MargenFor eleven months I heard his footsteps above my ceiling. They began at nine, when I switched off the lamp, and crossed the flat above with the slowness of a man in no hurry to get anywhere. There and back, always the same. I learned to fall asleep to them, the way you get used to the motor of a fridge.
I gave him a name: Ramón. I imagined he was a widower, that he walked so as not to think, that at some point he would sit down and leave me in peace. He never sat down. And I, who had lived alone since Marta left, was secretly grateful for that company which asked nothing of me.
One night the footsteps changed. They stopped right above my bed and stayed still, as if Ramón knew I was awake, listening to him listening to me. I held my breath. The silence lasted so long that I began to miss the noise.
The next day I went up. I wanted to apologise, to invite him for a coffee, to confess that his footsteps had saved me from many nights. The landing above was covered in dust, that thick dust that only time can breed. The door gave way when I pushed it: there was no lock, no furniture, nobody. Just a flat that had stood empty for years, its blinds sealed and the air still.
On the floor, marked in the grey layer, there was a single trail of footprints. It went back and forth from the window to one exact point on the parquet. That point lay, I measured it afterwards with my heart in my throat, directly above my bed.
I went down slowly. That night, at nine, I switched off the lamp and waited. The footsteps did not come. They never came back. And I have discovered that a silence can weigh more than eleven months of company, above all when you finally understand that whoever was walking up there was walking for you.