1301
Robert watched her from outside the glass door, hidden partially by the potted plants, as she put her key into her mailbox. He saw her looking at the letters. Oh no, he thought, don’t start reading them right there! Just—go, damnit. Go on, up the stairs, to your room…Pleeease…
Finally she slid her mailbox drawer shut and shuffled up the stairs. Robert entered the lobby, making sure the door didn’t make any noise behind him. Only after she had audibly passed the third flight did Robert think it safe to proceed. He looked about him in all directions, twice precisely, before gliding swiftly over to his mailbox, key in hand. The thing would never turn on the first try, which made an easy and painless execution impossible. Today, the box was being especially stubborn. Sweat began to form on Robert’s hands and forehead as he wrestled with the box. He noticed this, his hands slipping about the key, which was now firmly stuck in the box. He gave up for a moment, glancing about himself, and got his handkerchief from his suit pocket. The handkerchief was clean and pressed, and he unfolded it only partly, dabbing his forehead and then wringing it with his nervous hands. His hands were dry enough to attempt the lock again. At last, the key turned and his mail drawer popped open as though it were on a spring. He collected it quickly, put the mail and his key in his breast pocket, and slammed the drawer shut. Checking about him once more, he saw that no one was around. The staircase loomed before him, a few paces to the side of the broken elevator. Perhaps it had been too much of a luxury, he thought. Robert lived on the 14th floor of the old building. This fact was not so inconvenient as the fact that he must pass the 13th to get there. Not that he was superstitious. The only matter of great concern was the fact that Lola, the woman in 1301, lived on that floor. Since there was no separate stairwell, he ran the risk of running into her.
So he walked slowly up the flights, all the while dreading the approach to floor 13. Maybe she would be in the bathroom dyeing her hair at the very moment he was on her stairs—that way she could never know he was there. Robert knew she was in her room; where did she ever go? He followed her movements in his mind: from the mailbox to the stairs to the 13th. She would look out the peephole in her door if she heard anyone on the stairs, just to see if it was him, he knew this. Luckily for him, she didn’t know his last name, or where he lived precisely, just that it was on some floor above hers. So he waited for him to pass by there, for footsteps on the stairs.
These were his thoughts as he stepped slowly and cautiously up those steep wooden stairs, experimenting—trying to step so that his slick hard soles wouldn’t clack against the surface. Trying to save his energy in case he had to make a run for it, then imagining the terrible injury he would sustain if he slipped on the steep, endless stairs with his treadless soles. His palms sweated.
With these thoughts, he reached the 12th floor. He stood on the landing a moment to catch his breath, trying not to breathe too loudly. Then he sat down, his legs on the steps below, his left shoulder pressed against the wall. He ran his right hand hard over the back of his neck. His gaze wandered down the stairwell, light streaming in across from a tiny window mounted high up on the wall, dust filtering slowly through it, the rest dark. "How did this happen to me?" he despaired, and let his head rest against the wall.