A notice appeared on the lift doors instructing delivery workers to use the stairs. There was no separate goods lift. Nor was there any explanation beyond the handwritten word 'cleanliness'. Jasmina read the notice while taking out rubbish, then continued to the bins. Later she would remember most clearly that first passage past the paper, calm enough because her name was not on it.
That afternoon she expected two large boxes of books, the final part of her move. The courier rang from downstairs and asked whether she could come down. She said delivery to her door had been arranged. When he explained the lift rule, there was no accusation in his voice. He sounded like someone who regularly encountered such obstacles between two addresses. Jasmina looked at the seventh floor displayed above the lift and said she was coming.
Her partner Rade went down with her. In the entrance hall, the neighbour who had posted the notice explained that not everybody could tread on the lift's new floor. Rade looked at the work shoes of the man beside the boxes and said the rule did make sense. Jasmina asked whether he would say the same if the courier came in a suit. The neighbour laughed, convinced this proved his point. She did not laugh.
She lifted a box and invited the courier to enter with her. The neighbour blocked the doors. He said the residents' meeting had decided, although most people Jasmina knew had not even heard of a meeting. She did not begin arguing about minutes. She asked whether he would carry the boxes to the seventh floor. The courier put his box down and said he had no time to attend their meeting. He had many addresses left.
Jasmina offered to accept the parcel downstairs and completed the delivery so as not to delay him. Then she and Rade carried the books into the lift, whose floor both had walked on in the same shoes the previous day. Upstairs she told him the ugliest part was how easily he had accepted the distinction. She did not claim she had immediately done better. She had seen the paper that morning.
The notice was removed after a noisy residents' discussion. The lift floor did not remain clean forever. Several days later Rade accepted a grocery order and held the door for the delivery woman. Jasmina heard him apologise for the earlier rule. She did not see him because she remained in the flat. She hoped he would have said the same if she could not hear.