Philadelphia Weekly

Karen Klassen

My landlord just turned on some music in his studio-a violin concerto or some ridiculous thing-and now the entire cottage is shuddering.

Guinness built these one-story houses in the 1800s for its employees and their families, but it's impossible to imagine six or 10 or 14 people, which you know it was in some cases, crammed in here. I can walk from the front door to the back of the kitchen, the length of the house, in five big strides. Right this minute I'm trying to get through some tedious literary theory for a class, but it's hard when Simon's class-conscious music is invading what little space I have.

I put the book down, pad through the kitchen and down the three stairs to his studio, and stand in the doorway. A photo of a blond woman with her boobs encased in a low-cut red top is pinned to the wall. In fact there are three different incarnations: a photo, a photo with a grid of squares over her face and a sketch. I step inside the room, and there she is again, on a canvas Simon is poking at with a pointy little brush.

Simon is from Liverpool. He's 45 but dates girls in their 20s, and when he talks to his mother he holds the phone a few inches away from his ear and makes the boring-talky-talky hand gesture.

I stare at him till he turns to look at me.

"Are you gonna bring Clare back here tonight and have sex with her right in my face?" I shout.

This hasn't happened yet, and it won't be pleasant for me when it does. I sleep in a lofted bed just underneath his, so close to the ceiling that I can't sit up without knocking my head. I just have to lie there like I'm in a sarcophagus. At night, when Simon and I are tucked into our respective warrens, I can hear him clearing his throat as plain as if his bed were in my inner ear.

He lowers the sound on the stereo with a little remote, a bit primly, and his cheeks get red above his dark stubble.

"We're just going round to the pub, I've told you. It's not as though we have sex every time we meet. We're not ... Africans."

Excuse me? More and more African people have been immigrating to Dublin in recent years-especially to this neighborhood, which is kind of tough. Like, you have to walk on the far side of the government building-"mansions" is their misleading name for it-or the older, angrier kids will fling flattened tin cans at you.

Anyway, there's an African family living in one of the cottages behind us. The other day as I was pinning clothes to the line out back I saw them sitting down to a cozy meal, the mom in her bright clothes reaching across a toddler with a big, cheery-looking bowl. Remembering this scene, I get a twinge in my solar plexus, which means I'm about to get sad, which means it's time for a drink.

So I wrap up in the insufficient jacket I brought from home and head to the train into town. A few kids from the mansions are running around in front of our row of cottages, and I wave to Shane, this boy with a long, solemn face that absolutely kills me. He came knocking on our door one day to ask if the cat could come out to play.

"It's a lovely little cat you have," he said passionately, crushing her to his chest.

By the time I reach the platform I'm wet. Earlier it had almost been a proper autumn day-warm in the sun and as close as it gets to crisp in Dublin-but now it's gray and drizzling. Not even drizzling, really, but misting, which is this strange thing it does where you can't sense any downward motion of the rain, and it just seems to blossom out of the air around you. Most people don't even bother with umbrellas. It's like they're secreting rain from their skin as they walk around the streets, wet from the inside out.

Also, there's a very distinct smell in this city. I don't know why. It's not the same as in Philly, where every block there's some new funk to contend with-sweet dumpster rot, the steamy open kitchen of a noodle house. The smell here is more visceral, humanlike. But in the part of town close to where I live the slightly sour unmistakable scent of hops from the Guinness Storehouse pulls you along like a sexy cartoon lady's perfume trail, and at night you can smell peat fires. It's an ancient smell, throatier than a wood fire and almost sweet. So that's pretty nice.

I get on the bullet-shaped train and pick a spot with my back to the wall. I root around for my iPod-no way I'm getting any more reading done today-when my mobile phone gives a little buzz inside my handbag.

Text from Paul, this boy from class with a singsongy Cork accent.

"Are ye about?"