It was disorienting to hear them so clearly in the open air.įor a moment I thought there was a team of paramedics on the block who had just performed some heroic intervention. From the window below ours, we heard our downstairs neighbors, Marie and her 10-year-old daughter Lya, whose evening singing and morning screaming through the floor have been integral to the daily emotional fabric of our lives.
In addition to the general and steady clapping was the sound of a tuba lowing from across the street, sharp wolf-whistles from every direction, the banging of pots and pans, and cries of “Merci les hôpitaux!” and “Vive la France!” A young mother in a head wrap hoisted her toddler up to the windowsill to bang soda bottles together. Our neighbors’ windows face our own from all angles.
We live in a cluster of public housing buildings, each shaped like a castoff from a failed serif font, and arranged in a way that creates alleys, alcoves, and half-enclosed courtyards in the negative space between each building.
HOLD THE APPLAUSE TV
That Wednesday was my wife’s day to walk the dog, so I hadn’t been or even looked outside yet when, at 8 PM, the TV show we were watching was interrupted by the sound of boisterous, widespread applause.
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