by Menasheh Fogel
Sophie pulls away from the door, breathing hard, trying to decide what to do. She peers again through the peephole. The man is still standing there. The automatic hall light flicks off, yet she can make him out in the fading light from the small window above the stairwell. He appears perfectly normal, maybe a bit nondescript. He breathes motionlessly, gazing forward down the stairs. She wonders what he could possibly want, what he might be thinking.
She remembers the phone number of the last tenant. The woman showed Sophie around when she first came to look at the place. She had mostly packed up by then. The woman was single, about the same age. She told her she was moving in with her boyfriend, going exactly in the opposite direction. The woman had written down her number and handed it to Sophie. She said to call if she had any questions. Sophie sets down the tennis racquet, reaches for her phone and dials as she looks through the hole at the man in the hallway. It doesn’t ring, but suddenly the former tenant is on the other end of the line.
“Hello?” she says.
“Hi, this is Sophie. I moved into your old place.”
“Oh, hi. Is everything okay with the apartment?”
“Yes, everything’s fine,” Sophie says. “Well, actually no, not really.”
“Mmm-hmm. What’s going on?”
“When I first got here, I started exploring the apartment. I found a hidden doorway in the hallway. Behind the door there was a little alcove. Inside was a man.”
The woman takes a tightened breath and a long pause. She says, “Oh, that.”
“You mean you know about him?”
Another long pause.
“Yeah, he sort of comes with the place.”
“Comes with the place? I don’t think I understand.”
“Well, you know that box in the hallway? He lives there.”
“What do you mean, ‘lives there?’” Sophie asks. “I live here.”
“Yes, of course, you live there. But that box is, well—” another long pause. “It’s his. I don’t really know how to explain it other than that. Is he still there?”
“No, I shooed him out the door. But he’s still here, standing on the landing. I’m looking at him through the peephole right now.”
“What’s he doing?”
“He’s just standing there in the dark. He’s looking down the stairs. He’s just standing, staring and breathing. I’m sure he can hear me talking about him. But he’s not moving.”
“Yeah, that kind of makes sense.”
“Makes sense? None of this makes sense.”
“Well, that’s where he lives. In that box inside your apartment. He doesn’t have anywhere else to go and nothing else to do.”
“Is he dangerous?”
“God no,” the woman laughs. “He’s harmless. He just lives in that box.”
“Does he have a name?”
“I don’t know. I never asked.”
“Well, what did you do with him?”
“Not much really. I invited him out every once in a while, he sat on the couch. I kind of forgot he was there most of the time. But I do miss the way he used to say such nice things to me.”
“Well if you like him so much, you should come back and get him. He can’t stay here.”
“Oh, no. That won’t work at all.”
“Well, he’s not mine!”
“Yeah,” the woman pauses. “Yeah, no. I just don’t have a big enough box. Besides, I’m starting my new life and everything.”
“Me too!” Sophie screams. But the woman is already gone. Sophie stares at the list of recent calls on her phone and mutters to no one in particular, “So, there’s a strange man who lives in a box in my apartment.”
Sophie looks through the hole. It’s getting dark, but she can still barely make out the silhouette of the man on the landing. Standing, staring and breathing.
She opens up the door and flicks on the hall light.
“Who are you?” she asks.
He blinks.
“What are you doing here?”
He stares.
“Where do you live?”
He turns his head to look at her.
“Here,” he says.
She takes a long pause and gives a heavy sigh, “You mean in the box?”
The man nods.
“And I live in the rest of the apartment?”
He nods again.
Sophie steps aside. She holds up the racquet and says, “One false move, okay?”
“Okay,” he says.
He enters the hallway and she closes the heavy wooden door behind him.
“Straight into your box.”
“Okay.”
He walks into the alcove, turns around, blinks once and then closes his eyes. Sophie clicks the door shut. With her back against the wall, she slides down and sits on the floor, looking at the door and the grooves around it. She stays there for a while, trying to make sense of her day.
As Sophie heads back towards the bathroom, she notices a string with a door on the ceiling of the hallway. The attic might be useful for storage. She pulls the door down and a small ladder slides out, which she mounts to inspect the space above. A tiny open portal sits below the eave, but there’s not enough light to make anything out. She reaches for the phone jammed into the back pocket of her jeans and switches on the flashlight. The floor is covered with rat corpses and droppings. She reels in revulsion. The beam catches the scared red eyes of a live rat, now staring back at her. Sophie lets out a startled squeak, scurries down the ladder and slams the attic door.
