Real estate is a Paris obsession.  Precisely because there is such a shortage of decent living space.  Even City Hall is aware of the problem.  The daily Libération announced in mid-October the mayor's plan to build 64,000 affordable housing units over the next twenty years.  Among them, the city is to convert eleven buildings in the capital's poshest districts – including the bourgeois sixteenth arrondissement and the stately avenues off the Champs Elysées.  These changes are being undertaken in the name of a "social living rebalance."  Despite this egalitarian objective – so characteristically French – no one seems able to find a satisfying apartment.  And everyone is, constantly, looking.

I am no exception.  More than anything, I feel fortunate to have a roof over my head and a place I can retreat to and call my own (my closest Paris friend and his girlfriend have been sleeping in the spare bedroom of a friend's apartment since July, and other acquaintances can do little more than drool over the thought of moving out of their parents' home.)  Nonetheless, I am constantly reminded, as I bump against the kitchen sink or cut vegetables on my desk, that I pay too much for my studio – which is really nothing more than a small room, not much larger than a walk-in closet.  A bed, makeshift desk, armoire, and night table are cramped into the corner farthest from the door.  Three steps from where I sleep is the "kitchen corner" – a sink, refrigerator, and double-burner for preparing pasta and tea.  The most luxurious place in the studio is the bathroom, most prominently because it has a door and is, thus, a room separate from the mass that forms the apartment's bulk.  Most people living in spaces this size sleep under the slanted roofs of maids' rooms at the top floors of centuries-old buildings, and must relieve themselves in communal toilets down the hall.  I remind myself of the advantages of this apartment.  Still, my optimism does nothing to stop me from being, like other Parisians, incessantly curious about how other people live.

It is due to this curiosity, and the planning of Paris' ancient apartment buildings – fashioned to cram the maximum number of occupants into the least amount of space, with little concern for tenants' privacy – that I met my next-door neighbor.  One night, I invited a friend for dinner chez moi.  What is usually a delightful activity in cooperation turned into a clumsy choreography of bodily collisions and bumping elbows, as one of us tried to cut mushrooms while the other boiled water.  We ate, our knees almost touching, he enthroned on the metal folding chair and myself seated on the bed, bending over the bowl of tortellini balanced on my knees.  I gazed wistfully through the window of the apartment catty-corner to mine, trying to calculate the square footage of what seemed a gigantic living room.  The tenant caught me spying, and I looked away, embarrassed.  I promptly knocked on his door to introduce myself, explaining that I was not a peeping tom but merely trying to see how much larger his apartment was than mine.  Afterwards, he accompanied us for a drink downstairs.

Peering into my neighbors' apartments has become, admittedly, a favorite pastime.  But I am not the only one to enjoy the theater of life that can be observed at any hour through other people's windowpanes.  Another neighbor, David, has told me that the prior tenant of my studio spent afternoons lying in bed with his girlfriend, and that a woman across the way prefers to saunter about her apartment in her underwear.  The other night, he was the accidental star of the never-ending Paris spectacle: going into the kitchen after being awakened by a festive crowd in a neighboring building, he turned to find the entire party gawking, through their window, at his almost-naked body.  I relish my visits to David's apartment, not only for our chats about religion, writing, and the uncertain future of the globe, but also because of the better view it provides for voyeurism.  In his ell of the building, I climb the rickety steps – none of which is same height, and all of which slant in towards the wall – anticipating the vista of our neighbors' rooftops.  When I feel too lazy to climb the five flights, I call out in a stage whisper to his window, just two stories above mine, and we hold entire conversations across the courtyard.

The preferred form of communication with my across-the-hall neighbor is hand-scribbled notes, dropped on my doormat or slipped under his door.  Once, he invited me for tea, and I was awestruck by the seemingly palatial dimensions of his apartment.  Four people fit inside without the slightest awkwardness.  The kitchen is separate from the main room, and it boasts a microwave in addition to the standard countertop burners.  Yet despite my twinge of envy over a student flat that is a mansion compared with mine, I know that even Charles has had his share of lodging woes.  The day he moved in, his welcome party was a flood, which he soon discovered to be to be emanating from the septic system.  His first three days were spent not decorating, but rather cleaning the refuse from the all toilets in our building.  Lately, he has heard mice scurrying in his walls, and has set up a yellow bucket to trap them.

Last Friday, a plate of sliced baguette and roquefort cheese was waiting for me in the hallway when I left for work.  The gift sat expectantly atop the dust-covered fountain outside my door (a relic from the days when there was no proper plumbing in individual flats, for people to wash their hands and face, or carry buckets inside for heavier-duty tasks).  The note accompanying the surprise was unsigned.  I rode the metro to my school in the suburbs, delighted by the conundrum.  That afternoon, I took out a file stuffed with notes I had saved, splaying them before me on the bed for a handwriting analysis.  I relished the sense of mystery, secretly hoping for one particular neighbor to be the donor.

As I put the scribbled notes back in their drawer, I twisted in my chair to grab a tea biscuit and some water from the refrigerator.  I did not have to get up to accomplish these tasks; everything is at arm's reach in this room.  What a ridiculous place for a 24-year-old to call home, I mused with a smirk, as I considered the four walls that always seem to be closing in on me.  Still, the mere thought of recommencing the apartment search – the endless phone calls, the long lines, the curt rejections – exhausted me.  I decided it would be more prudent to let fate take its course, as it is always seems to do in Paris, before relocating.  And besides, until I find that "perfect" flat so elusive in this city, this place – with its mysterious letters to tear open and neighbors to call through the window for late-night chats – is not all that bad.

Mail:  GParnes@Yahoo.com

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