It could take half an hour before someone wanted to use the elevator. The block of flats was quiet at this hour. Very quiet.
It might even be an hour. The morning shift workers had long since gone to work. The mothers had already picked up their children from the state daycare. There could be another twenty minutes until the next bus arrived.
Perhaps someone was receiving a visitor and needed to head home.
Time passed, yet the block of flats remained quiet.
Eva heard that someone in the apartment next to the elevator had turned on the radio.
At first, she felt pleased, then listened reluctantly to the news. Nothing was happening, nothing was changing, yet every day the television channels, newsrooms, and radio stations were filled.
Yes, hearing about the achievements of youth, reading about the creations of the artistic world — that was interesting. Yet it all seemed almost insignificant at the end of the newspaper, at the end of the programs. The dictator's grandiose deeds devoured the letters, words, sentences, columns, pages. Only the spaces, the parts left white…
Eva paused in her thoughts here. It didn't matter anyway, since she always started flipping through the newspaper from the third page.
Eva listened carefully.
At least she would know the exact time from the radio.
Now it was clear which apartment had the radio on. Aunt Maria was humming a song in the kitchen.
Eva didn't recognize the tune.
The radio started playing a patriotic song, lively, loud, with trumpets.
Eva knew this one well.
Aunt Maria kept singing, cheerfully, in a sweet, elevated voice — about youth, love, and spring.
Eva listened.
Aunt Maria reached the end of the song. She finished clattering in the kitchen.
Eva shivered and pulled up the collar of her autumn coat. She was glad she had worn the knitted cardigan underneath.
Perhaps Aunt Maria was now making her evening tea. She turned off the radio.
Silence fell over the block of flats again.
She needed to buy a wristwatch.
Tomorrow, after work, she would buy a wristwatch.
Someone washed their hands in one of the apartments.
Silence, then two children ran down the distant staircase, loudly, noisily.
Perhaps from one of the third-floor apartments.
Perhaps they had tugged at the elevator doors before the lift stopped halfway up.
Eva wouldn't have minded if they had pressed the elevator call button, setting the iron contraption in motion.
Children always run around.
Mark was also using the stairs. He would go down the stairs here, next to her, alone, to see The Resurrection at the theater.
Then the fifth-floor button lit up. The iron contraption tilted downward for a moment, then decisively moved upward.
Fifth floor. That's where Eva lived.
The elevator doors slowly opened. Standing in front of her were her husband and his colleague, Paul.
Mark hadn't started dressing yet.
Today, both of them would make it to see The Resurrection.