She gets ready for bed. She rummages through the boxes in her room, finding the sheets and blankets. She crawls in and lets out a big sigh. She sets the tennis racquet on the other side of the bed, just in case. Throughout the night, there is no sound, no movement at all in the apartment. Nevertheless, she has a rough night, barely sleeping.
In the morning, she looks in on her roommate, still tucked away in the small box in the hallway. The man opens his eyes.
“Well, you’re still here,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m going to work now.”
“Okay.”
The boards groan as she makes her way down the narrow staircase, probably originally used to gain access to servants quarters. It’s an old Victorian house, long ago cut up into separate units, never really meant for apartments. She makes her way over to the University on the bus. She started her post-doc here at the beginning of the fall semester. She teaches a few undergraduate courses, but mostly she works in the archive or library doing research for her book. It’s about the forgotten women authors in Yiddish newspapers from the early 20th century. Unlike their male counterparts, or the mostly hasidic Yiddish speakers of today, these women depicted daily life, sex, love and loss with a frankness absent from almost all corners of the literary world at that time. In one piece Sophie has been translating, the protagonist is torn between her husband and her lover. The husband demands time and attention, and her lover, who barely remembers her birthday, provides her the physical closeness she so craves. Sophie identifies with her subjects and above all wants to give them back their voice.
When she gets home in the evening, she checks the mailbox. There’s nothing there of course. No one has her new address and the post office won’t start forwarding until next week. She makes her way up the back stairs to her apartment. In the kitchen she finds her cereal bowl and coffee cup from this morning, cleaned, dried and put away. She runs her hands over the cool light blue tiles, something from the seventies. It feels clean. Sophie is sure she had left them in the sink as she rushed out for the bus.
One day, maybe two or three months before she moved out of the shared apartment with Neal, Sophie came home from work to find her coffee cup from the morning, exactly where she had left it on the kitchen counter. She had gulped down the last of the gritty residue and flew out the door to catch her bus. When she got home, it was still there, stuck slightly to the countertop.
“Hey, hey,” said Neal, appearing in the doorframe. From behind his back, he pulled out three bars of artisanal dark chocolate, one with nibs, one with lavender and one with sea salt. “I was in the neighborhood around that fancy chocolate store you love on Piedmont.”
“Gee, thanks,” Sophie sighed.
He came over to give her a peck, which she let land on her cheek.
“Love me still?” he asked.
“Of course.”
And then he was gone. Sophie turned around to face the counter. She did love that store, but why did he leave that damn cup on the counter?
The buzzer rings, startling Sophie until she remembers the grocery delivery. The delivery man huffs his way up to the top floor loaded with bags. She gives him a small tip and pulls all the bags inside. Then she remembers the man in the box. She opens the door and he opens his eyes. It was not a dream.
“Well, at least make yourself useful. Come help me put the groceries away.”
“Okay.”
He comes out, taking the bags into the kitchen. He holds up the package of rat poison, fortunately in a separate bag.
“It looks like there’s a little rat infestation in the attic,” she says. “Just put it under the sink for now.”
Wordlessly, he puts everything away, as Sophie changes into her pajamas and goes to the bathroom. She heads back into the kitchen and pulls out a beer from the fridge.
“I’m going to make something to eat, would you like something?” she asks.
“Okay.”
She finds a pan, the toaster and a spatula. She moves a few boxes to the floor and clears off a little space in the tiny two-seater table and chairs.
“Have a seat,” she says.
The man sits down.
Her meal is nothing spectacular, omelets with cheese and tomatoes and some toast, but it’s fast, filling and warm. Sophie places a plate in front of the man and another in front of her place. She sits down, pulls out her phone and reads the news. The man chews his omelet in silence. When they are done, Sophie does the dishes.
“Can you take out the trash?” she asks.
“Okay,” he says.
The man takes the trash out from under the sink, out the door and to the cans on the street. When he returns, Sophie says to him, “You can go back now. ”
The man returns to his box.
When she wakes up in the morning, Sophie gets ready for work. She wanders by the man’s box, hesitates and then proceeds out the door.
When she gets home that evening, the trash barrels on the curb are piled high with several pink bags of trash. Normally, she would not pay too much attention, but the bags are somewhat transparent, showing hundreds of corpses of rats, squeezed lifelessly and unceremoniously into the bags which will take them to their final resting place. Confused, Sophie enters the house, proceeds up the stairs and into her apartment. Everything looks to be in order. Perhaps the hallway looks like it has been mopped, but otherwise, there is no disturbance. Tentatively, she pulls down the ladder for the attic, flicks on the flashlight and peers through the crawlspace. All the rats are gone, not a trace. She sniffs the air and catches the scent of baked wood from the warmed attic. She slowly makes her way up the ladder and onto the raw flooring. It’s freshly swept and clean. She walks in a hunch over to the portal. Under the joists, she finds traces of the rat poison, but otherwise it is as if they never existed. Sophie looks through the portal and sees the park across the street. She inhales deeply, relieved and relaxed, realizing she had carried stress and anxiety in her body from the infestation. The stress now bleeds out of her.
