Chapter 3: The New Task
The hardware store receipt was crisp in his wallet. He’d bought the exact canister of foam, the specific blade, just as ordered. The act felt purposeful, like gathering supplies for a ritual.
The chalet felt different when he arrived. The front door was wedged open with a chunk of concrete block. The growl of a circular saw spilled out, then ceased as he walked in, the bags swinging at his side.
They were in the main bedroom. The space was a skeleton of its future self—exposed studs, dangling wires, floors coated in a fine, abrasive dust. Mateo was marking a long two-by-four with a thick pencil. Vasile was sipping coffee from a thermos cap, leaning against a makeshift worktable of plywood on sawhorses.
Damián set the bags down by the door. “I got the things.”
Mateo didn’t look up from his measuring tape. “Open the foam. Let me see.”
Damián knelt, tore the plastic, and handed him the canister. Mateo shook it, listened to the liquid slosh inside, grunted. “Good. Not expired.” He tossed it onto the table. “Blade.”
Vasile took the diamond blade from its packaging, held it up to the flickering bare bulb overhead. The segmented edge glittered. He nodded, once, and set it down. His eyes tracked back to Damián. “You are on time.”
“Yes.”
“Your hands,” Mateo said, finally looking at him. “They are soft. Like a woman’s.”
Damián said nothing. He curled his fingers slightly, hiding the clean, unmarked palms.
“Today, you work,” Vasile said, pushing off the table. He gestured to a stack of two-by-fours and a pile of galvanized nails. “This wall. We frame it. You hold, we nail. Then you nail.”
It wasn’t a suggestion. Damián took off his jacket, his sweater, folding them neatly on a clean-ish sheet of drywall. He was wearing an old t-shirt beneath. He hesitated at his jeans.
“Keep them on,” Mateo chuckled, a low, grating sound. “For now. The bending. The kneeling. The denim will hurt more later. A good reminder.”
The first hour was pure, unadulterated labor. His body rebelled. The lumber was heavy, awkward. Holding a sixteen-foot stud plumb against the bottom plate while Mateo swung the hammer was an exercise in trembling endurance. The concussion of each strike travelled up the wood and into Damián’s arms, rattling his teeth. Sawdust and the smell of fresh-cut pine filled the air, thick and sweet.
“Hold it steady,” Mateo barked after a wild swing missed the nail head. “You shake, you make my work sloppy.”
Vasile watched, sipping his coffee, saying nothing.
When it was Damián’s turn to nail, the hammer felt alien in his grip. Too heavy, unbalanced. He fumbled the first nail, dropping it into the dust.
“Pick it up,” Vasile said softly. “Time is money. My money.”
His first swings were weak, glancing blows that bent the nail. Mateo sighed, a sound of profound disappointment. He came up behind Damián, his body radiating heat. One calloused hand wrapped around Damián’s on the hammer handle, the other settled hard on his hip, bone and tendon under denim.
“Like this,” Mateo murmured into his ear. His breath smelled of tobacco and cheap coffee. He guided Damián’s arm back, then drove it forward in a short, powerful arc. The hammer head hit the nail with a definitive thwack. The wood accepted it. “See? It is in the wrist. And in the stomach. You must be tight. Strong.” He squeezed the hand on the hip, digging his fingers in just above the bruise that was already there from yesterday. A fresh spark of pain. “Here. This is where the power comes from.”
He let go. Damián’s next swing was better. The nail went in, straight.
They worked in a wordless rhythm, broken only by short, guttural commands. “Board.” “Nail.” “Hold.” Damián’s world narrowed to the grain of the wood, the weight of the hammer, the ache in his lower back. His palms grew hot, then raw. A blister formed on his right thumb, broke, stung.
Vasile took over the instruction later. His method was different. He didn’t guide. He corrected. Damián was crouched, nailing a block between studs. His posture was wrong.
Vasile’s boot nudged his thigh, not hard, but insistent. “Wider. You are off-balance. A child could knock you over.” When Damián adjusted, Vasile’s hand came down on the back of his neck, not squeezing, just resting there, a heavy, possessive weight. “There. Now you are rooted. Now nail.”
The touch was impersonal, practical, and utterly degrading. It lit a fuse in Damián’s core. Sweat soaked through his t-shirt. Dust coated his arms, his neck, mingled with the sweat. He was a mess. He was working.
During a break, as Damián gulped tepid water from a bottle they shared, Mateo surveyed the wall. They had framed a twelve-foot section. It was straight, solid.
“Not bad,” Mateo said, almost to himself. He lit a cigarette, the smoke curling into the dusty sunbeams cutting through the plastic-covered window. He looked at Damián, really looked at him—at the sweat-streaked dirt, the trembling hands, the focused exhaustion on his face. “For a soft man, you learn. Your body listens, even if your head is slow.”
