I often wish I didn't have a room with a view
I live in a rather strange neighborhood. At first glance, you might not notice just how bizarre my little corner of Munich can be. Considered to be one of the city’s elite quarters, it is lined with turn-of-the-century houses, hip home-furnishings stores and neatly groomed parks. Neighbors know one another here—perhaps, at times, too well—and gaggles of cheerful children march to school each morning. The butcher, baker and apartment grounds raker greet me as I make my Saturday morning shopping rounds. But odd things happen here.It all started about two years ago. Previously, I thought of my home turf as the next best thing to suburbia. I encountered the unsavory aspects of city living only on my way to and from work. Then, one day, across the street from my apartment—where a sprawling, glass-front office space had been empty for several months—I saw that the horizontal blinds had been removed from the window. Inside the commercial property, I saw a chubby, long-bearded, greasy-haired fellow arranging rocks in the window. That night, I watched as he laid filthy oriental rugs and sorted through boxes of torn books and tattered magazines. Could it be that the newcomer was to run a flea market from the former storefront? In the weeks that followed, the “bagman,” who had subsequently hung a sign on his door explaining that he was an acclaimed Russian artist, hauled in loads of boulders, plates and periodicals, which he promptly threw to the floor, leaving only a narrow trail to the other, curtain-hidden rooms in his place. Those of us with a direct view of the dump from our balconies learned to live with the man and his deplorable feel for decorating until he began kissing his aged, wheel-chair-ridden mother in a most romantic manner as he rolled her down the sidewalk.
One afternoon last summer, I was sitting in my living room watching television. I looked up and saw a large pair of binoculars pointed at me from a roof-top apartment on the next street over. In an effort to determine whether or not the eyes behind the bird-watching-strength glasses were actually looking at me, I brazenly showed the peeper my middle finger. The figure responded by putting down the binoculars, and turning to reach for what appeared to be a rifle. I slid off the couch to the floor. I laughed at myself when I saw that whoever the “gunman” was, he had a “super soaker” squirt bazooka and was spraying his ammo in my direction. A kid, I thought, feeling ridiculous for hitting the deck. Until I saw that the shooter was about 40 years old and wearing a mustache and a beer belly. The next two nights, a golf-ball-size infrared light, emanating from the voyeur’s window, danced across my walls and on the middle of my forehead. I, again, took cover on the carpet. The policeman, non-plussed by the events, said I should get drapes.
A few months ago, upon the death of his lover, er, mother, our neighborhood “artist” moved out. We hoped that we would finally see a green grocer or restaurant move into the zoned-for-commerce space. We gaped at the bleach-blond real estate agent as she presented five or six well-dressed businessmen—who arrived in Mercedes convertibles and yakked non-stop on tiny cellular telephones—with papers to sign. “Shucks,” we thought. Another boring office pool is moving in. The next day, a jeans-donning couple carefully measured the display window, cut thick white strips of paper and taped them over the glass and closed the metal outdoor blinds over the other windows. A week later, vertical blinds replaced the paper and they were in business.
DIIING DONNNG! A loud doorbell sounded from the street as I sat working at my computer. DIIING DONNNG! I rushed to the window to espy a middle-aged, balding executive type standing in front of the new office. The door swung open and the man was admitted, though the person who welcomed him hid behind the door. Three days, 30 balding men and about 100 ding dongs later, I had nixed the idea that this might be some sort of hair loss clinic and faced the harsh reality. My new, scantily clad female neighbors were engaging in the world’s oldest profession—Monday through Friday, nine to five, by appointment only.
I am actually for legalized prostitution. However, this “erotic wellness center”—I heard through the grapevine that the outfit is registered as such—is illegally out of Munich’s red light district and directly across the street from a kindergarten and a large childrens’ playground. “Amorous” johns ring the doorbell from morning to night or, worse still, lower in parked cars awaiting appointments or the chance to talk their way into the brothel. The local police have been well aware of the “massage parlor” for quite some time, yet the “erotically unwell” keep coming. I guess, in my neighborhood, the only thing I can do is give in and get those curtains.
