Neighbourhood

We have new neighbours next door. A young couple, whose names have been discovered thanks to the mail box at the building entrance.

As soon as they arrived, a couple of months ago, he knock at my door asking for help. The flat had been empty for more tan half a year, and that Devil’s machine called “The F* Heater” turned into some sort of silent corpse impossible to get back to life. So there I went.

I remember her sitting at a table, reading a magazine. I greeted her with a standard ‘Hola, qué tal’ (in Spanish, of course) as I was crossing the living-room on my way to their kitchen. She raised her head and smiled. Not a word. Ok, no matter. I gave the man the explanations needed to make the heater work, turned it on after several attempts and many swearing words, and went back home saying good-bye. Another smile. ‘Strange’, I thought, ‘maybe she’s feeling embarrased, but I see no reason for that.’

Days later I could see a huge envelope placed on the mail boxes at the building entrance. “Ms Joanne Collins. Wherever Street blah blah…”.

So that was it. My new neighbour is not Spanish, and as far as I’m concerned, taking into consideration that I no longer met her but I can hear her talking sometimes, she doesn’t speak Spanish. Her couple does, as well as English, and we have a chat from time to time when we meet together in the street. But for some reason it looks like she was living in another universe.

At a moment,  I thought it could be nice –and good for me as well- if I could change some words in English with them both, I’d have no problem with that and any topic would do, but… Would she feel embarrased?

Or actually would I?