An elderly couple used to live in the corner entrance of our small five-story building. They seemed like very nice old people, in love and supportive of each other. They always went everywhere together, and no one really knew anything about them. For a while, the neighbors had no idea that Grandpa was alone. Someone saw an ambulance come, but no one knew until the funeral that Grandma was gone.
Because of loneliness or because there was no one else to restrain him, grandpa began to go out more often. Sometimes he wandered around, sometimes he would bump into one of his neighbors in a store. Before, no one would have paid any attention, but Grandpa started saying hello to everyone, asking how he was doing, how the kids were, where the grandchildren were, and so on. He asked me too, smiling in a friendly way and even offered to carry my bags home.
– And what about my husband? Don’t he have hands to help you? – he inquired.
– I don’t have a husband yet.
– How come? You must be forty years old, and still no husband?
I was only thirty-one, but I didn’t correct my grandfather.
He just spoiled my mood and I tried to see less of him in order not to hear any taunts. I thought that other people were normal, the old man had bad eyesight, but with his easy way my mother came running from work one day and said that all the grandmothers in the yard were discussing me because I was old, without a husband, without children, and lived with my parents. I somehow swallowed it, thinking that it would go away on its own, but it didn’t. My grandfather collected information about everyone, little by little, and poured it into the ears of others. So they temporarily switched me over to the single father from my apartment building, who supposedly had call girls coming over while the kids were at school. Then Grandpa told everyone that the neighbor on the first floor, who had his own machine shop, had never held a screwdriver in his hand, since he couldn’t fix some old car that Grandpa had driven a decade ago.
In the past, our neighbors were not friendly, but everyone had his own business, no one looked at the others, and now all we hear is all kinds of gossip from all sides. I am embarrassed to go out of the staircase, because it seems that every eye is on me and everyone is discussing the fact that I am a girl. And I myself, one way or another, wonder what other people’s stories are, not discussing with my neighbors, but listening to gossip. That’s bad, too. And all because of one grandfather, who does not sit at home.
The chairman of our co-operative decided to do something with him, after the grandfather started to say that she takes some money from the pensions of others without asking. Now she is trying to decide whether there are any legal grounds for evicting him, she is going around collecting signatures, and the neighbors seem to be willingly signing. But is it possible to evict a person from a house he has lived in for years or decades for gossip? I think I’d rather move myself and half the house than my grandfather.
