The pasta was extraordinary in the way that simple things made correctly were extraordinary, in the way that did not require anything elaborate to communicate its quality, that communicated it through the straightforward fact of being exactly what it was supposed to be and nothing less. I ate it with the full attention it deserved and across the table Matteo ate with the same attention and neither of us spoke for a few minutes and the silence was the comfortable kind, the one that did not need filling.
"Kowalski," I said eventually. "Is he staying."
"A few days," Matteo said. "The first phase of the Federnaz dismantling begins tomorrow. He needs to be here for the preparation."
I nodded. "And then."
"Then it runs," he said. "The three phases have their own momentum once the preparation
