He calls me back six months later, one day in June 2012: We’re selling. I’m dumbstruck: Shit, I thought it was going really well—“the rising star in eastern Paris,” “a quirky cuisine far from the usual gastronomic poseurs,” “instant, perfect, essential cooking”—and then I heard him laugh. Don’t worry, it is going really well—too well, in fact. His voice sounds clear, less muffled than in my memory. He suggests we meet up, and one hour later we are sitting face-to-face in a bar in Butte-aux-Cailles, where I remind him that the last time I saw him during daylight hours was on New Year’s Day three years ago: I was looking after a funny dog, which I walked as best I could near the Bastille. Mauro’s not exactly glowing with health, admittedly, and the whites of his eyes are a little yellow, but all the same he is no longer the pale, paper-skinned ghoul who has spent half of the last three years on his feet inside a forty-foot-square cubbyhole. So, tell me. A Perrier with a slice of lemon. I’m quitting. I’ve had enough. I’m beat. Bushed. Spent. Dog tired. Worn-out. Shattered. Drained. Exhausted. Out on my feet. Totally burned out. Listen, I’m fucked. I know it doesn’t look like it, but I’m dead.

I’m dead.

Fatigue. For four years, he’s been tired. His back, his neck, his joints. Everything aches, all the time. He’s forgotten how it feels to be healthy; no longer knows what it’s like to live inside a well-rested, pain-free, unstressed body; he’s forgotten how it feels to be cheerful, to have free time, to live life with a hint of uncertainty. He tells me about his days spent chained to the daily running of the restaurant, to the control of the regular operations, to the perfection of a methodology capable of improving the meals he cooks; he describes the mental fatigue that mounts surreptitiously as his solitude intensifies, the solitude he feels with Jacques, with the commis chef and the dishwasher, that unshareable solitude of the boss, the chef.