The radiator that ran on someone else’s schedule

Written in Tbilisi, March 2022. Typed up today.

The radiator ticked at 6:40 every evening. Not a sound before that.

I was in Tbilisi, in a flat on the third floor of a building that smelled of bread and diesel. The room was cheap. The radiator was old.

The pipes must have run through the flat next door first. When those people were out, the metal stayed lukewarm all night. I never met them.

But I learned their hours. They left around 7:15 each morning. I’d hear a door, then footsteps on the stairs, then nothing. The radiator went cold within the hour. They came back at 6:40 in the evening. The ticking started and the warmth followed.

March in Tbilisi was not kind. Wind came through the window frame in gusts. I stuffed a rolled towel along the sill. It helped with the draught but not the chill.

Saturdays were different. The radiator stayed cold until nearly noon. I think they slept in. Sundays too, though once it came on early and I pictured someone in the kitchen, unable to sleep.

One night the ticking didn’t start. I lay under two blankets and listened to the pipes. Nothing. I pulled on a jumper and read by the streetlight through the curtain. The bakery across the road was still open — I’d written about that place once, the newspaper-wrapped bread and the woman behind the counter who never smiled. I thought about going down but the stairwell was dark.

The radiator came back the next evening. Ticking at 6:40. I never knew where they’d been. I pressed my hand to the metal. Warm. Not hot. Just enough.

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