the whistling neighbor
The door was wide open and my mother was just about to take out the garbage when I heard it - the familiar whistle echoing through the hallway. As always, it was a sunny sound, cheerful and warm, coming up from downstairs to us on the third floor. We lived up here, in a typical old building, in a community that was as diverse as the people who lived in it.
A Czech family lived right next door to us. There was always something going on at their house - a baby, three adults and a small dog that would curiously peek out of the door as you walked down the hallway. In contrast, a woman lived below us who I only knew as “angry aunt”. She hardly ever spoke a word to anyone, and when she did, it always sounded grumpy. Once, out of curiosity, my little brother threw a bitten apple from the balcony, which landed on her balcony of all places. Minutes later, the angry aunt stood at our door, rang the bell so often and so impatiently that the doorbell almost gave up its ghost, and angrily scolded my mother. She gave us another bitter look before disappearing without a word. That was the only time I heard her voice, and she was just the „angry aunt“ to me ever since.
Later, an old gentleman I called “Cowboy” lived in the apartment next door to her. He wore a western hat and boots every day and often came back drunk in the evening. Sometimes he forgot his keys and I imagined how the angry aunt might open the door one evening when he knocked and the two of them would develop a mysterious friendship or even a secret romance. Of course, that was just my imagination, because the angry aunt never spoke to anyone, and Cowboy only grumbled quietly when you met him in the stairwell.
A very old man lived on the second floor who never spoke. Something about him always frightened me as a child. He often sat alone in a café. I didn't know much about him, only that he died suddenly just before we moved out of the house. I regretted that I never had the courage to speak to him.
A Polish couple lived opposite the old man. They were the warmest couple in the whole house and I especially liked it when the man would stop me as I walked past his window and ask how my day at school was or if I had a boyfriend. He would often jokingly say that he would like to set me up with his grandson. Whenever there was an occasion, he would bring my family sweets or small gifts, sometimes even flowers for my mother. He was a cheerful person and loved to whistle - his melodies filled the whole house, flew up the stairs and echoed through the walls. Once a neighbor complained, but most of us liked the whistling. It was like a welcome, a piece of Heimatklang.
After his wife died, the Polish neighbor became quieter. He rarely stood at the window and spoke less to us children. But you could still hear the whistling - a familiar melody that floated through the house, even if we only saw him rarely. At some point we moved away, but I came to see him one last time to pick up letters and bring him a souvenir. We sat together, drank tea and he showed me pictures from his youth. It was a quiet farewell that I perhaps couldn't really comprehend at the time.
A few weeks ago, more than a decade after we moved out, I suddenly heard this melody again - his melody. It came unexpectedly and disappeared just as quickly. It was like a greeting from the past, a faint echo that reminded me that he was gone now too. But the whistling would always remain, a hint of him that lives on in my memory like a warm breeze.
