She had just moved into a sixth-floor apartment in a brand-new building in Užupis: pale walls, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the slow, dark ribbon of the Vilnia River, and the landlord had beamed with pride: “It’s quiet as a library here, only decent people.”

For the first two weeks it really was quiet. Then the sound insulation turned out to be of the “premium-economy” variety: you could hear everything, especially at three in the morning when the city was asleep and your own head was already cracking from sleepless nights and private disasters.

And so it began.

Every single night, somewhere between half-past one and two, he appeared on the other side of the wall. First came a soft tap-tap-tap, as if someone were gently testing whether the drum skin was tight enough. Then the quiet but unmistakable boom… boom… boom-boom… ba-ba-ba-boom. And right after, the delicate rustle-spray of a tambourine, like someone was shyly, almost guiltily shaking it in cupped hands. Not loud. Not loud at all. But it was precisely that polite, considerate volume that drove you insane: the sound slipped straight into your temple, as though someone were knocking on the inside of your skull.

Tonight the cup finally overflowed.

She jolted awake to yet another boom-boom-boom, as if someone were tapping directly on her temple. Her heart was pounding faster than the rhythm leaking through the wall. For a few seconds she lay rigid, clutching the pillow, then rage exploded like a cork from a shaken bottle of champagne. She leapt out of bed, fumbled for her sweatpants in the dark, yanked them on, threw on an old T-shirt. Hair wild, eyes no doubt bloodshot. Barefoot, she stormed out of the apartment and in three angry strides was at the neighbor’s door. Her finger stabbed the doorbell once, twice, then her fist hammered the wood.

The door opened almost instantly.

There he stood—the guy from the elevator. Yes, she’d seen him before. The one who always greeted her first, polite and sweet-looking, the one she had secretly nicknamed “cutie” in her head. “Can you… please shut up,” she blurted, voice hoarse with exhaustion and fury.