When she comes out of the attic, she presses lightly on the door to the box, which clicks and releases. The man opens his eyes.
“Did you clean up the rats?”
He stares at her. Then he slowly nods his head.
“But how—” Sophie trails off in wonder.
They stare at each other. Sophie is filled with confusion, but also gratitude.
“Well, thank you,” she says. “Listen, I don’t feel like cooking. I’m going to order some Greek food. Would you like something?”
“Okay,” he says.
Sophie is pleased. Neal hated Greek.
“You can come out and sit on the couch while we’re waiting.”
“Okay.”
The man walks out of his alcove to the living room in the front. He finds his place absently. Sophie heads into the kitchen and pours herself a glass of red wine. She sits at the table and places the order with the app on her phone. Then she proceeds to scroll through the news and check her social media channels. She posts a few photos of her apartment she has been meaning to share. The reactions come quickly from her vast network of friends, likes, encouragement, this-will-be-great-for-yous and so on. The doorbell rings with the food.
Sophie sets everything out on the table for two. She walks into the living room. The man has not moved, almost blending into the fabric of the two-seater couch.
“You can come eat now,” she says.
The man gets up slowly and heads into the kitchen. He sits down at the same place where he was before. As they begin eating, Sophie goes back to her phone. Then she clicks it off and stares at the man as he silently chews.
Finally she asks, “So, what’s your story?”
The man continues in silence.
“How did you get here?”
He shrugs his shoulders and takes another forkful.
“What do you do all day?”
He shrugs again.
Okay, this isn’t going anywhere, Sophie thinks to herself. Simplify…
“Do you like the food?”
“Yes,” he says.
Sophie leans back into her chair, pats her belly in contentment and sighs. She stares at the man again, trying to take him in more clearly. For the first time, she notices his dark curly hair, a bit like her own actually.
“Tell me,” she probes. “Do you have a name?”
He looks up at her, puzzled, and continues chewing.
She stares at him again.
“No?” Sophie takes a pause, to consider. “How about Tobias?”
He looks at her and takes another forkful.
“Yeah, you’re right. I don’t like him either.”
And then it comes to her. “I know,” she says. “I’ll call you Max.”
The two best friends in Annie Hall called each other Max, even though neither was named Max at all. Max was so nondescript, so simple, so damned cool. Sophie even sometimes calls herself Max in secret, or sometimes when she orders coffee at Starbucks and doesn’t feel like spelling her name again.
“Yes, Max,” Sophie grins, taking another sip of her wine.
When they finish their meal, the man—Max— cleans up the kitchen.
“You can go back now,” Sophie says.
Max turns around and heads into his box. Sophie follows him and closes the door. She goes into her room, changes into her pajamas and lies down on her bed, stomach down and feet in the air. She sighs and savors the best moment of her day, when she is finished, when she is alone. She reaches for her phone and scans the news again. There’s nothing new anymore, just the usual presidential scandals, pandemics and climate refugees escaping floods, fires and other catastrophes.
She clicks on her dating app. She had secretly set up her account even before moving out of Neal’s place. Okay, that’s also not exactly true. In fact, she never deleted it after they got together. It always acted like a sort of safety net and calming presence for her. It would call to her in the dark, a beacon of hope, a quiet tug that said, maybe, maybe there was something more for her, someone better.
The temptation became more urgent whenever they would have an argument or he would stay out late. Or maybe he would just not look at her with the right amount of attention. Sometimes he needed her a bit too much. Sometimes he would not give in on the choice of restaurant and they would have sushi— again. At these times, she would sneak into the bathroom, or catch a peek as he rummaged around in the kitchen. She never went so far as to hook up with anyone, but that little beacon always kept her going.
The app serves up a new round of automated proposals of available men, and many more contacts from hopeful prospects. She swipes left for the ones completely out of the question: obvious ego-tripper, unkempt slob, downright wife-beater. She swipes right for the possibilities. Once she has narrowed it down to the last two or three, she scans through these in a little more detail, reading their goofy introductions, gazing at their pictures. She finally settles on David. His photo shows a man with a warm face in a park. She makes a quick decision and sends him a smiley.
