‘Katja!’ Solomon raises his voice, ignoring the hushing and shushing from his neighbours.
At last she opens the door. Her terrified eyes are red raw, tears stream down her face, snot down her nose. A baby is in her arms crying, a little boy clinging to her leg, and she has a phone to her ear.
‘I’m Solomon, your neighbour,’ he says when the terrified expression gives way to confusion. They’ve never spoken, aside from a few quick hellos as they’ve passed each other in the hall, but nothing more than that, nothing friendlier than that.
‘There’s a burglar on the balcony,’ she says to him, then returns to rapid fire Polish as she speaks down the phone. She leaves the door open and moves inside the apartment. She paces the wall furthest away from the balcony, as if afraid to go near the burglar who remains trapped out there, sitting on the cold hard floor, covering her face with her hands.
‘Have you called the guards?’ Solomon asks.
‘The what?’
‘The police.’
‘No! My husband! His friends will come.’
‘No, no, no,’ he says, trying to take the phone from her to explain to the man on the phone, but she whacks him hard on the arm and takes him by surprise. The baby howls, the little boy tries to kick him.
‘Katja, listen,’ he pleads, trying to calm her, to stop her screaming down the phone. ‘This is a mistake. She’s not a burglar. She’s my friend. The burglar on the balcony. She’s my friend.’
She finally stops and looks at him suspiciously.
‘This is a misunderstanding. My friend was trying to surprise me. She went to the wrong balcony.’ In actual fact, Solomon has absolutely no idea what Laura is doing on this balcony, she could be a burglar for all he knows, but he’ll defend her till the end. He’s seen Katja’s husband. He doesn’t want to meet his friends.
‘It’s a mistake. She got the wrong balcony.’
‘Why would she want to climb to your balcony?’
‘To … to … to be romantic, you know? Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet. The balcony. You know? Trust me, she is not a burglar. It’s a misunderstanding. Tell your husband to call his friends off.’
She thinks about it then fires a machine-gun drill of angry words into the phone.
As she does, Solomon opens the sliding doors and crouches down to Laura, who’s still huddled on the ground, hugging herself even tighter at the sound of the door opening. Her face is buried between her knees, her arms wrapped around her legs, which are tucked tight to her body.
‘It’s okay,’ he whispers, moving close, trying to see her face.
‘I was trying to set it free,’ she says, weeping.
‘Trying to set what free?’ He frowns.
‘The bird.’ She finally looks up. ‘I could hear the bird. It woke me up. It was trying to get out. I was trying to set it free, but it wasn’t there …’
He realises what she was trying to do. ‘Oh, Laura.’ He wraps his arms around her and pulls her close to him. He squeezes her tight, feeling her skin beneath her top where it has raised on her waist. He kisses the top of her head, breathes her in. He could stay like that for ever. She clings to him as hard as he holds her, and he’s feeling this embrace with every fibre of his being, wanting this moment more than anything.
She moves her face from where it is nestled to his bare chest and looks up at him. Her forehead brushes his chin as she moves, his skin tingles, hers is on fire. Their hearts pound with the closeness. She lifts her chin to gaze at him, their lips so close, their breaths already touching. She searches his eyes and finds her answer. His pupils are dilated, she sees the want in them. She smiles.
Then Katja comes to the door, the baby still crying on her hip.
‘Let’s go,’ he whispers, not wanting to move but wanting to get out of there before the husband returns. Laura moves with him, their hands finding one another and linking tightly. As they stand, Solomon sees a figure on the balcony next door. On his balcony. It’s Bo. She’s been watching them.
‘I’m sorry,’ Laura sniffs, pulling her legs under her body as she curls up on the armchair. She wraps a blanket around herself, shudders. She can’t look them in the eye.
Bo and Solomon view her from the couch. And while it’s back to two against one, the positions have changed. Bo sits as far away from Solomon as she can, perched at the very edge of the couch.
‘I had a nightmare, I woke up feeling trapped, I could hear the bird.’ She shakes her head.
‘What did it sound like?’ Bo asks, testing her.
Laura thinks about it, then shakes her head, no sound coming. ‘I think I’m going crazy.’ She rubs her eyes tiredly. ‘What was I thinking?’