The Downstairs Apartment

At first, I considered using a soft touch to peel the wallpaper back. I would go about it all very carefully. In this way, I would respect my late mother’s legacy of flamboyant interior design, and I would not disturb any evidence. The wallpaper had huge crimson flowers of an
indeterminant species. I am not a fan of wallpaper. It distracts the eye too much. One can never really settle down when there’s nowhere to rest one’s sight. I like to rest. I need it these days.
So I walked around the apartment until I found a corner already peeling back from the wall. I used a paint scraper and got to work. It was cold with the electricity off, but I was sweating. I was fearful of finding something and of finding nothing. The sunshine peeking around the drawn curtains shone hazily.
I had pulled a nice chunk of wallpaper free. I had even kept some of the petals intact. Then I realized how foolish I was being. No one was going to hide anything under my mother’s wallpaper. How would they do that? How would they peel it back and then reglue it and keep it so smooth and flawless. Absurd. Unless, of course, this was not my mother’s wallpaper, but a copy of my mother’s wallpaper, and they tore hers off—roughly no doubt—put the device in the wall, perhaps in a little groove that they scratched out of the drywall, and then put up this new wallpaper of the same design, recreating the same stains, because they are no amateurs. There’s no doubt there.
I kept on.
I finished an entire wall. Then I pushed the couch away from the adjacent wall and sighed. Had I not already demonstrated my love for my mother by being careful with the first wall? I chewed the inside of my left cheek and began to rip the paper away with my long fingernails. It came off easily on account of its age.
I already had evidence. Plenty. It was fine if I destroyed some by accident.
I was halfway through the second wall when I felt the heat. It came through my fingers into my arms and shoulders and straight to my heart and lungs. I grasped my chest with both hands. There was a bright light at the corner of my vision, but when I turned my head, it disappeared. I saw it again, and again I twisted towards it, and again it vanished. This went on for some time, me clutching my breasts and whirling my head around. There was a smell, too. Nothing I could identify, but it was similar to smoke. They can do all sorts of things with these beams. I have no idea why anyone questions their capabilities.
“Did you hear that?” I asked myself. I looked around. It didn’t matter that I was alone in the apartment. I was not alone.
The heat and the smell and light made me angry, so I took a hammer to a different wall, straight into the center of a red flower.
“Listen,” I said. “God damn listen. I don’t have time for this.” I swung the hammer again and again. “I have a life to live.” I yelled in case they were having a hard time hearing me. I wanted to make myself clear. “You took my mother but you will not take me.”
I looked up and saw the brass light fixture was rocking back and forth a little. “God damn good for nothing.” I pulled the couch underneath it and climbed on top, but I couldn’t reach it with my hammer. I climbed down and then threw the hammer at it. The grip hit with a loud clang and got stuck on an arm. The buzzer rang.
I shuffled over to the door.
“Yes?” I said loudly.
“It’s your upstairs neighbor.”
“Yes? Margaret?” I said.
“Yes, that’s me. Can you open the door?”
“I’m quite busy.”
“Yes, I can hear that,” Margaret said. There was a pause. “Can you open the door just a moment, though, so we can speak?”
“No,” I said. I turned around and went back to the light fixture. I stood below it and watched its slight movement. I thought about my mother, and the time I found her standing just where I was standing. I remembered her looking up at the light and saying something to herself, something that sounded like a prayer.
The buzzer rang again.
“Come to the door,” Margaret said.
I came to the door but did not open it.
“Can you hear me? Tell me you can hear me.” She was speaking more quietly.
“Yes,” I said.
“Good,” she said. She had a sweet voice. I had always thought so. “That sounds like a hammer. Are you using a hammer?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m not sorry. This is very important work I am doing.”
“I know that,” she said. She was nearly whispering. “This would be much easier if you would open the door.”
“No.”
I heard her sigh noisily.
“Fine,” she said. “My hands are very hot.”
I put my ear to the door.
“Do you know why my hands feel hot, like they’ve been near a stove?” she asked. “Even though I’ve turned down the heat and I’ve run them under cold water?”
“No,” I said.
“You do, though. You have some sort of clue. You have an idea, don’t you?” she said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It’s your fault,” she hissed. “It’s all your fault. They can’t target you without some of it getting onto me.” She slammed against the door and I jumped back.
I could hear her crying.
“Don’t even think about it,” she said. “Don’t even think about trying to comfort me.”
The doorknob rattled.
“Keep yourself locked up in there safe now, do you?” she said. Her voice was too loud. I could hear it all around me. “Call them off. Get rid of them, or you’ll be sorry.”
“I’m trying,” I said. There was a long silence. “I just need more time.” I put my ear to the door again. “Margaret?” I whispered. “Margaret? Are you there?”
I crack the door, peer into darkness.