THERE’S A NAKED WOMAN IN THE WINDOW

— Honey! Come here, quick!

— What?

— There’s a naked woman in the window!

And that’s it. That’s not the kind of sentence you can ignore. I leap off the couch — with the same urgency as if I’d heard “the stove’s on fire” or “the cat got out.”

And there she is. The neighbor. Whole. And free.

— Stop staring, that’s outrageous!

I cover his eyes, close the curtain, cross my arms… but the image is already there. In his head and, I admit, in mine too.

Maybe she didn’t even realize she was being seen. Maybe she knew and just didn’t care.

Living in São Paulo, the question isn’t if you’ll one day see a naked woman in a window, but when. If you’re the type to look forward to it, don’t worry — your day will come. In this city, I’m pretty sure it’s an unwritten law. I say this based on the sheer number of buildings per block.

“Oh, wait, there’s still a gap over there.” Bam — up goes another building. Fifty new apartments. No curtain in the world can keep up. It’s like waiting in line at the bank, hearing the neighbor drill into the wall at 10 p.m., or stepping into the shower only to realize you forgot your towel. Things that happen to every human being — here, just a bit more often.

And if life really wants to come full circle, one day you will be the naked one. Not out of exhibitionism, but because everyone eventually has that innocent moment of “I’ll just grab a towel real quick” and forgets the window is wide open — until you spot the building superintendent downstairs, looking up a little awkwardly.

I grew up in Ribeirão Preto, back when Ribeirão was even more small-town than it is now. I lived in a house with walls, where the windows faced our own backyard. Nobody saw anyone naked. On the other hand, they knew so much about your life that sometimes it was as if I were walking around town naked. There was nothing you could do that your neighbors wouldn’t find out about.

True story: one day, I was handwashing clothes in the laundry sink when a friend asked why I wasn’t using the machine. I explained that my mom had washed something in the machine earlier and one of my shirt buttons had popped off; so now, I preferred to wash by hand. Almost immediately, I hear the neighbor shout:

— Tacia, if you want, I have a box of buttons here at home! Maybe one will fit your shirt!— Oh, sure, thank you! — I replied, a bit embarrassed.

Who needs soap operas when you have real-life drama unfolding right next door? Who needs the evening news when the headlines arrive fresh and firsthand through a quick chat at the gate?

These days, I wonder: which kind of nudity is better? The small-town kind or the big-city kind?

In the end, it wasn’t about the neighbor. It was about me, about him… and about how true privacy doesn’t really exist anywhere.

— Honey! Come here! — I shout.

— What?

— The naked woman’s back!

Please don’t judge me. The day you see a naked woman in your window, you’ll understand the thrill!

(Almost) everything here comes from real life — from many people, including fictional ones.

If such a thing even exists.