Sophie puts her phone on the nightstand and heads to the bathroom to finish getting ready for bed. When she returns, David has already answered. They chat back and forth for a good hour and get through the basic commonalities. He’s an academic too, working on a PhD on the Cultural Revolution. His parents are divorced, but he visits his grandma every Tuesday evening. The dog might be a problem, but she can deal with that later. They agree to meet the following night.
Sophie believes in setting boundaries on her screen consumption. She knows she can’t sleep if the thing buzzes and blinks throughout the night. She shuts off all the notifications and places her phone next to the lamp. Even so, it takes her a while to finally fall asleep.
The dinner with David is fine, pizza, pasta, candlelight. He’s nice looking, smells good. Amazingly, he’s not even that boring. They talk easily, sharing interests in films, walking, vacationing, and fine dining.
“Did you ever see The Bicycle Thief?” Sophie asks probingly.
David cups his hands and screws his face up in anguish, screaming into the packed restaurant, “Al ladro! Al ladro!”
She’s thrilled he gets the reference. Over tiramisu and grappa riserva, David reaches for Sophie’s hand. She kisses him. It’s a bit awkward, but the first time always is. They split the bill and Sophie invites him over.
As they climb the darkened staircase to her apartment, Sophie pauses outside the door. David kisses her again. She pulls back and asks, “Can you give me a second? I need to check on something.”
“Sure.”
She leaves him abandoned on the landing and quickly enters her apartment. David reaches for his phone to kill the time. Sophie does a hasty scan of all the rooms. She expected to do some last minute straightening. Even though everything is where she left it, the apartment is already spotless. She puts her pajamas in her dresser. She changes her underwear. She makes a stop in the bathroom and quickly washes all the parts which became a bit gooey from the excitement of the date.
Then she remembers Max in the box. She clicks his door and he opens his eyes.
“I brought someone home,” she whispers.
He blinks and stares at her. He swallows.
“Will you be quiet?”
He pauses, then says, “Okay.”
“Thank you.”
She quietly clicks Max’s door shut. And then she opens the front door, trying to look sultry. David looks up from his phone. He doesn’t seem to mind the delay. He’s about to get laid.
The sex is terrible. David is completely selfish, totally rushed. It does not seem relevant if Sophie is there or not. She even doubts he knows what a vagina looks like, let alone how to please a woman. When they finish, David gives Sophie a quick kiss and pats her side. He stays for as long as seems to be polite and then he stands up, gathering his things to go.
“This was nice,” he says.
“Mmm-hmm.”
“I’ll text you.”
“Okay,” Sophie says.
She remains naked for a while in bed, covering herself with a sheet. She flicks through the nothingness on her phone and gives up. She gets up, showers, puts on her pajamas and comes to a stop in front of the hidden door in the hall. She knocks and then clicks it open. Max opens his eyes.
“I’m going to stream something,” she says. “Will you join me?”
“Okay.”
They make their way out to the living room and sit down on the couch. Sophie pulls out her laptop. She subscribes to many different streaming services, but it always seems like there’s nothing to watch. Finally, she settles on a quirky sitcom of a young woman in London, who looks to fill the emptiness in her life with different partners, never quite able to show herself to any of them. The main actress starred in another series she and Neal were supposed to watch together. It was something he chose, but after a while she warmed up to it, too. Yet whenever she took a trip to a conference or an out of town archive, she just knew he was cheating. You can fake surprise, you can fake an orgasm, but you can’t fake a laugh.
When the first episode ends, Sophie asks Max, “Would you get us a couple of beers?”
The autoplay counts down and starts the next episode as Max heads into the kitchen. He comes back with two cold beers just as the opening scene comes to an end and the intro song begins. They both take long drinks. Sophie reaches into one of the still unpacked boxes and pulls out her favorite fleece blanket, stretching it out over herself.
Without thinking, Sophie nuzzles her head under Max’s arm and onto his chest. She places her free hand onto his belly. He wraps one arm around her waist and they watch their show together in silence. Sophie’s body relaxes and her breathing slows. She feels the stress, shame and disappointment of the evening drain into his warm skin.
The gray light of dawn brightens the windows. Sophie wakes with her head on Max’s lap, curled up against him as he sits on the couch. She looks confusedly into his face, and he now opens his eyes, too.
“I—” she says. “I’m sorry, I guess I fell asleep.”
Max nods.
Sophie yawns and sits up, stretching her arms over her head, letting out a big, pleasurable squeak. She glances at the time on her phone, saying, “I need to get ready for work.”
