Tales of an ancient apartment and a difficult door
I can’t figure out how to open my door. I’ve been standing in front of it for the past ten minutes, alternating between repeatedly trying all three of the keys on the ring and cursing quietly at its glossy red facade. I press my shoulder against the door in an increasingly desperate attempt to gain entry, and the baguette I’m clutching awkwardly (still warm, from the boulangerie down the street) sheds a little puff of white flour, which promptly adheres to my cardigan. I twist the key again, first one way, then the other – and nothing happens. The door might as well be a stone wall. But I am determined; I am not going to let the door win.
The apartment, you see, is part of an extremely old six-floor building perched on the edge of one of Montmartre’s famous hills and pressed up against a narrow cobblestoned street. Its age gives it plenty of charm – the kind of charm you just can’t find anywhere in North America – but with that charm comes a handful of challenges. To get inside, you first have to punch in a rather lengthy code on a keypad beside the building’s main entrance. This is a larger, much more ornate version of the glossy red door I’m now facing. It creaks slowly open to reveal a dark, narrow corridor covered in intricate red and blue tiles and flanked by mailboxes; at the end is a second, smaller door with an unnerving tendency to slam itself as you’re attempting to walk through it.
Beyond this door is a narrow spiral staircase. Each slick wood step slopes treacherously down and towards a gaping hole in the centre, as though it’s designed specifically to send you sliding to your death. Somehow, the other residents of the building don’t seem to mind – or even notice – this. They race down the steps each morning, cigarette in one hand, bag or briefcase in the other, while I descend slowly with one hand clamped firmly onto the glossy railing, the other standing by to break an inevitable fall.
At each level there is a small landing, which contains four identical red doors. None are numbered. None are labelled in any way. As I’m facing my own red door, I briefly become concerned that I’ve miscounted the levels while climbing the stairs – maybe I’m actually trying to break into someone else’s apartment, some little old French lady who’s standing on the other side of the door and listening to my keys scrape back and forth. But no, there’s the telltale identifying scratch in the paint; I really am just unable to handle a historic wooden door.
The door itself is a force to behold. It’s a solid two inches thick, has been covered in a million different layers of paint over its long life, and had no fewer than three different locks on it. Yes, three. While this could have been the problem, I distinctly remember locking only one of them, the substantial-looking one in the middle. And now it’s stuck.
By this point, no fewer than four of the building’s residents have passed me on their way up or down the stairs. They shoot me knowing glances and click their tongues in the way that the French do when they disapprove of something, and I begin to panic. I push, and then pull, and then – wait. Wait! With a click and a massive creak, the door swings slowly open. Inside, the apartment looks particularly serene, as though it’s innocently saying, “Give you trouble? Moi? Never!”
Update: As it turns out, there is a technique to properly opening the door. It involves jiggling the keys in a very particular way while forcefully pulling at the door knob. French doors, they are très compliqué.
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