It’s a two-apartment flat. I was here long before this couple came last year. The couple who used to occupy that part used to be my friends. They cooked and invited me. The woman especially loved my company. When they travelled for a few days, their kids stayed with me, or when they wanted to go out without them, I was the one they left their kids with.

The way the apartment is designed, it looks like it was meant for a large family. The doors face each other, and we share a common corridor. When they were leaving, it broke my heart. They had outgrown the place and needed somewhere bigger.

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A few days after they had left, this couple came to inspect it. They said they were getting married over the weekend and would love to move in right after the marriage. The landlord left the keys with me for inspections like that, so I was the one who took them around. They thought I was the daughter of the landlord, and I told them I was also just a tenant.

They came a month later, and I helped them with their load and also helped them with the little things they needed to feel at home. I showed them where to get what and what to do where. From there, it was good morning when we met in the morning and good evening when I came from work and met them. We didn’t talk much. I could feel the warmth in their voices when they greeted me, so I knew they were not bad people.

Then one late night, I was returning from town when I saw shadows under the staircase. I shivered at first until I saw what was going on. Two people. A man and a woman. The woman holding her knees and the man busy at the back. I stood in shock before it turned into laughter.

I thought it was the area guys who had decided to use the staircase as their hotel room, so I shuffled my feet to make a sound, and these two people quickly started arranging themselves to look like they were not doing anything. It was when they turned that I saw who they were. The new couple who had recently come to live in the next apartment.

The man shyly waved at me and said, “Oh, it’s us,” but the woman didn’t look my way. I said sorry and continued walking to my room. I was thinking about it. “Who has taken over their room that they have to come and do this outside?” I asked myself. All night, I was thinking about it, but in the morning, I heard a knock on my door. It was the lady. She had come to say sorry.

“It was embarrassing. We didn’t know you were out. Sorry if what you saw disturbed you. We are adults. We should know better.”

I smiled and said it was fine. I even apologised for seeing them, telling her I thought it was outsiders, which was the reason I made the sound. She smiled shyly. “I’m so embarrassed. Please forgive us. We are not like that, but this one just happened because we had a lot to drink.”

From that day, the relationship softened between me and the lady. The man didn’t say much apart from greeting me and going his way. The lady picked up a conversation whenever she saw me. She would ask about work and ask about life in general. Then it would turn into girls-girls talk.

Another time, it was raining heavily in the night, around 10 p.m. I picked up a bucket and stepped out to harvest some of the rainwater. Again, in the rain, just behind the house, they were there. The same position I saw them in the first day. This time, it was intense, with a little bit of moaning, but the sound of the rain drowned out the moans.

I quickly took a step back before they could see me. I went quickly back into my room without letting them know I saw them. I couldn’t harvest the rain because I didn’t want them to know I’d seen them. But I was bothered. “Is that a ritual or just some fetish that they can’t do it in their room but around the compound?”

Just yesterday, I was checking the visitors’ bathroom to see if it had been cleaned. I opened the door and faced resistance from the inside, and then a voice said, “I’m here.” I said sorry and left. But I wanted to see who was there. And then, a few minutes later, the lady stepped out, and then her husband followed. I could imagine what happened there without being told.

They do it everywhere with reckless abandon. I don’t know what kind of pleasure they seek that they can’t get in their own room, the space they rented. I paid the same rent as them, but I have to walk around with care so I don’t walk into them doing business. I have to watch my front very well before I take a step. When I’m returning late from work, I have to make unnecessary sounds to alert them about my coming.

Is There A Man Out There Who Doesn’t Cheat?

The whole thing is becoming like a job for me, how to walk around without walking into them. It also makes me feel like they keep doing it because they believe I don’t see them. So I’m asking, should I tell them to stop it? Should I inform the landlord so he has a conversation with them? Should I sit them down and tell them about how I feel about how they go about their business?

I’m also a tenant like them, and I have every right to enjoy my stay around here just like they do. I should move freely, go and come at any time I want without feeling like I’m going to step into cow dung. But then, sometimes, I think of it and I tell myself, “It’s their life.”

What would you do in my shoes?

—Kesiah      

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