She heads into the bathroom, cleans up and gets dressed for the day. She comes into the kitchen. On the table are two plates, each with a toasted bagel half, butter and scrambled eggs. There are two bowls with grapefruit halves, both with a light dusting of sugar and the wedges expertly sliced from the skin, ready for scooping. Max sits patiently in his chair.
“Oh, thank you,” she says.
She sits down to the perfect breakfast, pulls out her phone and reads the news as she eats. Max eats his breakfast in silence. When they have finished, he cleans up the kitchen.
“You can go back now,” Sophie says when he is done.
“Okay,” says Max.
When Sophie gets home that evening, she does not get Max out of his box. Instead she eats dinner alone, trawls her media alone, watches her show alone. Finally, she crawls into bed. She swipes through the latest hopefuls on her dating app and gives up in disappointment and boredom. She reaches for her vibrator in the nightstand, one of the few items she has already unpacked. She satisfies herself distractedly, emptily. For a moment, she lies in haze, staring at the ceiling. Then she heads to the recessed alcove in the hallway. She clicks the door to the box.
Max opens his eyes. Sophie looks at him from head to toe. He’s not bad looking, but also not especially good looking either. He actually smells pretty good. When he speaks, as it were, his voice is deep and calming. “Well, you,” she sighs. “Is everything, you know, intact?”
Max blinks.
“Look. I haven’t showered today, I haven’t brushed my teeth and I’m wearing baggy underwear with fuzz-pills. Do you want to do it with me, or not?”
Max is silent for a moment as he stares at Sophie.
“Okay,” he says.
He is an excellent lover. Without a word, without any guidance, he reads everything Sophie desires. He is tender when she needs him to be, he is dominant when she wants him to be, he lets her take over when she can’t hold back her lust. He patiently continues while she orgasms, and then again, and then again.
They collapse together onto the bed. She burrows her naked body into his. He wraps his arms and legs around her, surrounding her in a warm cocoon. They lie for a while as the tingling, release and fulfillment slowly fade away. Sophie feels herself starting to fall asleep, but she can’t quite turn the corner. She can’t get comfortable from the pressure points which have developed in the places where Max makes contact with her body. She rolls over and pokes him.
“You can go back now,” she says.
“Okay,” he says.
He gets up and walks down the hall into his box. Sophie hears the click of his door and the apartment sinks to silence. She stretches out diagonally across the corners of the bed, in full luxury. She sighs and drifts lazily to sleep, satisfied and content.
Several months later, Sophie’s phone buzzes with a text as she rides the bus home from the University. It’s one of her fellow post-docs. They’re actually pretty close. Her friend coached and listened to Sophie as she grappled with the decision to finally move out of Neal’s place.
“Hey,” the text says. “We’re meeting for pizza and beer tonight at the Pie. Coming?”
“Sorry,” responds Sophie. “Not tonight, too much to do.”
An answer comes in a few seconds. “Haven’t seen you 4 ever. Miss you! Emoji hug, emoji kiss.”
“Been really busy. We’ll catch up soon, promise. Emoji heart.”
“Meet someone? Emoji curious.”
“No, not like that. Enjoying me-time. Finding myself, you know?”
“Call me soon, okay? Emoji kiss.”
“Emoji thumbs-up. Emoji kiss.”
Sophie comes home for the now familiar routine. The man has cooked a tasty meal, always exactly what she craves, never pestering her with endless questions about what’s for dinner. Tonight he has prepared Turkish stuffed eggplant. He cleans up as she surfs the news and social media. Sometimes they watch a show together. Tonight she watches alone. When she’s had enough, she calls him into her bed. They have wild, fulfilling, tender and exciting sex. They cuddle for a while.
Without having to be told, the man gets up, walks down the hall and puts himself in the box.
Menasheh Fogel
Menasheh Fogel is a writer, filmmaker, and IT executive living in Berlin. This is his debut publication. His piece, “Cabin in the City” (2023), was a finalist in the Iron Horse Literary Review Long Story Contest. Originally from the US, the twists of his own life enrich his storytelling by weaving the impression of people, interests, and places into the struggles of his characters. He holds a BA in Film Studies from University of Utah and an MS in Industrial Engineering from UC Berkeley.
JC Alfier
JC Alfier’s (they/them) artistic directions are informed by photo-artists Toshiko Okanoue, Deborah Turbeville, Francesca Woodman, and especially Katrien De Blauwer. Their most recent poetry book, The Shadow Field, was published by Louisiana Literature Press (2020). Journal credits include The Brooklyn Review, Faultline, Notre Dame Review, Penn Review, River Styx, and Vassar Review.