.”
“Paper planes.”
“How on earth did you land them on her balcony?” Paul asked.
“Let’s say I was also friendly to a few more neighbors and a street sweeper.”
“Anything else I should know about?”
“I’ve painted portraits of my best friends on my face masks, see?” Hartley asked, putting on one of them. “I look sexy with a beard or what?”
“Maybe just the mustache.”
“No, I have a mustache alright. Oh, I also cooked the okra stuck in my freezer. Do you know that package of food you never get to eat until you get drunk one day and-”
“Yeah,” Paul said, “talking about dinner. Would you like to join me tomorrow?”
Hartley held on to the handrail. “For dinner?”
“Yes.”
“But I always fast in the evening,” she said. “Dinner is a social instrument to make us feel comfortable at night and send us peacefully to bed instead of making us create.”
“OK.”
“Gee, I need to use that excuse more often. It totally worked, didn’t it? What time were you thinking?”
“After the applause?” Paul asked. “We can cook together if you like.”
“I do. Yeah. But wait, we’re from different households, so we’re not allowed to see each other until Monday. That’s when the new phase starts.”
“But we don’t have symptoms, and we haven’t seen anyone else for more than two weeks. At least, I haven’t.”
“Neither have I,” Hartley said, letting go of the handrail. “But the experts recommend that we wait. You’re telling me you’re gonna ignore their wise rules to have dinner with me?”
“Let’s just say I’m making an inexact copy of them.”
“I can live with that.”
