The apartment goes quiet the way this city goes quiet, which is not quiet at all. A hum under everything. Machines breathing so people can sleep. In Naples the night would still be talking, a scooter two streets over, somebody’s television arguing with somebody’s grandmother, a couple making up or breaking up on the corner where the fried-pizza place pulls its shutter down at two, the whole building living out loud through walls that were never asked to keep anything private. Here the quiet has a temperature and a subscription fee. Davide’s door is shut.
I do the last things. Basil in a glass of water, tomatoes stem-down beside it, and the pan set upside down to dry.
The kitchen smells like my father’s kitchen. Nine days is all it took.
A car turns at the corner below, and its headlights climb the wall and cross the length of the ceiling and are gone.
Another ceiling did that once. A door shut softly, its quietness proving incredibly loud. Then the sound of the stairs. Then an engine catching somewhere below, and the lights crossing that other ceiling the same slow way, left to right, and gone before I had decided whether to be awake.
I put the last tomato in its place and hang the towel where the towel goes.
The moka pot gets filled for the morning and set on the stove. Two cups’ worth. Davide takes his black, complains, and drinks it anyway.
In my room, I set the alarm for seven. Training at nine, film at eleven, and R16 will be here before I am ready. The basil will hold. The tomatoes need two more days. By then we’ll know how much counting there is left to do.
Chapter 2: Marek
The eggs at this hotel are hiding something.
I’ve been eating them for two weeks and I still can’t name what it is. They’re yellow and warm, and they arrive in a tray the size of a door. And every morning they taste like a photograph of eggs. Technically correct. Emotionally absent.
“You’re doing the face,” Šíma says.
“There’s no face.”
“The egg face. Every morning. You look at the tray like it owes you money.”
“I’m chewing. This is my chewing face.” I point my fork at the tray. “Something happened to these eggs and nobody in this building will tell me what.”
Down the table, Novotný and Polášek are at war over chicken.
“Fried chicken is not a breakfast,” Polášek says.
“This country says it is. I’m a guest of this country.” Novotný has four pieces on his plate. “I eat what my hosts eat. It’s called respect.”
“It’s called cholesterol.”
“Novotný.” I wait until he looks at me. “Slow down. If you die at the buffet, they’ll name the omelet station after you.”
The table laughs. Novotný takes another piece to make a point, and I go back to the eggs, because somebody at this table should keep the investigation alive.
Šíma leans over and counts my bananas. Two. He has been counting my bananas since 2019. He has never explained it, and I have never asked, because asking would only encourage him. The counting is the tax I pay for a decade of friendship. The rate is fair.
Tomáš arrives with his phone already talking. “It’s official. We win against Mexico, and after that it’s the winner of the Italy-Austria match.”
Somebody at the far end groans about the Italian midfield. Somebody else says the bracket was drawn in Rome, which gets more agreement than it deserves. Polášek says we should worry about Mexico first, which is the most sensible thing said at this table in two weeks, so naturally nobody responds to it.
“Kovár.” Šíma again. “If it’s Italy, you get Valenti. What’s the report?”
“Left winger. Fast in both directions.” I peel the first banana, focused on it as if it’s a lifeline, which it might be. “Five ten, maybe, but that is the trick. Low balance. Lean through the middle. He sells you the outside and takes the inside. When you stop buying the outside, he takes the outside. Quick feet, quicker hips. Don’t read him early. Wait him out.”
“Is he as fast as television makes him?” Tomáš says.
“Faster. Television shows you the feet. The feet are advertising. The hips are the business.”
“So read the hips.”
“No. He knows when you’re reading them. Wait him out. He gets bored before I do.”