TRAPPED IN THE DIRTY HOUSE

Karin could not believe how the house was looking!

Was she in Francis Bacon’s studio?

Was she in a chaos?

Was she in a dump?

Where to sit? There is not space.

What to drink from? No glasses, no cups.

How to move around in the house? It is a lot of junk.

Where to go to sleep? The mattress covered with a pile of clothes.

How to go to the toilet? No way!

Karin thought she was in Plato’s Cavern, instead of being full of Plato’s ideas; the cavern was just dirty and filthy.

Francois was her old friend since she had lived in France. He had invited her to his house in Paris to stay for a while.

Karin was exhausted after such a long trip from New York. Francois picked her up at the airport and drove her to his home. They chatted cheerfully on the way. She was looking forward to a rest.

− Oh! I’m going to sleep right now − Karin said.

− I’m not sure if you’ll be able to, because I need to tidy up your room. − Francois replied.

− Don’t worry, we’ll manage! − She assumed. She was thinking: as usual.

Every time she came to his house she knew she had to clean it. François did not care. He used to say the standard of cleaning in USA was higher, because all his North-American friends used to clean his house when they came, especially women. However this time it was worse than ever in François’ flat.

The next day she went to have breakfast in the nearest coffee shop. Then she started cleaning. There was a foul smell in the house, she opened the window to ventilate and the alarm went off!

Francois was upset, because this could annoy the neighbours.

She cleaned and cleaned and it never ended!

Francois did not help her at all; he was stuck in his room.

That day, the 29^th of October, was Karin’s birthday. Her friends started to phone her to congratulate her. They asked her what presents she had got. She answered:

‒ A set of cleaning products!

Karen tried to make fun of the situation on any chance.

The following days anytime Francois left the house, even though he was living in a very good residential area, he warned her about putting the alarm on or off, locking the windows and the doors! Also the security rules that she had to follow closely.

Karin tried to follow these rules, but she never was able to! Francois said always:

‒ Oh! Today the window was half-opened; you didn’t lock it properly.

‒ Oh! The alarm went off again.

On the fourth day Karin was so glad thinking how good she had been with all the stupid rules and told him this. He replied:

‒ No, you didn’t do it right. The door wasn’t locked with the second lock!

This got on Karin’s nerves, although appearing calm she answered back:

‒ Don’t worry that much about security, if the burglars come in you could be lucky, maybe they’ll tidy up for you!

Francois started to pull out papers, a shirt, some underwear, socks, towels, a pillow cover, a tie, toothbrushes, a magazine, cello- tape…from a press in the dinning-room. Finally he took out a glass lamp and he said proudly:

• Oh! Burglars can steal this expensive Waterford glass lamp I bought in Ireland a long time ago.

MARIA-JOSE ROIG-FABRA DUBLIN 9/11/2017