I couldn’t figure out why the minutes were going so slowly! It seemed as though it had been a week since he left me in my room to rest, when in reality it had only been a matter of hours. I tried everything to amuse myself. I tried to write, telling myself a play might entertain him, but all my creativity was taken prisoner by the need to have him wake and be with me. I tried to watch television, but it all seemed too trivial. I went into the bath room and stared for a little while at how beautiful it all was, inspecting the stained glass and the pastoral scenes of old Romania. I sat there, for a while, with my jeans rolled up and my feet resting in a few inches of warm water. 

I wished he was with me, sitting in the water so that I could rub his shoulders for him and kiss his hair and listen to all his wonderful stories. I sat there for the longest while just imagining it, and then went into the main bathroom to shower and wash my hair. I scrubbed all over, cleaning behind my ears and beneath my nails and lathering myself up in his body wash, the scent of which instantly reminded me of him. I showered for so long that all over my body, my skin was left a light shade of red, from the hot water. I stepped out, slipped on a pair of fresh pyjamas and not knowing what else to do, I slipped back into bed. 

The phone rang a little while later. I smiled when I heard Michael’s voice on the other end of the line. “Hi Mike! How are you doing?” “Hey Kid! The question is, how are you doing? How’s Paris?” I talked to him for a while, and then to Sabine, who knew to ask all the right questions about my time in Paris so far. Was I eating, was I finding ways to keep myself busy during the day, had I found a job, was I managing to keep from feeling lonely while Franco was sleeping... “Yes, yes, yes, yes.” No, no, no, no. She saw right through me, but was mercifully patient. “Hang in there, Ciro. It will be all right, in the end.” “It’s already all right,” I told her. “To see his face and hold his hand, even for a single moment, makes it all worth it.” 

After speaking to her for more than half an hour, we said our goodbyes and I disappeared beneath the blankets of my bed. Before I could say, ‘But wait, he’ll be here in less than an hour...’ I felt myself drifting off to sleep.