The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore - Benjamin Hale [40]
We arrived at Lydia’s home. She parallel-parked in front of the door to her building on the side of the street, unbuckled my seat belt, and helped me out. The street was lined with trees whose winter-naked fingers clawed at the gray sky. The trees were planted in mounds of mulch and enclosed by tiny white fences, each one set in the middle of a rectangle of dead grass blocked out by paved walkways; and each walkway led to an iron gate and up four steps to a door in a long contiguous slab of four-story brick buildings. Lydia bore me across the walk, through the gate, up the stairs to the door of her building, through that door and into a hallway. Her door was 1A: bottom floor, first one on the left. Supporting my weight with one arm while using the other to turn the key in the lock and push open the door in the same motion, she said, “We’re home sweet home, Bruno,” and, like a surreal subversion of newlywed man and wife, woman carried ape across the threshold of 5120 South Ellis Avenue, Apartment 1A.
I should describe this space for you with utmost and delicate accuracy. Therefore, I now present you with a map of our apartment, which I spent all last night fastidiously drawing from memory. You may find it useful to consult as I take you on the grand tour.
5120 South Ellis Avenue, Apt. 1A, Chicago, IL 60615:
Residence of Lydia and Bruno
Lydia lived in a small but comfortable ground-level two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in upper Hyde Park on South Ellis Avenue, between Fifty-first and Fifty-second streets.
She set me down on the tiled floor of the vestibule (1), a small dimly lit mudroom that provided a liminal space for psychological transition between the front door and the rest of the apartment. She kneeled and slid her feet out of her slushy winter boots and left them to dry on a mat by the front door, joining several other pairs of empty footwear lining the wall. She struggled out of her black woolen coat and hung it and her scarf and hat on pegs protruding from the back of the open door to the entryway closet (2). Her feet now shod in thick furry red stockings—had I ever seen Lydia barefoot?—had I ever before seen her in her stocking feet?—she took me by the hand and walked me into the combined living room/dining area (3), the largest space in the apartment. She clicked on a light, and a membranous corrugated paper globe hanging from the middle of the ceiling became illuminated from within, blanketing the room in soft gauzy light. The floors were of hard glossy wood, partially covered by a large circular area rug (4) that lay in the middle of the room directly beneath the paper lighting fixture; the rug, frayed and threadbare in its most heavily trafficked areas, was predominately burgundy and featured an intricate pattern of vines and flowers radially kaleidoscoping outward from the center, its circumference fringed with knotted tassels of string. The north wall, the longest in the room, is of bare brick, with a fireplace (5) embedded in the middle of it; the floor surrounding the fireplace is of inflammable gray-green granite tile, and it is protected by a glass-and-metal grate. The other walls are sheetrock, textured and painted regulation