I was
sitting at my desk thinking about my neighbor. I saw her today before dawn. She
lived across the street on the second floor—the top floor—in the building
directly across from our third floor apartment.
The room we use as an office faces her bedroom window. Our
office has two desks, freestanding and built-in bookcases, and some of our
artwork—mostly mine—covers the walls. The room wields a creative energy.
The wall facing the street to the north—Calle 25B—has a large picture window, which lets in plenty of light
and gives a panoramic view of the neighborhood. There’s a bakery, a laundry,
and some small shops down the block to the left, and my wife’s best friend’s
house is across the street to the right. The neighbor’s second-floor
apartment’s across the street. The neighborhood is not ritzy by American
standards, but it’s peaceful—Colombian middle class.
Daylight starts in Bogotá at the same time every day. My wife
leaves for work just before it starts getting light outside around five thirty.
Today, after she left for work, I went into the kitchen and poured myself
another cup of coffee. As I walked back into our office carrying my coffee, I
gazed out through the big picture window at our neighbors building. I could
make out everything in the second floor bedroom. The overhead light was on, and
the vertical shades of the large window facing the street were open.
A young woman walked naked into the bright room. I had my hand
on the light switch by my office door. The young, naked woman reached and
grabbed an almost transparent robe and threw it over her shoulders. It did not
close and did not cover her large breasts. I stood in our dark office holding
my cup of coffee in my right hand with my left on the light switch and stared
into her brightly lit bedroom.
The young woman bent over, stepped into a pair of thong panties,
and wiggled them up over her hips. She turned and walked over to a dressing
table pushed up against the far wall of her room. She stood with her back to
the window. As she applied deodorant under each arm, the short robe rose up,
and exposed her thong panties, and the shape of her ass. Her breasts were
visible in the mirror on the wall above the dressing table. She picked up a
brush and began brushing her hair.
My wife got home from work around two o’clock and came into our
office. She was excited.
“They published my poem,”
she said.