It was the closest thing to approval he’d ever given.
The words landed in Damián’s gut, warm and heavy, a different kind of fullness. He looked at the wall, at the structure he had helped create with his own pained, clumsy hands. A profound, dark pride swelled in him, utterly inseparable from the shame. This was his work. This was what he was for.
“Clean up,” Vasile said, breaking the moment. “Sweep the cuttings. Stack the scraps.”
Damián moved to obey. As he bent to gather a pile of wood off-cuts, the denim of his jeans, stiff with dust and sweat, pulled taut across his thighs. He felt the fabric strain against the tender skin beneath. A good reminder.
Mateo was packing the tools away. “Tomorrow,” he said, not looking up from the toolbox. “We need the insulation. The pink rolls. You know the ones.”
“I know them,” Damián said, his voice hoarse from disuse.
“Bring them. We will fill the walls.” Mateo slammed the toolbox lid shut. The bang echoed in the empty space. He glanced at Damián, a flicker of something like amusement in his dark eyes. “Good work today.”
The phrase was casual, tossed away. It meant nothing. It meant everything.
Damián drove home, his body a constellation of new aches—the burn in his shoulders, the raw sting of his palms, the deep, satisfying throb in his lower back. The ghost of Vasile’s hand on his neck lingered.
That night, under the hot spray of the shower, he examined his hands. The broken blister. The red, angry patches. The dirt ingrained in the creases of his knuckles. He didn’t scrub it out.
He got into bed beside Elena. She was reading a novel. She glanced over. “You look shattered.”
“I am,” he said, and it was the truth. He felt shattered and remade, all in one day. “It’s hard work. Building something.”
“Well, don’t overdo it,” she said, turning a page.
He lay in the dark, his hands resting on his chest. He could still feel the vibration of the hammer strike travelling up his arm. He could still hear the finality of that thwack as the nail sank home.
He thought of the pink rolls of insulation. Of filling the dark, empty spaces between the studs. Of being told what to do next.
His last thought before sleep was a simple one: he couldn’t wait for tomorrow.
His last thought before sleep was a simple one: he couldn’t wait for tomorrow.
But tomorrow came with a client meeting that bled into late afternoon, then a family dinner where Elena talked about school zoning. His body still hummed from the labor, a persistent bass note beneath the civility. The raw palms gripped the steak knife, every slice a reminder.
Two days passed without a word from the chalet. No text demanding insulation, no call. The silence became a vacuum, pulling at him.
On the third evening, after Elena fell asleep, he scrolled through his phone’s photos. He stopped on a blurred image of a supplier invoice, the corner showing Mateo’s scribbled address. He’d snapped it months ago, a mundane bit of paperwork. Now it felt like a map.
He dressed quietly in the dark: jeans, a dark hoodie, nothing that belonged to the architect. The night air was cool and smelled of wet pavement. He drove across the river, where the streetlights grew fewer and the buildings leaned together for support.
This was their part of the city. Narrow streets, cracked sidewalks, the bass from a distant bar thumping like a faulty heart. He parked a block away, his heart hammering against his ribs. The address led to a duplex with a sagging porch, one window glowing behind a thin curtain.
He stood on the front step, the wood creaking under his weight. He could still turn around. He knocked, the sound too loud in the quiet street.
The door opened after a long minute. Vasile stood there, silhouetted by the yellow light from within. He wore sweatpants and a stained tank top, his beard wilder than at the worksite. He didn’t look surprised.
“You.” Vasile said, the word flat. He took a slow drag from a cigarette, his eyes traveling down Damián’s body. “Mateo’s not here. Gone to Sibiu for a cousin’s thing. Two days.”
Damián’s mouth was dry. “I… I was nearby.”
Vasile smirked, the knowing one. “Nearby.” He exhaled smoke, not moving from the doorway. “You want something? The insulation is tomorrow. You are early.”
“I just…” Damián faltered. There was no script for this.
Vasile’s eyes hardened, a flicker of cruel amusement. “You came to the door. So come in.” He stepped back, leaving space. The interior smelled of fried food, stale smoke, and male sweat. It was a small, cluttered living room, a single bare bulb overhead.
The door clicked shut behind him. Vasile didn’t offer a seat. He stubbed his cigarette out on a plate full of butts. “You have soft hands, but you learn to work. I saw this.”
“Thank you,” Damián said, the words automatic, stupid.
Vasile laughed, a short, harsh sound. “Thank you. Always so polite.” He walked around him, a slow circle. “You are here now. My time. So you will work.”
Damián nodded, unsure. “The insulation?”
“No,” Vasile said, stopping in front of him. “Different work. Let's see if you got what it needs.”
He pulled out from his pant a pipe and a lighter. He filled the pipe with crystal. "Here, sit on my lap puppy. "