The laundry that appeared without a knock

Written in Hamburg, May 2020. Typed up today.

The stack appeared every three days, maybe four. T-shirts on top, trousers folded lengthwise, socks paired and tucked into each other. Always on the floor outside my door. Never a knock.

I’d been back in Hamburg five months. My father’s flat, third floor, the kitchen tap that had dripped since I was seventeen. He didn’t ask why I’d come back. I didn’t explain.

The washing machine was in the cellar, two floors down. I never heard him go. I’d be reading or asleep and then there it was. My things, clean, stacked. He did his own separately. I know because I once found one of his shirts mixed in, and the next morning the pile had been corrected.

He left for work before six. I’d get up and the kitchen smelled of toast and the window was open even in January. In Essaouira I’d watched a man at a spice stall hand over a bag of cumin without the buyer speaking — just a nod, the exchange done. My father and I had something like that. Except we lived in the same flat and ate breakfast twenty minutes apart.

One Tuesday I tried to thank him. He was watching the news. I said it and he looked at me like I’d said something odd, then turned back.

The laundry kept appearing.

I’ll tell you the rest if I remember it.