Santiago Martinez

Courtland Avenue

This is a personal homage to Julio Cortazar,
my favourite writer.

Courtland Avenue is a frozen street in Ilford, Essex. When I arrived to London the last week, I knew his traditional houses and his peaceful rhythm of live. My home now is my friend´s flat, in Ilford. If you come in the rail services, you will get out the train in Ilford Station, and walk about ten minutes to come my house. They are different places for dinner, one or two surgeries, and little markets. I don´t have another friends, and I don´t know anybody.

My friend is so kind with me. He went to the airport by me and my bags and opened his house for my needs. I remember the day that I have come. “Santiago”, He said, “this are your keys. This one opens the front door, this door looks the street. This one opens the flat´s door, the D flat”. The house where is located the flat have another three flats. My friend said me that all the flats are empty in these weeks. “I don´t know anybody in this house, we don´t have neighbours”. “But, remember”, he said, “when I return from Russia we must leave this flat and move to another one, more comfortable”.

The first night was so pacific. My friend showed me the roads, the tube station and taught me the principal recommendations for my journey and my live in Ilford. He travelled to Russia for business and I stayed alone in the Ilford Flat.

The second night was different. In the middle of the night, I listened a very extraneous sound. I didn´t know its source, but I thought that may be it the sound of the winter wind striking the downstairs doors. I didn´t put attention to this sound, but I just waked up. The next morning I went to school. It was my first day. Everything marched like I wanted. I started my English classes and I met new polite people. British Study Centres is surrounded by beautiful places. This day, I discovered that near of my school is located Abbey Road, where the Beatles had his record house. Hector Berlioz also lived in the surroundings. They are many things to look in Manchester Street surroundings.

When I arrived to my home, the house was so silent that I laughed because I remembered the sound in the middle of the night. “I´m crazy”, I thought, “may be the solitude played me a joke”. But later, in the night, I listened to the same sound but now it had a new ripple. It was a little different, it seemed old person steps. I didn´t fear, but when I could listen a cough I felt terror. I put my head under the shelter and said to me, “It is the solitude, don´t be afraid, don´t be afraid”.

The next morning the fear didn´t leave me come early to home. I walked for many hours. I took pictures in the City. I so worried with the sound that I thought that I had lost my head. All things in the day were fine, but the night didn´t come late. In my country, where the seasons don´t exist, the night never arrives before the 6:00 p.m. But, now, in England, grows dark earlier. Then, I came back home, I cooked my dinner. Always, in this evening, I thought in the noise. I said, all the time, to me, “we will move to another flat, don´t worry”, but countless times, I remembered the frightening sound. At last, I went to bed, put the radio and closed my eyes with strength.

The thick silence of my home was interrupted for the cough and the old person steps. I was terrified. The sound moved in the downstairs, and also climbed to the second floor. I was scared. A few hours later the noise disappeared. I didn´t move any muscle. Simply I remained like a stone in the bed. These episodes repeated for two or three nights. At the end I wished return my home, in my country, where I didn´t hear old persons walk in the night.

The day that my friend returned from Russia I came back home earlier. I was happy. “This is my last night in this flat”, I thought, “tomorrow in the night I will be secure”. I felt good; I opened the door with calmly. When I went in the house a stare surprised me. It was a stare of an old woman, in pyjamas. She had in the hand a little key and she coughed frequently. I was terrified, the old woman had a mysterious thing, an aura of otherness that I can´t describe. “Hi, Mr”, said the old woman, “may you help me with this door”. I didn´t understand her. But she repeated his words and I took the key and open her door, exactly in the first floor, under our flat. Later, in my home, I laughed. All the time, the old woman was in the first floor. “Really, I am a fool”, I thought.

My friend came later, we packed and we spoke about London, the school and the things that I had lived in these days. I forgot the noise. That night I didn´t heard anything. The next morning we moved to another flat. We don´t spoke about the old woman.

A few days later we went to a party. That night I met Sabrina, a young person that works with him. Sabrina went to the Ilford flat sometimes. That night we talked about the old women. I told her that the neighbour of my friend was very rare. “No”, she said, “You are wrong, in this house don´t live any old person, you must be sick”. I didn´t explain anything to Sabrina. Only I remembered the terror in the night, the stare of the old woman, her cough, her otherness, and her key, a key that open a flat but also anything else. In the solitude of my experience I felt an ice cold in my neck. Until now I didn´t narrated these events but now I sure that the old women continues walk in the house, cough and even talk with her fearful neighbours.