Kristina Ehrhardt-Westerhaus,  Neckarstadt, Germany

“Are you serious?“ was the comment we heard from most of our friends and neighbours when we broke the news of our upcoming move from Feudenheim East to Neckarstadt West. More than a quarter of a century Wolfgang and I had been living with our three kids in a single family house in Feudenheim, a quiet suburb with a clear middle class structure – many doctors, psychologists, lawyers and teachers living there. The front gardens were neatly trimmed, there was a lot of green (also politically spoken), the atmosphere was friendly, and we liked it there and felt welcome.

Then, suddenly, our landlord needed the house for himself and terminated the lease. Financial restraints (me retiring this summer and two kids still at university) led us to looking for a lower priced apartment in a different part of our city – that is how it came to us now living in Neckarstadt West since six weeks, a suburb that could not be more different to Feudenheim. Our three-and-a-half room apartment lies in an area that is closely situated to the city center and mainly consists of multi-story dwellings built a hundred years ago, many of its inhabitants have a foreign background. The move was undertaken by a professional company that used an exterior elevator to lift our belongings up to our third-floor apartment. Among the on-lookers viewing this unusual spectacle were two boys, Issa and Amir, 11 and 8 years old, who were especially fascinated by one worker lifting himself up on the platform to our apartment for lunch. When the boys called for her mom to see this, I met Maria for the first time. She is from Bosnia, and her husband from Lebanon. Maria is stoutly built, has an infectious laugh, and seems to be the good spirit of the house. She quickly explained that each floor was itself responsible for the cleaning. “Mr Fischer (the man who moved into the small first floor apartment last year) first didn’t want to clean. But then I personally showed him how to do it, and now there are no problems any more”, she laughed. Maria then immediately wants to introduce me to her neighbour Jenny, who turns out to be a Romanian-German lady in her seventies, whom I still call Mrs Bamberger for the moment, despite her friendly invitation to a cup of coffee.

Then I helped my husband to unload some boxes with books from the transporter. I had just taken one over from him, wanting to carry it up into the third floor, when a petite dark-haired woman approached me. I put down the box and introduced myself as the new neighbour, silently contemplating if my full double name would overburden her. However, that would not have been necessary: “Kristina, this is too heavy for you! I’ll take one flight of stairs, and you’ll take the next”, she announced resolutely and, despite my protests, took the box out of my hands. That was my first meeting with 47-year-old Sofia from Belgrade. She moved into the house 22 years ago with her husband, from whom she is now divorced and who has moved out. Her adult son, however, lovingly called “Bobo”, still lives one floor down from her and is apparently still being cared for and “Uncle Vukotic”, a Sofia’s brother-in-law, lives next door. When Bobo shows up shortly afterwards, he is instructed to help with the move and is quick to do so. “You know, in this house, we all help each other out if there’s work to be done”, Sofia declares with conviction.

When Wolfgang and I make our introduction round throughout the house with flowers for everyone, we meet the other neighbours: the students Luca from Italy and Gilan from Africa, Mrs Onno, a spry old retired lady with a nondescript partner, and Mrs Katschmarek with her 15-year-old daughter. But although all neighbours are really nice and outward-going, I connect the feeling of homeliness here mainly with Sofia and Maria, the Serb and the Bosnian.

My love for Sofia, however, does not go unbroken: unfortunately she has a rather horrible weakness for kitsch that almost hurts. The decoration in the stairwell and the windows consists of extremely colourful pottery and innumerable little pots and plants, and next to her door a bright green frog king cranes his neck. On the other side of the door, directly next to ours, she has installed six large fake plants, which are carefully wiped once a week. A few days later, when I discovered a rack with a dozen tiny cactuses, I decided that I had to defend myself. But only ten minutes later Sofia rings my doorbell, holding two still warm apricot tarts in her hand: “Kristina! I tried out a new recipe. You have to tell me how they are.” Well, what am I supposed to do?

A few days ago I met Maria smoking in the backyard. She apologized: “Sorry, I haven’t smoked such a long time, but Issa (one of the boys) is having trouble in school and might have to go to Hauptschule (the lowest of the three German secondary school types). I am really troubled by this.” I decided to have a quiet chat with Issa to find out if I might be able to help him.

After Maria had finished her cigarette, she carefully put the ashes away and then grabbed a nearby broom to sweep away the wet chestnut tree leaves: “I’ll clean up now, so that we’ll have a nice backyard in the summer”, she said. Then she pointed to a bunch of chairs and tables in the corner of the yard, adding: “Then we can all sit together, have barbecues and lots of fun”.

I’m looking forward to the summer.