"Why should I help them?" or: A Fountain of Filthy Water

I had just moved into an apartment in a high rise building in Germany. There was a knock at the door, and I answered it to find the elderly couple who lived across the landing. I naturally thought, "How nice! They want to welcome me!" I was quickly disabused of that notion by the scowls on their faces.

The woman explained in German that my front door made too much noise when I closed it. They believed that I didn't know how to close a door, and they were going to teach me. She demonstrated by holding down the handle, silently closing the door, then lifting up the handle. Usually when I arrived home, I simply pushed the door shut, and the latch clicked. That clicking noise was driving my neighbors crazy. Their door-closing method avoided the clicking noise.

After that, I tried to be a good neighbor. But once or twice, when I arrived home with my arms full of groceries, I pushed the door closed with my foot before I realized what I had done. Whenever I ran into my neighbors their expressions were dour, and I felt terrible about making their lives miserable with my occasional door clicking.

My next faux pas had a larger circle of critics. A friend stopped by to see me, but couldn't find my doorbell among the array of doorbells next to the ground floor elevator, since the buttons seemed to be in random order, not arranged by apartment number, and were labeled with only the occupants' names. I had sublet the apartment, so my doorbell had my landlady's name.

To solve this problem, I neatly printed my name on a piece of white tape, and pasted it over my landlady's name. A few days later I noticed that the label had been peeled off. I tried again, with the same result. Someone saw me trying a third time, and she kindly told me that some of the ladies in the building were upset, since the labels were supposed to be made using a labelmaker with white lettering on a black background. She suggested that I ask the Hausmeister to do it.

I obediently went to said Hausmeister, who grumbled about the fussy old ladies who made everyone's lives more difficult. He thought it was all very silly, but agreed to make a new label. Luckily he was an easy-going guy, who didn't ask any questions about what might have been an illegal sublet.

Some time later, everyone in the building was notified that the Hausmeister would come to bleed the radiators. Anyone who didn't want that had to tell him in advance. I didn't know what it meant to bleed a radiator, but I had no objection to the Hausmeister doing it.

On Bleeding Radiator Day, another knock at my door. The man who lived across the landing (of door-clicking fame) was frantic. He motioned me to follow him to his apartment. It turned out that he and his wife had refused entry to the Hausmeister, saying they would bleed their own radiators. What I saw when I entered their apartment was an arc of black water that emanated from a radiator, rose nearly to the ceiling, and descended onto their (formerly) pristine white carpet. The woman was trying to catch the stream in a medium sized pot.

The man tried to hand me an empty bowl, so I could replace his wife while she ran into the kitchen to empty her pot and he ran off to collect the Hausmeister.

For a brief instant, I hesitated. I thought, "These aren't my friends. They've made their hostility to me clear. Why should I help them?"

Then I collected myself, grabbed the bowl, and held it under the torrent, standing with outstretched arms in a hopeless attempt to keep my clothes clean. 

Why should I help them? Because I'm human, I'm part of a community, and that's what people do. What sort of world would we live in, if people didn't come to each other's aid in times of crisis?

The woman and I traded places, running back and forth between the living room and the kitchen sink, until the Hausmeister arrived with a wrench. I waited until everything was under control, and then left.

Later that day, when the Hausmeister bled my radiators, he complained about my annoying neighbors who thought they knew better than everyone else, and then ran to him for help whenever they screwed up.

While I knew I did the right thing, I was miffed that my neighbors hadn't even had the good manners to say "danke schön".

A week or two later, in the early evening, another knock at my door. I saw through the peephole that it was the man who lived across the landing.

"What did I do wrong this time?" I wondered. I thought about pretending I wasn't home, but they could hear all my comings and goings.

With trepidation, I opened the door. He sheepishly handed me a very small box that was beautifully wrapped.

I invited him in, and opened the box to find an assortment of chocolates. He, K (my significant other), and I sat in the living room and ate the chocolates. Our neighbor didn't know English, and at that time K and I didn't know enough German to have much of a conversation. We all knew a little French, so that's what we spoke. The man explained that he had picked up some French in Paris in 1942. What a lovely city, and what a great time he had there, he exclaimed in French. Knowing why he was in Paris in 1942, I was sorely tempted to make a cutting remark, but I knew that wouldn't be helpful or wise, not to mention that my French wasn't up to it.

I like to think that my neighbor and I made a tiny contribution towards global harmony, I by taking that empty bowl rather than walking away, and he with the lovely box of chocolates.