Rear Window

I recently watched this Alfred Hitchcock movie on afternoon television. Of course the highlight was Grace Kelly’s dresses, including her very 1950s negligee (who remembers the crucial line in adult movies when the lady says to the male visitor “let me just slip into something more comfortable”), but what amazed me even more was the very idea of apartment windows opening onto an interior courtyard.

Just a quick Rueckblick (backwards glance) to when I lived in Munich in the mid 1970s. I lived on the second floor of an Altbauhaus (old building) – presumably meaning a building that had survived the bombings of the final years of the Second World War. The apartment had two windows looking out onto Klenzestrasse, the living room and the window of my room. The bathroom, where there was a wood burner to heat up the bathwater, had no window. The window of Nina’s room and that of the kitchen looked out onto the central courtyard (Innenhof). But I don’t think we could see into the windows of other apartments. The Innenhof stored the garbage and recycling bins (I think they already had recycling in Germany in the 70s). You entered the building through a large, wooden door, very heavy to push open. Only residents had a key, and visitors had to ring the bell of the apartment they wanted to visit and then the apartment dweller would push a button and the large heavy door would click open for a few seconds. Upon entry, you would come into a dark passageway where the letterboxes were on the left hand side, with the tenants names on each (how did the postman access them?) and to the right was the stairway. At the front of the building, the concierge would have had a small apartment in days gone past, but I don’t remember a concierge being there. If you have seen the film of Bernhard Schlink’s “The Reader”, you will have the general idea of what the entrance to the apartment building looked like.

But here, in this 1930s apartment block in Brunswick, we can see into some windows of the apartment block next door. Recently, a young lady has moved into the apartment across from our living room window. And because she often wishes to enjoy daylight, she does not always lower her venetian blinds. She has very tidy room, with her laptop and bookshelf and bed. I wish I could wave to her and introduce myself to her. I feel I could be a friend, an auntie figure, to her. I feel like putting a sign up in my window “here’s looking at you, kid”. She might not appreciate the humour. But she never looks across to our window.

So I now know that the premise on which Rear Window, that quite ridiculous Hitchcock movie, was made, is plausible. Myself, I like to know who is living around me.  The flat next to ours in our block houses the wonderful family with the two little girls. We had a family outing to the Show with them last year and I love chatting with them. Vincent has an occasional drink with their dad. Downstairs are the young couple who recently got married. It is lovely to see their tenderness and love towards one another and it infuses our whole environment with happiness. But the other downstairs flat is a complete mystery. I have only seen the inhabitant once or twice and she keeps completely to herself, never using our Innenhof, the clotheslines, the carports, the herb garden or the garbage bins. She did not come to our very happy block BBQ after Christmas. The Japanese lady from the next door block did come. We hear the Buddhist chants from her flat regularly, it is magical.

Living in an apartment block is experiencing a strange combination of the shared and the secret.